Posts tagged sensex
Base rate Vs BPLR
Shift from BPLR to Base Rate
Recently with release of RBI circular on Base rate implementation, there has been a lot of debate going on regarding BPLR (benchmark prime lending rate). Here is our beginner’s guide to understand the two rates.
What is BPLR?
BPLR is the reference rate for banks for pricing their loan products. It is calculated taking into account the cost of funds, operational expenses, and the minimum margin to cover regulatory requirements of provisioning and capital and profit margin. Banks are supposed to lend to their prime customers at BPLR and increase the rate with risk premium in case of sub-prime customers and tenor premium wherever applicable.
Problems with BPLR
1. Main problem with BPLR is that banks have resorted to sub-BPLR lending. On an average, 67% of the total loans and Advances of banks was sub-BPLR. For Private banks, the figure was even higher at 83%. Housing, agriculture, and corporate segments were the major beneficiaries of sub-BPLR lending. Nearly 31% of the housing loans in FY08 were disbursed at an interest rate of less than 10%, while 49% of the housing loans were disbursed at 10-12%. In the case of loans to the industry, around 32% were disbursed at an interest rate of 10-12%.
A study of BPLR and actual lending rates of the banks show that as on Sep’2009, against a BPLR in the range of 11-13.5% for public sector banks, actual lending rates where in the range of 4.2-18%. For private banks, actual lending rates were 3-29.5% against BPLR of 12.5-16.7%.
Equity market update
Equity market indices witnessed the first weekly decline in 3 weeks. Sensex declined 0.6% for the week to close at 17460 against the last week’s close of 17574.
After last Friday’s decline, the week opened on a positive note but for the week hovered in a range. However bearish sentiments on the last two days took the indices in red.
Conference Board of US corrected its outlook for Chinese economy which led to about 3.36% decline in metal index. Moody’s Investor service placed Spain’s credit rating on review. There are concerns that country’s credit rating will be downgraded. US ISG Manufacturing Index showed a possible decline in manufcturing activity. These factors led to selling in the market.
On domestic front, Indian exports for the month of May grew at 35% which added to the positive sentiments. Banking shares, as expected, traded with negative sentiment due to rate hike concerns. Low weekly inflaton figures however, relieved some of those concerns and created positive sentiments.
Two big stories of the week, rate hike by RBI (read MB update here) and the US Non farm payrolls (which shows a loss in jobs) report came in after market hours and thus these are not factored in this week’s movement. Due to these factors, it is expected that markets would open weak on Monday but then will move in a rangebound manner.
Author:Praveen Bajaj
Weekly Equity update:June 19, 2010
Moved by strong IIP numbers last week, Sensex continued its upward journey, rising 273 points on the first day of the week. Equity markets almost ignored the high inflation number.
The buoyancy continued for the week and markets touched a high of 17,616 on Thursday, its highest since April 27. This was the 7th consecutive day of positive close on Sensex. However on Friday, being dragged by the Reliance group stocks, markets slipped 46 points.
For the week as a whole, index rose to 17,570.82, rising 2.96% or 505 points over last week’s close. Factors driving markets were positive cues from European front and better than anticipated advance tax payment by the companies.
Foreign funds inflow has been good in the market with FIIs buying stocks worth $773 million of India equities so far in June against a selling of $ 2 billion in May. Markets have risen 3.7% so far in June.
Having risen 950 points in last 10 days, I expect markets to trade with a positive bias but at the same time chances of correction cannot be ruled out. 2 risk factors which might pull breaks are negative developments on European front and concerns of interest rate hike by RBI.
Author:Praveen Bajaj
Weekly equity update: June 12, 2010
After 2 consecutive weeks of gains, equity markets ended this week slightly below the last week’s level, loosing 0.3% or 52 points on Sensex to close at 17064.95.
First two days of the week saw markets plunging 500 points to a weekly low of 16617 due to concerns of deepening Eurozone crisis. But thereafter, Wednesday onwards, markets started covering up and in three days regained almost all of the lost ground.
Friday’s IIP data which showed a stronger than expected growth of 17.6% also helped the markets along with news that RIL will buy Infotel Broadband Services, which won all India broadband spectrum in an auction that ended on Friday. This led RIL to gain 3% on Friday to close at Rs 1,046.25.
The way in which markets have rebounded from the recent low along with strong production data and comfortable monsoon progress have put markets are on a strong footing. Unless there are fresh jitters from Eurozone and high inflation (scheduled to be released next week) we expect market to carry on with the positive sentiments of last 3 days.
Author:Praveen Bajaj
Equity market round up: May 29, 2010
Helped by the 1.2% gain on Friday, equity markets posted 2.5% gain this week to close at 16863.06. This is the highest monthly gain since March 6.
