In this edition, we talk about the RBI’s latest interest rate hike and a few macroeconomic indicators. We also talk about YES Bank’s recovery, Zomato’s earnings and the return of mutual fund NFOs after a three-month gap.
Welcome to Kuvera’s weekly digest on the most critical developments related to business, finance and markets.
tl;dr Hear the article in brief instead?
Il n’est pas certain que tout soit incertain – Blaise Pascal
For students of physics, Pascal would be a familiar name. The 17th-century French physicist formulated what came to be known as Pascal’s principle of pressure and after whom the unit of pressure is named.
Why are we talking about Pascal today? Well, he wasn’t just a physicist. He was also a mathematician known for laying the foundation for the modern theory of probabilities and a philosopher.
A case in point is the quote above from his book Pensées (“Thoughts”). Here’s its English translation – It is not certain that everything is uncertain. Okay, so now we are getting somewhere.
Policymakers and central bankers have been talking about growing uncertainties over the past few weeks. There is uncertainty about a recession in the US and in Europe, where the Russia-Ukraine war is now in its fifth month.
The International Monetary Fund said last week the global economic outlook was “extraordinarily” uncertain. And the Reserve Bank of India said this Friday that spillovers from geopolitical shocks were imparting “considerable uncertainty” to the inflation trajectory as it raised its repo rate for a third time since May to 5.40% from 4.90%.
The RBI, however, kept its forecast for inflation and India’s economic growth unchanged for the current fiscal year. Still, at 6.7%, inflation for 2022-23 will remain far above the RBI’s medium-term target of 4%.
What does this mean for us? Well, the interest rates on home loans, vehicle loans and personal loans will rise further. So, borrowers need to tighten their seat belts. For savers, fixed-deposit rates will increase, albeit probably with a lag. But that also means real interest rates will remain negative for the foreseeable future.
When will real interest rates turn positive again? That depends on the inflation trajectory and the RBI’s response. And that, as we know for certain, are a bit uncertain at the moment!
PMI, Trade gap, Auto sales
Talking about uncertainties, a few other metrics this week also raised concerns about the state of the Indian economy and point out how fragile the recovery has been from the pandemic-induced slowdown.
The clearest indication that the Indian economy could be slowing came from S&P Global’s monthly survey of business activity.
India’s Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for the services sector, which accounts for two-thirds of the economic output, fell to a four-month low of 55.5 in July from an 11-year high of 59.2 in June. While the manufacturing PMI rose to an eight-month high of 56.4, the combined PMI fell to a four-month low of 56.6 in July from 58.2 in June.
Meanwhile, India’s merchandise trade deficit jumped to a new record high of $31.02 billion in July, up from the previous record of $26.18 billion in June and triple the level a year earlier.
The gap widened as high crude oil and coal prices jacked up India’s import bill to $66.26 billion in July from $46.15 billion a year earlier while exports were little changed at $35.24 billion.
For the April-July period, the trade deficit has touched $100 billion, more than double the year-earlier level. This, in turn, would put pressure on the rupee and domestic inflation.
Another set of data showed that automobile retail sales in India—a key indicator of consumer demand—dropped 8% in July from a year earlier to 14.37 lakh units.
While passenger vehicle retail sales fell 5% to 2.51 lakh units, two-wheeler sales declined 11% to 10.1 lakh as rural India continued to underperform due to an erratic monsoon and high ownership cost, the Federation of Automobile Dealers Association said.
YES, it can
Talking about uncertainties, one company that is now definitely moving towards greater certainties is YES Bank.
The private-sector bank has come a long way since March 2020, when the RBI took control of the lender and suspended withdrawals that sent depositors panicking.
The RBI’s bailout, led by State Bank of India, appears to be succeeding as the bank’s financial position is improving—its April-June profit jumped 50% and net interest income rose 32%—and it is back on the radar of investors.
Late last week, YES Bank said it was raising Rs 8,900 crore from US-based private equity firms Carlyle and Advent International. The PE firm would each get a stake of up to 10% in the bank. This comes a few days after YES Bank stitched a deal with JC Flowers to offload bad loans with a face value of Rs 48,000 crore.
The twin deals essentially mean that YES Bank would be virtually free of the burden of bad debts and will have enough capital to grow its balance sheet again. Clearly, its future is now far more certain than just two years ago.
