SBI Research has pegged India’s GDP growth for FY22 higher in the range of 9.3%-9.6%. It has pegged growth at 8.1% for Q2. The spike in COVID cases was just 11% in the third quarter, which is likely to be output accretive. India’s projected growth of 8.1% for Q2 is substantially higher than 4.5% median growth for 28 large economies. This growth should peg absolute GDP at above pre-pandemic levels. In the light of the withdrawal of the Farm bills, SBI has called to make the MSP system more effective and transparent.
In November 2021, 4 out of the 7 IPOs that listed in the month are trading at a discount to issue price. That is more than half of the IPOs quoting at a discount to issue price. IPO stocks that are quoting below the issue price include Paytm, Fino Payments Bank, SJS Enterprises and Sapphire Foods. On the other hand, Nykaa, Policybazaar and Sigachi Industries are quoting at a premium to their IPO prices. The worst performer of the lot was Paytm, which has lost over 36% in just 2 days of listing. Fino is also deep in losses.
Real estate developers have been building top line with order books overflowing and booking revenues making the big leap. The top 9 listed realty developers raked in Rs.14,883 crore booking revenue in the first half, growing at 56.94% yoy. This was revealed by a research study by Anarock. Nearly 18.46 million SFT of residential space was sold by these top 9 realty players in the first half, representing a yoy growth of 39%. For the Sep-21 quarter, these 9 players sold homes worth Rs.10,669 crore, a robust 89% growth.
With the deal between Reliance Industries and Saudi Aramco being called off, Aramco has stated that it will continue to look for investment opportunities in India. Reliance had scrapped plans to sell a 20% stake in the O2C business to Aramco. While Reliance and Saudi Aramco continue to enjoy a long-standing relationship, Aramco is looking at opportunities beyond the Reliance deal too. However, despite the RIL deal not happening, Yasir Al Rumayyan will continue to sit on the Reliance board as a preferred partner.
President Joe Biden announced the nomination of Jerome Powell for a second 4-year term as Fed Chair. Powell has steered the US economy through a turbulent pandemic recession and managed to revitalize growth, spending and job market. Biden will also nominate Democrat, Lael Brainard, as Vice Chair. Biden’s decision appears to have veered towards continuity at a time when surging inflation was the real macro challenge. The next challenge for Powell would be to tame inflation by cutting liquidity and hiking rates.
It was a day of carnage on the Indian stock markets as the Sensex fell over 1100 points to settle at 58,465. The Nifty also ended 2% lower at 17,416 levels, although it managed a late recovery. With the Aramco deal being called off, Reliance led the markets lower coupled with weak global sentiments and the weak Paytm listing. The outbreak of the virus in Europe added to risk perception. Another index loser was Bajaj Finance, which fell 5% on Monday. US Fed is under pressure to front-end rate hikes amidst rising inflation.
The news flows were not too exciting on the Reliance counter. Even as the Aramco deal was called, it was reported that in Sep-21, Reliance Jio had lost 1.9 crore wireless subscribers even as Bharti Airtel had managed to add a modest 2.74 lakh subscribers in the month. Vodafone continued its losing spree giving up another 10.7 lakh wireless subscribers in Sep-21. Total wireless subscribers fell from 118 crore in Aug-21 to 116 crore in Sep-21. Meanwhile, Bharti has announced price hikes across its prepaid mobile plans.
Unacademy, one of India’s key Edtech platforms, reported that its net loss had widened amidst a sharp growth in revenues. Net loss widened from Rs.259 crore in FY20 to Rs.1,537 crore in FY22. However, the revenues showed a quantum leap from Rs.65 crore to Rs.398 crore yoy. The losses were largely caused by a sharp 6-fold rise in employee benefit expenses at Rs.749 crore. During the year Unacademy acquired several learning platforms including Prepladder, Ono Labs, Pilani Experts and US based US-based Graphy.