Rather to the detriment of the Idnain purse strings which are a little stretched as always we were unable to even attract real portfolio FDI in this current run on Equities, with $7 bln hardly enough for the kind of momentum we talk to. China definitely has the edge on infrastructure but more so and back on the same drawing board, it is our spin control and inability to adopt a senior group of such investors and give them what they want that is the problem why we at our best our no more than a 5-7% in the MSCI Asia index.

We need to cultivate mroe than the process and more than our seldom far out daspora like Ssameer Arora and indra Nooyi / Vikram Pandit but more so, we need to sit with just one group of a dozen FDI and FII investor advisors ( just the latter is required with a commitment to bat for both FDI and FII) and not just feed them the public press but go all out to make them commit at least one fifth if not one third of their global investments to this new #2 in 2050 as reports mark our future growth. It is what the ASEAN and more importantly the Chinese have done right.

The mandates, and they are not banana republics or banana billtons any of them, just the mandates hwne given have been complete and thus the investors were able to roll bigger cash into the Taiwans, the Turkeys and even China, poor at $10 blna month in FDi and considerably much more in Portfolio investments at the low end of the cycle with local governments, fund management companies and despite pecuniary duties on imported auto which does not stop th others from brining int he big investment to China

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it really does not matter. The IIP showed exactly wha t the GDP showed yesterday, Agri at 2.7% in Q3 (December) and minng at -3.1% and Construction at 7.2% has to be good as also the 10% score for Financial Services

Revenue has been buoyant too so you can't blame the equity markets for having celebrated, but the missed objective along with the lackadaisical momentum in the India story can on both sides be attributed to the veritable cornucopia of macro statistics and not enogugh structure to reach the nook s and crannies where growth happens or ewelfare spendin impacts us. conider Market research Data for example which I can sdegment the market from Macro Economic, demographic segments we rely on to enter a 85% unbranded market in most new innovations led by consumer brands.  Read previous posts on how it leads  to cultural chaos for our videsi friends who come a visiting hoping for nay adicted to a pat analysis of everything and everyone they need to know or research in India

But gDP slowdown did catch the blind spots so we have the statistics, just to travel the width and breadth even with new telemetry in education, healthcare and government it looks a little too distant to achoeve and again the budget exercise would be busy with the added subsidies and at least thankfully the lack of infrastructure. There's only so much to go around!

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Hoe even Educated Indians feed hokum to Journalisty / Touristy visitors and the western media gets spun out by the local rickshaw-wallah

Jessica Seddon writes this piece on typical kitty party hearsay about the Indian economy, with data fed to her by a likely bunch..incl the non details of India's multi faceted debates on defining the poverty line, multi agency disputes to how you just can;t trust Indian statistics...probably clubbing it withour known adventurous neighbours in China who like racy statistics to prove the loan

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-02-29/why-you-cant-trust-the-facts-on-indias-economy

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Even as the non brand specific Auto sales Service network of Jagdish Khattar roped in $17.3 mln from Gaja Capital Partners in its second round of funding, 2012 started well for Indian Auto sales continuing into February from the bump in January 2012. th eventure was earlier funded by wipro's Premji in Premjiinvest and IFCI venture Capital. Generic After Sales and Body shops in India make a Industry worth $4 bln, $1.2 bln from body work.

However to first sales, Ford is cutting Fiesta prices to get competitive after it was rejected by buyers at its 823k price tag ex showroom ( registratioon and road taxes, extra) Honda in the mantime will be providing a catch up biffer to Auto sales from this month and next as it runs at full production to deliver the waiting lines for Brio and then City and the Jazz

Order backlogs despite City becoming outdated are 7000 for brio, 5000 for City and 4000 for Jazz which will be done by June. Brio will be completed out by March 2012 in its Greater Noida plant.

tomorrow data starts trickling in but we shall have the details before anyone else gets green with it.  