Markets started the week on a bearish note and on Tuesday fell about 2.7% under the concerns of widening European Debt crisis and possible military actions between North Korea on one side and South Korea and US on the other side. But later in the week, short covering ahead of the expiry of the May contract and strength in the world equity markets led the markets to a considerable upside and gains for three consecutive days. World markets found strength after the Chinese Central Bank, People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said that Europe will remain its main investment market and Beijing would support actions to help Europe resolve its debt crisis.
Next week would be a busy week in terms of data release. On the start of the week, GDP data for Q4, FY 2009-10 will be released. Apart from this, companies in cement and steel sector will release their sales figure. Perhaps a more closely watched event will be progress of South west monsoon which is expected to hit India early next week. Any delay in arrival of monsoon will spark inflationary concerns and might lead to an increase in interest rates which is negative for the markets. Most of the bad news about Eurozone has been factored in the markets and any downside due to any unwanted developments on this front will be limited.
Author name: Praveen Bajaj
Weekly market update: May 3, 2010
Dear readers, if you will remember we used to post monthly market review till some time back. Modifying that a bit, we have come out with the weekly version of the update covering equity, currency, gilts, crude oil and a brief note on China interest rate move.
Equity markets
- Sensex slid 135 points or 0.7% for the week to close at 17558. The index started the week on a bullish note but later in the week negative global sentiments created due to rating downgrade of Greek bonds pushed the market down by 1.7% on Wednesday.
- Successive upward moves for the next two days helped the index to regain most of Wednesday’s loss. Federal Reserve of USA in its rate announcement re-iterated that “low interest rates are appropriate for an extended period of time.”
- With earning season coming to an end, markets are looking towards international economy for direction. American and European indices closed in red on Friday which has led to a gap-down opening in Indian markets.
- The news that EU and IMF have agreed for a bailout package for Greece will affect the markets positively. Markets are expected to remain range-bound with a positive bias and figures for cement sales and automobile sales will be watched closely.
Currency – USDINR
- Rupee started the week with a strengthening bias opening 13 paise up from last week’s close of Rs.44.22 per dollar but gradually during the week it weakened along with weakness observed in the equity markets.
- But towards the end of the week, buying from FIIs led to a strong come back in the rupee and it closed at its highest level in 2 weeks at Rs.44.25 per dollar, gaining 17 paise or 0.4% up from last week. This is the 4th straight monthly gain in rupee.
- RBI Governor Mr. Subbarao said in Washington that steps might be taken to curb the excess inflow of funds in the Indian markets as surging rupee is hitting exports. This would restrict any major upside move in rupee for the week but we expect that the rupee will strengthen this week buoyed by the inflow of funds.
Government Securities (G Sec/Gilts)
- 6.35% 2020 benchmark bond registered very low volumes for the week as new 10 year bond was to be issued by RBI. Yields on 7.02% 2016 bond fell 10 bps on Tuesday on short covering and value buying.
- Bond yields remained almost at the same level thereafter only to strengthen a bit before the auction results were announced on Friday, but aggressive pricing of new 2020 bond led to a sell-off in the bonds and the 7.02% 2016 bond closed at 7.55%, 11 bps down from previous week.
- The new 7.8% 2020 bond has been seeing good volumes in the first half of trading on Monday. We expect the trading volumes to shift to the new bond and bond markets to trade with a slight upward bias as traders resort to profit booking and markets take cues from international markets.
Crude Oil
- Crude oil opened the week on bearish note at $85.22 per barrel owing to concerns regarding Goldman Sachs case and growing uncertainty in the Euro region regarding Greece and fears of it spreading other Euro region economies. Crude fell for the first two trading sessions reaching a low of $ 81.70 on Tuesday.
- Thereafter, crude showed a consistent rise over the entire week, rising $5 from the intraweek lows, ending the week at $86.15 per barrel on Friday owing to optimism regarding the Euro zone, pointing to a strengthening economy in the second quarter, lower unemployment figures in US and Greece readied severe austerity measures on Thursday to secure a multi-billion-euro aid from IMF and EU and avoid default.
- Crude are likely to rise in the coming week as well, on expectations of strong international markets and announcement of bailout package for Greece of €30 billion by IMF and Euro region.
China interest rate move
- The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) announced Sunday it was increasing commercial banks’ reserve requirement ratio (RRR) by 0.5 percentage points, taking the RRR of large banks to 17% and that of small- and medium-sized banks to 15%.
- The increase, which goes into effect May 10, is the PBOC’s third such hike this year and is estimated to drain out about 300 billion yuan ($43.9 billion) in liquidity from the Chinese banking system.
