India’s Financial Market under the New Modi Govt
| Didhiti Ghosh, Bureau Chief, IOP, Kolkata - 27 May 2019

India’s Financial Market under the New Modi Govt

By Didhiti Ghosh, Bureau Chief (Kolkata), Indian Observer Post

Kolkata, May 27, 2019: Kredent Academy & StockEdge in association with Motilal Oswal recently organized a Seminar in Kolkata on “Markets now with the New Government”. Conducted by renowned Investment Analyst Siddhartha Chatterjee & Vivek Bajaj, Managing Director, Kredent Academy & StockEdge, the Seminar discussed topics such as the impact of the new Government on financial markets, the existing status of the markets in the election buzz, the viable niches for investors post elections.

Vivek Bajaj, Managing Director, Kredent Academy & StockEdge, stated that the Indian economy is poised to prosper primarily due to the strong demographic structure. “Almost 50% of our population is below the age range of 35 years. Under these circumstances, poor policy framework and slow implementations of the same can result in wrong decision-making in the investment foray. The new Government must meet up to the expectations of various stakeholders and make the economic engine function prudently.” 

Commenting further, Investment Analyst & Country Head of Trustline Securities Ltd Siddhartha Chatterjee remarked, “An election is a temporary phenomenon and policies are the permanent solutions. Stock markets replicate economy and thus we expect major thrust on economic policies put forward by the new Government. With the latter’s promise to make India a trillion dollar economy, the potential investor has a huge opportunity to create wealth by investing wisely.” 

Prime Minister Modi's five-year rule has been marked by a focused and determined work towards improving governance and making social benefits like access to toilets, electricity, bank accounts, cooking gas and direct transfer of subsidy to the bank accounts of the poor and needy in this country.

“Forward multiples are demanding and when viewed against the backdrop of a slowing economy and earnings undershoot, they limit upside,” said Sriyan Pietersz, an investment strategist at Matthews Asia in Singapore. A strong mandate from the rural sector may prompt Modi to deliver on promises of cash income transfers to poor, which may widen the fiscal deficit, he said.

Nomura says Modi’s win assures policy continuity and stability craved by investors, which in turn will lead to increased capital inflows. Overseas funds have bought $9.4 billion of local shares this year, the most after China, as they positioned for Modi getting a second term, in a statement made to Bloomberg.

However, some loops remain to be worked on, as figured out by Nilesh Shah, MD & CEO, Kotak Mutual Fund. "Changing the orbit of Indian GDP growth from current 7 per cent level to higher level (eventually to an aspirational double-digit growth) is what markets are expecting from the second term of the government," Shah notes for MSN.

Besides, tackling liquidity challenges that have slowed credit disbursement, especially for MSMEs should be the top agenda of the government. "Money market is in bad shape. The new Government will have to take urgent remedial measures to ensure that HFCs and NBFCs don't run asset-liability mismatches," said Saurabh Mukherjea, Founder, Marcellus Investment Managers.

Brokerage JM Financial in a report pointed out that the formalisation of the economy post demonetisation and the implementation of GST have impacted MSME segment's cash flow that got further aggravated by NBFC crisis. "The government needs to take immediate steps to improve the liquidity situation through increasing disbursement to MSME segment," it says.

Markets had partially priced in the election outcome after exit polls this week pointed to Modi’s return to power, which explains last Thursday’s buy-the-rumour, sell-the-fact reaction. Also, the past week’s rally has pushed up equity valuations to levels that are questionable in a country struggling to deal with a deteriorating macro environment.

“The result is a clear medium-term positive for growth, inflows and rupee, which should also support the relative outperformance versus Asia,” analysts including Sonal Varma wrote in a note.

The Modi Government is already borrowing a record $100 billion, a key reason behind why a big rally has eluded local bonds despite two rate cuts in 2019. India’s rupee rallied 1.6% in the past three months, the most in Asia, amid wagers of Modi returning to power. Further appreciation may trigger purchases by the central bank, according to Amundi SA.

The present organizer Kredent InfoEdge Pvt. Ltd. started its journey a decade back with Kredent Academy and provides courses by NSE Academy (100% subsidiary of National Stock Exchange Ltd) and Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX). In 2016 Kredent InfoEdge introduced StockEdge, a self-help stock market analytics app apart from creating the StockEdge Club, a community of stock market investors.

In Image: Vivek Bajaj & Siddhartha Chatterjee (L-R)

(DIDHITI GHOSH is an India Columnist at La Agencia Mundial de Prensa, USA, and is the Bureau Chief of Indian Observer Post based in Kolkata. E-mail: didhiti.24@gmail.com | LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/2H6gNAv).


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