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Splashed (pun unintended!) on hte pages of the ET weekender is the story about Kerala's ( India's most populous state by density) 6 bln production of Coconuts. With the US gearing up for more health drinks , investments in Brazilian produce by both coke and Pepsi have already happened. And Brazil according to the Coconut chart in ET is about 4 times less endowed than India's 10 MT(mln tonnes) and ten times lesser than Indonesa and the Phils which make 20 MT and 15 MT of the world trade in Coconuts. 

Coconut water is the latest non Soda fantasy for Americans, buying $400 mln worth of coconut water from lemonade satnds across the East coast and elsewhere in the United States

Of course apart fromt he Kerala coast another 9 bln nuts are produced int he country every year and likely with the preclusion for religious festivities the number of tender coconuts is unlikely to increase beyond the 15% currently. Also most probably like it happened with Tea and nuts earlier and coffee and tobacco exports as well, we are already discouraging farmers unknowingly from growing their nuts and forcing them to move on to other occupations

My tender coconut drink comes for less than INR 20 or 40 cents directly from the few growers who still practice direct selling but for most others, realisations are closer to 10 cents when sold by the farm to wholesale traders. Another example of it being too late in the day! 

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It's great to be part of a still growing global phenomenon of advertising as despite the intensive, content rich, almost industrial nature of WWWW marketing, brands are unable to bring about their investments in terms of people and resources and still relying on viral cop outs and brand pages on 
Facebook to do their work for them.

The Media/Advertising industry is obviously the biggest winner of the digital sweepstakes, but not like the trying newspaper companies would let you have, not a myriad web of klosing jobs and Superbowl you tube properties for content that will be increasingly accessed by sahres and emails, despite the copyrights and the paywalls. The internet cognoscenti definitely want pampering and are ready to pay for or socially invest in creating a magic for themselves online, but their paying in cents for advertising or getting frustrated by myriad cookies and the viral videos are not the anser, nor are just facebook status updates or threads tying them to an offline advertising campaign.

It is probably time to move them to a Virtual experience everytime they visit your social web and as a paying proposition alone, except for the sometimes necessary test drive restricted to highly recommended customers, where the debate comes back to  SOPA, PIPA and a free Internet. 

However Internet is a medium and media companies shall own the paying propositions for brands and customers

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To continue from where the last post left off, there are also other umpteens of lifestyle businesses still served as Sunday musings in the surfeit of weekend papers that can be commercialised from personalised recommendation engines to hair salons for ex bankers. Some like such tied to news content portals kind of businesses are likely to have more making the world record attempt to make people pay without a cent of success.

Others, like that Akash project will be supported by Public procurement and the others become niche blogs without an out n the commercial world. Regardless of the money you pump in, unless youa re a Top 500 company who are not interested in pouring capital into eCommerce projects, the Internet penetration itself is just about the only viable business for mareters and content providers themselves including P&G s and the Times of Indias. 

It is important however, to cotton on to that designer lifestyle project in time before someone esle does because select entrepreneurs will be able to build that eco system with premium lifestyle and Target like discount lifestyle options in a vibrant digital economy, the only sectors that interest paying WWW customers.

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Though most would agree with me on that we have outgrown shopping cart based shopping engines or auction engines and even local deals in 100 indian languages, many more would yet not agree that the foodie revolution online and local directories from reccomendations to home delivery are also outgrown, Crest carrying now available statistics ont he sub sector with $13 million investment probably counting 13,000 such websites.

However those in business before Jungle e would get an advantage from the 9 mln odd shoppers Walready on the internet and the quadrupling of this population in the next 3-4 yearsas people struggle with double shifts to keep their new jobs.

