Do it yourself

  There is strong evidence emerging that Indian corporates have learned their lessons from the global financial crisis very well. In the post Covid global risk rally, they have avoided most of the mistakes they made during the exuberant years of 2003-2008, and have emerged stronger. In pre-GFC buoyancy companies like Tata Steel (Corus), Tata Tea (Tetley), Tata Motors (JLR), Indian Hotels (Orient Express), Havells (Phillips), Sun Pharma (Taro), Suzlon (Hensen), Hindalco (Novelis), Reliance Telecom (Flag), etc. got lured by cheap debt and bought global businesses (in some cases bigger than their India operations), paying top dollars. Most of these acquisitions inflicted severe pain to the parent entities in the ensuing years. This time, despite near zero rates and abundant liquidity, they have been very careful in acquiring businesses abroad. IT services companies have some niche small sized acquisitions to augment their resource pool. These acquisitions have been mostly earnings...

  One of the elementary principles of economics is that the price of anything is determined by the equilibrium of demand and supply. Though sometimes, in the short term, a state of inequilibrium may exist leading to higher volatility in prices; the equilibrium is usually restored by operation of a variety of factors. This principle usually applies to all things having an economic value, including currencies, gold and money (capital). The traits of human behavior like "greed", "fear", "complacence", "renunciation", and "aspirations" are usually accounted for as the balancing factors for demand and supply and not considered as determinants of price as such. However, the case of currencies and capital is slightly complex given currency’s dual role as a medium of exchange and a store of value; and use of money as a policy tool to achieve the objectives of price stability, financial inclusion, poverty alleviation, social justice etc. As a me...

  The Financial Stability Report released by the RBI a few weeks ago, highlights the external sector challenges being currently faced by the Indian economy. The report however seeks to dispel the fears of any balance of payment crisis like 2013. It also assures about the adequacy of reserves to handle the present situation and stability of the INR. External sector facing challenges India’s merchandise trade deficit increased to a staggering US$198.3bn during April-November 2022, as compared to US$115.4bn in the corresponding previous period. Strong headwinds emanating from still elevated commodity prices, global economic slowdown, volatile capital flows and higher imports due to adverse terms of trade shock continue to exert pressure on India’s external account.  Rising oil import bill limits policy flexibility; CAD rises sharply India’s share in global crude oil consumption increased from 3% in 2000 to 5.2% in 2021. India presently accounts for almost 20% of each barre...

  One of the most important and fundamental principles of economics is that “in a ‘free market’ current price of anything having an economic value is a function of demand and supply of such things at that particular point in time.” Of course there could be multiple factors that may impact the demand and supply of a thing; but usually nothing impacts the “price” directly other than the factors demand and supply. In a ‘controlled and/or manipulated market’ the prices of things are fixed by the controlling authorities (or forces); regardless of the demand and supply for such things. In such markets, usually demand and supply of things are controlled and/or manipulated; or demand and supply duly get adjusted to the fixed/manipulated prices. If we apply this core principle of economics to the world around us, we may discover that a significantly large part of global markets is presently either controlled or manipulated. The free market may only be prevalent in textbooks, policy document...

 In the next couple of days, the market participants world over will be focused on the FOMC statement on Fed rates, inflation & growth outlook and guidance for the monetary policy direction in the near term (next 3-6months). The “active” market participants in India, in particular, would be staying awake till late midnight on Wednesday to hear what Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has to say. The fact that Thursday happens to be the monthly derivative settlement for July contracts, makes the Fed decision, and likely reaction in our markets on Thursday morning, even more pertinent for the derivative traders in India. Besides the derivative traders, the currency traders; bond traders and corporate treasury managers who need to actively manage their Fx exposure, would also staying awake to see how the US Dollar, EUR and US Treasuries behaves post the FOMC statement and try to assess how Indian bonds and INR may react in near term. Our markets may however be relieved to a great dea...

In July 2007, investment bank Bear Stern announced that couple of its hedge funds have gone bust. These funds were primarily investing in derivative securities with home mortgages as their underlying. It was later unfolded that the underlying for these derivatives were actually a web of complex financially engineered instruments where actual underlying security was of very poor credit quality. This was the first time when “sub-prime” entered the popular market jargon; which essentially meant that though a derivative financial instrument is rated of investment grade, the actual security underlying that derivative is of sub-standard quality. The market briefly took note of this event correcting sharply. However, the event was soon forgotten as a standalone instance that could not have impacted the overall markets. Subsequent months witnessed one of the sharpest global markets rallies. In January of 2008 it was realized that Bear Stern was just a tip of the iceberg. The malaise of sub...

 Inflation has been one of the central themes in global trading strategies in past one decade. During 2010-19, the central banks of developed countries (primarily US Federal Reserve, European Central Bank and Bank of Japan) struggled to build inflationary pressure in their respective economies, to attain a minimum level of inflation they considered necessary to motivate investments and sustainable growth. Incidentally, none of the Central Bank targeting higher inflation has so far been successful in their endeavor. Nonetheless, the sharp rise in global commodity prices in past few months has triggered a rush for “The inflation trade”.   In Indian context, prices of all key commodities (metals, energy, food, cement, textile, and plastic etc), communication, healthcare and education, etc have seen strong inflation in past 6 months. In its latest monetary policy statement, RBI admitted that “The outlook for inflation has turned adverse relative to expectations in the last two...

The rise in equity indices in the wake of global pandemic and its long term socio-economic consequences is keeping most experts busy. The central bank bashing is the favorite theme of market participants, like anytime in past 33years, ever since Alan Greenspan took over the Chair of US Federal Chairman and assumed the role of the "champion of stock markets" after 1987 market crash. Since then the markets have been overwhelmingly depending on the central bankers to support any fall in stock prices. Greenspan is criticized for both creating and causing the burst of dotcom bubble in 2000. It is popularly believed that the easy monetary policy unleashed by him during 1990s to support Clinton's deficit reduction program led to creation of massive dotcom bubble. It is also a popular belief that hiking rates many times by Greenspan in 2000 led to bursting of dotcom bubble. Both the popular beliefs are however contradicted by the empirical evidence. Greenspan was actua...