Another company that says it is moving towards certainties is Zomato. Or is it, really?
Path to profitability
Zomato this week reported a strong set of quarterly results that exceeded analysts’ expectations. The food delivery company said its net loss for April-June narrowed to Rs 186 crore from Rs 359 crore a year earlier and revenue jumped 67% to Rs 1,414 crore.
The strong showing pushed up its shares by almost 25% this week. But that’s not really a reason enough to celebrate. After all, Zomato’s shares had fallen to a record low of Rs 40.55 last week. The shares are still down a quarter from the IPO price of Rs 76 and two-thirds below the all-time high of Rs 169.10 hit in November last year.
Zomato has also been in the news as three of its shareholders sold all or part of their shares in the company. Global ride-hailing company Uber offloaded its entire 7.8% stake in Zomato for Rs 3,088 crore this week. Uber had received this stake when it sold its Indian food business UberEats to Zomato in an all-stock deal in 2020.
Apart from Uber, Tiger Global has sold about half of its stake in Zomato while Moore Strategic Ventures has divested its entire 0.5% stake at a loss.
Mutual funds and markets
Earlier this year, the Securities and Exchange Board of India had stopped mutual funds from launching new fund offers, NFOs, until they complied with new norms related to two-factor authentication and discontinue the use of pool accounts. SEBI had set a deadline of April 1 for mutual funds to meet the norms but later extended it till July 1.
With the MF industry now putting in place new systems, many fund houses are now launching NFOs. In fact, more than two dozen NFOs have been launched since July 1 and over a dozen are currently active. These NFOs cover both equity and debt schemes and both active and passive strategies.
The most notable NFOs include WhiteOak Capital Mutual Fund’s maiden offering. The fund house garnered around Rs 600 crore from the NFO of its Flexicap Fund. Edelweiss MF launched its first equity scheme, a Focused Fund, after a gap of two years and got over Rs 400 crore. Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund is launching a balanced advantage fund – its first scheme since it shut six debt schemes in April 2020 due to a lack of liquidity.
While Indian fund houses are expanding their capital pools, foreign portfolio investors have made a gradual comeback. FPIs were net buyers in July and so far this month of $1.7 billion, pushing stock markets higher.
The benchmark indices, BSE Sensex and the NSE Nifty, rose more than 1.5% this week. However, some stocks made far bigger leaps. SpiceJet jumped over 30% after reports that its owner Ajay Singh was looking to sell a stake in the low-cost airline. Zomato and Policybazaar were among the other big gainers in the broader markets.
Among the Nifty 50 stocks, Mahindra & Mahindra rose more than 6% after saying its new Scorpio-N SUV got one lakh bookings within 30 minutes of launch and its Q1 profit surged 67% year on year to Rs 1,430 crore. Cipla, JSW Steel, Infosys and Adani Ports were the other top gainers.
Other headlines:
- Robinhood slashes headcount by 23%, records 44% slump in quarterly revenue
- Uber turns cash flow positive for the first time
- Starbucks reports record revenue on frothy US demand
- Airbnb reports Q2 profit of $379 million on record bookings
- India GST collection rises 28% year on year to Rs 1.49 trillion in July
- India’s FDI inflow hits all-time high of over Rs 6.3 trillion in FY22
- Adani Wilmar Q1 net profit up 10% to Rs 193.59 crore
- Vodafone Idea stays deep in the red, misses expectations
- IndiGo Q1 losses narrow as revenue zooms
- Britannia’s April-June profit falls, misses view
- Bank of India Q1 profit falls as provisions rise
- Auction of 5G spectrum concludes, Reliance Jio biggest winner
- Titan Q1 profit up 13 times year on year to Rs 793 crore
The week ahead:
- Monsoon session of Parliament to conclude
- Automobile industry body SIAM will release sales numbers for July
- Investors will watch out for quarterly earnings of Marico, ABB, BPCL, Adani Ports, Bharti Airtel, Delhivery, Indian Hotels, and Hindalco, among others.
Until next week, happy investing!
———–
Interested in how we think about the markets?
Read more: Zen And The Art Of Investing
Check out our “Investor Education Originals” on Youtube and get smart about investing.
Start investing through a platform that brings goal planning and investing to your fingertips. Visit kuvera.in to discover Direct Plans and Fixed Deposits and start investing today.
#MutualFundSahiHai #KuveraSabseSahiHai!
