India’s unique investor count has crossed the 5 crore mark. That is still 30% less than the 7 crore demat accounts, but that is more due to multiple demat accounts. In fact demat accounts surged by 40% just in the last one year on the back of robust indices and a surge in participation by the young millennials. The journey from 4 crore to 5 crore unique investors took just 7 months, according to NSE. However, the actual equity traders would be lower since many hold demat accounts to hold other assets like gold bonds too.
Reliance Jio has started releasing details of its proposed JioPhone Next launch during Diwali. The phone will be powered by Google Android operating system-based Pragati OS and Qualcomm processor. Pragati OS has been built specifically for India on an Android base. The JioPhone Next will come equipped with voice assistant, read aloud facility, translate feature and smart camera. Most of the Jio and Google apps will be pre-loaded in the phone. Above all, the JioPhone Next promises to give best in class battery life.
A week after Vodafone Idea opted for the 4 year moratorium, Bharti Airtel has also opted for the 4-year moratorium on payment of AGR and spectrum dues. Airtel has already communicated its decision to DOT well ahead of the 29-Oct deadline. The DOT had also given 90 days’ time to operators to indicate if they would like to convert the interest amount pertaining to moratorium period into equity. While the 4-year moratorium will entail payment of interest at base lending rate plus 2%, it addresses the cash flow issue.
In a move that was largely expected, Nomura downgraded Indian equities from overweight to neutral. Nomura has cited unfavourable risk-reward as the reason for the downgrade. It is actually recommending to reallocate the funds from India to China and other ASEAN countries. Nomura observed that 77% of the Indian stocks in the MSCI index were quoting at valuations above the pre-pandemic median valuations. Last week, even UBS had echoed similar sentiments. UBS had downsized India, Taiwan and Australia.
Asian Paints stock has been under pressure since its results announcement as a sharp spike in input costs led to a fall in net profits by 28% yoy. Asian Paints has already fallen 10% in the last 3 trading sessions and is currently quoting at a 5-month low. The stock is now trading for 8 successive days at lower levels after the results announcement. Crude is an important input for Asian paints and with Brent prices crossing $86/bbl, it is really pinching the profits of Asian Paints. This trend is visible across consumption plays.
After a long hiatus, SpiceJet fell from the second largest airline to fourth largest in terms of passengers ferried in the month of September. Apart from the leader Indigo, Air India and Vistara also had a higher market share than SpiceJet. There are several challenges leading to lower passenger load factors. SpiceJet has to restore salaries, pay lessors and clear dues to vendors. At the same time, Akasa and a revived Jet will be stiff competition. Tatas are, in the meanwhile, consolidating their airline franchise in India rapidly.
IIFL group’s low cost broking platform, 5paisa.com, has just launched “5paisa Wealth”. This is a portfolio advisory service, wherein the retail investors will get the benefit of specialized portfolios curated by top quality investors and fund managers. They are managed by Sunil Singhania’s Abakkus and Pankaj Murarka of Alpha Portfolios. These portfolios will be priced based on the investment value of the client while the experts will monitor these portfolios. The target will be investors with portfolio surplus of Rs.2.50 lakhs.
Just couple of years back, Jackie Ma’s Alibaba was symbolic of all that was right with China. However, over the last one year, Alibaba has seen its market cap erode by $344 billion after Jackie Ma had delivered a strident criticism of China’s financial system in October last year. This would count as, perhaps, the biggest wipe-out in history of stock value. Meanwhile, as China stepped up scrutiny of Alibaba’s practices, the stock is trading 43% below its October 2020 levels. This is even after the 30% recovery from lower levels.