- The RRR hike is viewed as a fundamentally positive tightening measure, as it is still in the early part of the tightening cycle, which should help contain inflationary pressures, prolong the current economic expansion cycle and provide cushion for future policy flexibility.
- The RRR hike is likely to have a modest immediate impact on banks’ margins as they are forced to park more funds with the PBOC at low interest rates. But subsequently, banks’ interest-rate margins were likely to improve, as tighter credit conditions would boost interest rates in the interbank money markets, where most of the listed banks are net lenders.
Hope this was informative. Your suggestions/comments would be highly appreciated.
Authors: Praveen Bajaj, MBA Finance
Abhijeet Ahir,MBA Finance
Currency markets at crucial point….
Markets seem to come out of the consolidation mode and increase in risk appetite saw the US Dollar being sold across the board. Almost all markets closed in the green and all currencies except the JPY saw strength against the greenback. The Dollar index closed below a key support level at 80 before closing 79.83. Sustained move below these levels would initiate further downside for the dollar. The Euro saw movement of 250 pips with 1.3800 being tested on Friday in the European market. The INR strength continues buoyed by strong fundamental coming on the back of a strong IIP numbers for a second month in a row. Movements on both side were very erratic with 45.38 levels bringing in importers and state bids while 45.63 level bringing further shorts into play. We would maintain an intraday range of 45.38-45.63 with bias tilted towards buying the dips. Technically 45.28 is yet to be tested and exporters are “not yet” panicking. Once exporters start panic booking with a simultaneous drop below the 45.28, it is likely to bring further downside.
Market Developments
Global Outlook
- The US Dollar fell against all majors except the Japanese Yen, breaking out of its tight range against the Euro and testing its recent lows. A limited week of economic event risk initially left the heavily-traded currency relatively motionless, but the latter half of the week saw the Greenback considerably lower through Friday’s trade. The declines were perhaps surprising given a significantly stronger-than-expected US Retail sales report on Friday morning; robust spending gave modest hope that the US consumer may prove more resilient than previously predicted. CFTC data is mixed with Dollar’s net long positions fell from $5.58 billion to $3.99 billion, however Euro shorts rose to another record of 74551 contracts suggesting that 1.3800 would be hard to break. After the break of 80 levels in the dollar index we feel that 78.56 would a decisive level to watch. A busy week of economic event risk likewise promises considerable volatility in the days ahead.
- EUR/USD was encouraged by better equity market and stronger than expected EU Industrial Production to hunt for stops through 1.3750, despite initially hampered by Russian selling. Prices made a run close to 1.3800, but lost momentum. Equity markets were majorly buoyant for the major part of last week with S&P 500 breaking January’s high of 1150. Nikkei managed to rise 382 pts to close at 10751. Markets are cautiously looking at the upside after the consolidation which has lasted for almost two months. However only a weekly close above the 1.3800 levels should show more upside. Market is still short ahead of FOMC next week and that’s going to limit dips within a range of 1.3600-1.3800.
- The British Pound rose to 1.5200 levels and may continue to rise if the Bank of England is able to convince the markets about its current stance The British Pound may benefit if the BOE succeeds in branding themselves as standing truly at the center of the policy spectrum. Rating agency Fitch said the UK’s AAA credit rating may be jeopardized if it doesn’t do more about its fiscal shortfall reminding us that political risk could be a major factor in the United Kingdom.
- Commodity currencies continue to be bullish on the backdrop of strong economic data from Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Australia is the first country to raise rates to 4%. RBNZ left rates unchanged at 2.5% and reiterated the already stated stance of removing stimulus in the middle of 2010. The key risk for commodity currency comes from the tightening policies to cool down China.
- Key Data for the coming week are Euro-Zone Employment and US industrial production on Monday. Tuesday would be crucial with Euro-Zone CPI, ZEW survey, US Housing data and the most important FOMC rate decision (rate may not be hiked but the wordings need to be watched). On Wednesday we would see the UK Jobless and other unemployment figures for the UK with Thursday bringing focus back to the weekly jobless claims. Friday would see housing, retail sales coming out of various regions.
Indian Economy – Review and Analysis, February 2010
Readers, as promised, we have posted the market review for February without delay this time. Month of February witnessed the most important calendar event for Indian economy, the Budget 2010. Our reports on the same would have kept you updated. Hopefully this will update you about its affect on various markets.
Equity
After correcting for most part of January and early February, Sensex touched a monthly low of 15725 on Feb 5 and thereafter gained strength from positive news on the budget front. It touched a monthly high of 16669 on the day of budget and closed the month at 16429, about 2 % above the last month’s close and 4.5% above the monthly low.