What is not done yet and is getting a lot of attention is the Homework and competitive exam business which can also find roaring supporters online, it being very difficult to find enough real estate in 2000 cities to spread out physically and it being an opportunity to serve the O levels and the K levels across US and Europe. But Digital boundaries are unlikely to suffice and entrepreneurs need to have the licence to bring the best of Global collaborations in the Indian Education/ knowledge sector to the country

 Most of the other 95% web based efforts not being booted or started up would be busy providing increasingly free and self serving services like techncal hosting, maintenance and CRM services to social media marketing and it will be a t least 10 years wbefore these occupations morph into Ford Model T models to be mass produced commercially, till then part of the back bone you and I need online.

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Though in no relation it was the banks moving down after the stake sale by Citi netted it only 670 per share on HDFC, the markets confirmed the corrction, in its most traditional form , with people on th e networks cribbing about the price of Oil and heckling people to buy as the markets estimates have been upped, IIFL taking a skinny dip this time on reestimation of Indian markets..

Maruti is already turned around at 1283/1288, I don't know if the autos will fall further or take hold as defensive this time, qwith Axis still falling and Airtel not in a hurry to quieten on the news flow.

Wierd , more than a little, was Tata Comms biting a larg contract with Formula 1 , and from what you read in half cooked reports, seemingly in barter with Bernie's F! for multi year maintenance won on ehand and F1 advertising for Tata comm on the other leg of the barter,  usually such aa deal indeed happens and has indicated breakdown of India's global deal making scenartio like the 2007 deal for anil's Reliance in Disneyworld..nothing came out of which , though the CBS relationship of that clutch of deals has shown strength in growing now.

Connectivity and Content Delivery are definitely required and hopefully this brings in some cash for Tata Global Services like the TCS deal with Williams F! and is not a decade stopping barter as our Indonesia / Africa/shale deal operators have not shown any movement either and of course there is the fuddy duddy mainstream media trying to cook up the story of Indian bank bonuses being the same as global 40% drop in bonuses alongside the stories of India's dealmaking having virtually (e)stopped by court order. That is how its looking again and this time there again is the lack of data flow to clarify what's working..new breed hoping ot get sc$#%#%d by their employers?

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Lots of consolidation since market open at 9:15 am and never below 5485. Recovery was absolute after the 2:30 pass on applicable expiry prices..

Also shows, the bullish orb does not really want a battle at 5600-5620-5650, fairly ready to leave with or without rollovers but likely no one can yet see a reaon to support shrts, just correction sin ssome like banks and aviation companies along with Maruti, Bajaj and Hero , none able to shouldlder the burden of INR 2 - 3 Tln in daily trading exposure or India's $2 tln capitalisation markets singly. Imagine one Tata Motors or one Kingfisher taking the pressure for being the spearhea dof this big a market, I can already collect the powdered remains from the market weight ride these have had.

 More seriously, no nothing in lending has changed to show banks going past here. and that once decided makes it hard for the others to rise. 

In non market Economic terms, a 5.5% fisc and a $155 bln ( as opposed to a $160 bln estimate till last week) is still a fait accompli as is a basic minimum 7% growth

From here, if there is anything more than Lifestyle consumption and the wait for lending , I can't see it despite having played with the crystal ball a gazillion Saturday nights!

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First the fund managers were never available to the buyer for the INR 90 bln fund (AUM) trying to attract bids , and even at INR 3.6 bln looking overpriced coming as it is without management staff and despite existing houses having already employed sales & marketing , having to absorb the national sales and marketing infra with people in to the existing superstructure put away most investors from bigger fund houses.

Though the fund could have wanted to sell for INR 6 bln, it apparently did not get offers. Also the Fidelity MF may well have to listen to the fund management staff id dinot wan t to farm , as they want to use the current rally to buy back profitability into the Mutual Fund

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Definitely worth investing. The exchange has created and grown new product categories in the market. Though one would rather discredit them than belive their 2000 members / 100k TWS claims if one were to count only liquid/ regularly used terminals/memberships, the exchange will be able to absorb all new capital in retail and quasi institutional demand FTIL thankfully will not be subscribing the exchange share again having lived with 80% of the stake and so many unfortunate warrants issued to hoodwink regulatory limits of 5% per promoter should all be extinuguished as well.

It has more than 85% of the Indian commodity market share with only a few contracts traded on NCDEX. Most commodities are completely split to one exchange and both Gold and Oil and for some time even the currencies business were exclusively liquid on MCX

6.427 mln shares are bing issued at the top end leaving 2.2 mln reytail and 3 mln QIP investors locked in for the ride unless there is a day 1 pop over the intimidating top end of the range at 1,032

Though some mandatory innovation mayb e forced on to MCX by market forces, it is unlikely to make further Technology infrastructure investments till our markets get the depth needed to bid up business volumes beyond the Cash derivatives markets with Nifty and Sensex holding most of the volumes, restricting traading in individual stocks ( except for futures that are the FOTD) 

Also , including verbatim, their own comment on regulation

Failure to amend the The Forward Contracts Regulation, Act 1952 (FCRA) in a timely

manner may have adverse affect on its operation: The proposed amendments to the

FCRA have been made to strengthen the powers of FMC, permit trading in options and

derivatives, demutualization of existing bourses and setting up of a separate clearing

corporation. If such measures are not brought into force in a timely manner, and its

inability to introduce new products on the Exchange and failure to implement its growth

strategy could adversely affect the result of the company.

The struggle continues, and it is no longer even admissible to work in the vast sector of investment banking and capital markets with the current defocus in world markets and ht to Financial business ROE , the advantages in India Isle, remaining temorary mounds till a faster depreciation of the curency wipes off the effort.

2011 first half volume of 127 mln contracts despite the 40% growth over the year is already behind Shanghai and ICE and CME (352 mln contracts) have a much better range, depth and liquidity

PAT of 2.2 bln in INR 4 bln of income.

The retail float post issue is still just 13% and corp governance issues are likely to return.   

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C Rangarajan did point out to the lower revenues and the fisc thus a cause for grave concern, requeting a target of returning to pre crisis Tax GDP ratio levels

Need to keep the CAD 2-2.25% in the medium term and target improving revenues would thus be a good target for the Budget, which s likely to have to insure all expense head sof welfare incl the Food Security, Oil Bill and Fertiliser and Diesel subsidies which should have been reduced 3 years ago.

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Of course I just realised, no one is even talking about further investment except the bears right now and still equity indiceds have not given away much today or yesterday. Good guys with excellent public record in the last few months take turns to place the Indian infra sector on permanent sell instead, Banks look overbought and tired but a day's reaction may be enough for them right now..and two more days like this and it will break down finally from the 5620 levels only , and not any new 5900 levels yet, though that is just cheap open interest out of the money for quick ly reaping volatility

Economically we are just fighting the deficit ars right now byut we have to show investment in this economy, which does not allow free convertibility before wwe can see substantial $10 blna month run rate for FDI.

Oil is going to touch $150 too, and mostly, banking and consumer markets are seemingly saturated instead of growing reach and markets on a daily basis with such a large underbanked population and only 3% invested in the stock markets.

The Twelfth plan  action starts a little after the Budget speech hoopla dies out, and hopefully that is not already factored into this rally of the markets. If someone can help me specify, I'd like to benchmark the progress made on the count of Power in the last few discussions apart from the CIL PPA with private producers including Jindal and Reliance(Anil).

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India is firmly in charge of policy even as growth and recesssion both seem out of its policy purview, busy with inflation control and now interest rates rising to usurius levels.

The PMEAC outlook though led to rest many phantoms of policy and regulation affecting us including the Diesel Price deregulation / correction will be tables and did not specify the lcliffs like real Food Security spend which it can be used as a Policy tool to specify. ONGC does give the government some leeway with INR 1020 bln baclk added to our new 5.5% fisc and reduce the pain. DTC commission was the real farcical component of the parliamentary democracy not having reached the level of cacophony and attention Senate Committee's get.

Interventionist policies are finally the say for everyone in Financial policy , the roadmap belied and lost by one oil price we could not control and small hangovers of the state here and there. Old or new , each government will bring a one year licence to add to the reform agenda but no fiscal leeway and no growth rate targets in the double digits, though it is reassuring to get a target of 8 and 9% for 2013 and 2014

The current year target is 7.1% and that for FY 13 between 7.528% and 8%

The PMEAC and C Rangarajan expect inflation to dip to 6.5% in March and 5% on the lower side by March 2014

The PMEAC GDP growth number of course nullifies the CSO drive to reality based on December inflation data to 6.9%

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As the HCL Tech CEO (Vineet Nayar) mentioned elsewhere in today's media round ups, people are living in the past in response to a request for comment on the state of Indian IT..the era o app dev will not be back , cloud and mobile don't look like revenue revolutions, the last one surely a paraphrasing forced on me by being in payless social media's top of the world look at brands and the weather in politics, economics and much more

However, down to the brass tacks, that does no tmean, and everyone at HCL knows, that any HCLT endeavour has an iota better chance the the Patney's and the iGates, the M&M's and the Satyam's of the Indian ICT or the mind and mins conglomerates of also ran int he industry as mid cap. Hexaware was the original mid cap and it is in mor eFortune 100 accounts with consulting fellas acros the hall than Vineet probably cares for..It ain't gonna happen. So my to bits of advice for the rest of the ever failing to try middle management at India's banking and ICT management..stop not trying and quit that useless job. Esp if you are planning to join the "visonaries" at indian arms of McKensie, BCG and the Sofbank venture capital balls in the court of Patni and Mahindras for $50 in ICT investment globally. Hand it over to Lakshmi Narayana and Francisco D souza. And there's never going to be anyone to do your work for you anymore, and like you did in government school 20 years ago, you'll just pick up the microphone and MC it..

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As expected, the CPI index for 12 months till january 2012 came to a respectable 7.654% as the survey ncludes 200 towns and over a 1000 villages, it is envisioned as replacing the current WPI series that does not include the impact of most services. 

CP-U (Urban ) was higher at 8.2% instead of the rural data of 7.38%. F&B is a sub index at 4.15%, so are fuel and Primary Articles ( clothing, bedding and footwear) at 13.13% and 12.43% respectively, the last figure beig something not apparent in the dragging of the WPI Primary Articles over a n extended comparison with companies not passing on cots to consumers in many categoreis,a nd the CPI data showing something radically away from that consensus opinion as expected by the Governor who rode over contrary opinion in the last two meetings to keep rates steady.

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Vijay Mallya's run of bad luck continues as the Airlines lost more than dozen aircraft on lease due to lease default . Th eproblem at kolkata Airport was triggered by its frreezing of Accounts by the It department for non payment of dues. While more than 80 have quit the airline, newspaper reports suggest that lack of TDS payments for employees have kept those that joined Indigo etc alli in the bad books of ITO, looking to recover back taxes as well.

The company would have been haemmorhaging aircraft on lease to the leasing company since the last two months even as the other half of its 64 plane fleet is stuck due to non availability of spares. The CEO Sanjay Aggarwal meets DGCA Chief EK Bharat Bhushan today

25 flights were canceled yesterday from Delhi Mumbai and Kolkata bringing matters to a head including three on India's most revenue accretive Delhi Mumbai route. 34 plots quit yesterday (TOI)

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The news of the day is stil ingfisher Airlines of course, but those interested in followon of Priamal Healthcare, their purchase of the residual essar stake sold on call to Vodafone is now complete and IPO plans shelved that puts paid to those who thought Piramal would be able oto churn the investment in an IPO

Piramal has used INR 59.5 bln for purchase of 11% of Vodafone at an average Vodafone valuation of INR 537 bln or $10 blnfor India operations which provide upto 1/3 the global gross profit for Vodafone. Vodafone does no tplan for a follow on IPO as clarified by Analjit Singh also a long term holder in the company. Essar had put options with vodafone ROFR for 33% of Vodafone India stake. India does have a couple of Skyscraper projects and lot of comml and residential projects aligned to new Metro construction in Mumbai and outside incl Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad which could have interested Piramal earlier, hile the other high margins could be in services, education or healthcare itself.

Ajay Piramal was of the opinion he wll be exitng after a 17-20% annual return in an IPO in mid 2013. 

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Renewable energy projects in Solar Power sanctioned by NTPC (which itself runs 60 GW of Coal based generating capacity, 75% of India's total coal generating capacity) had to be penalised with invocation of bank guarantees of INR 20 mln each in 14 cases. 4 of which had EPC contracts and equity with Lanco.

The JN National Solar Mission plans 20 GW in Solar Capacity by 2013. the 12th plan also cut down Coal based genrating capacity targets with Coal India first signing distribution eagreements with existing projects incl the ADA group Reliance Power. A single bidder was maximum eligible for 105 MW including 5 MW PVC capacity and 100 solar thermal, 166 GW out of India's 186 GW generating capacity 60% of which is operative currently is fron non renewable sources.

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The $100 bln Delhi Mumbai Infra corridor passes thru 6 states and most projects are on PPP basis inviting private participation most find unlikely. the initial public stake owners n the project IDFC and IL&FS have handed over their stakes to state LIC and the almost defunct India Infrastructure Finance Corpn limited. L&FS owned 41% of the corridor's DMIC Development Corp and IDFC 10%

The self sustaining smart cities probably don't count starting and end points Dadri and JNPT in ANvi Mumbai even as manesar and Dholera ar e the only other active sites with Manesar already an urban industrial centre and Dholera waiting for some enterprising indeminfied promoters taking the bait to build a city on virgin land

The stakes will thus be transferred at facev alue no assets belonging to the DMIC deve,opment corp that need to be valuated, nor any cahs flows except the equity and limited operational expenses. In the approved model, somehow the gains of Private Public enterprise are to be retained by the Development Corp with one apex and six state authorities. A separate DMIC fund will evaluate and invest in each SPV set up by the apex or state level authority to encapsulate the Private investment and channelise state paticipation. upto INR 175 bln in funding and INR 10 bln in ancilliary projects has been approved for the fund corpus and the state dMIC fund will receive Jpanese develpopment contribution from JBIC as promised.

A final 26% of the DMIC DC itself will likely be approved by the state for JBIC ownership. Maharashtra and Gujarat state committees are in a seeming race to set up and execute the first SPVs on ground

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Costs of indenminifying the PE promoters in the VCC ircle round up in mint highlight the indeminity clause which demands buyback by the promoters after 5 years ar a deal that fialed because of an ant bribery clause even as exits come closer to the price of investing itself globally and the political risk counted among the world's banana republics for much in demand Indian cart start ups and others in power and infrastructure. while global finance is primarily required thru debt and venture in PIPE or plain vanilla infrastructure deals, too, start ups are increasingly signing traps for themselves in contracts with their PE promoters.

Indeminty covering losses and liabilities had been enoughtfor the regulators to shy away from counting PE inputs as equity, preference being classic debt in indian law, the demands for interest and "clawback" for graft, canceling of licences, withholding of taxes and all litigation costs being excluded from the computation oft he VC/Pe's profit, making it more and more ike a bonded warehouse, to woot yet without any effective revenues or payback for the VC involved and adding costs in the name of safeguarding the quasi promoters' interests.

Nominee/ Executive Directors on board the investment also have to be indeminified, PE initiated Environmental clauses and checks on ERP  and monthly reports a part of the process. Bank guarantees for a startup to complete the requirements of indemnification are due discouragement from lying about one's prospeects and though mint mentions a ine year deal closure period, it looks like a prospective play has to be around for 3-4 years just to sort out its investors plus the 5 year it has to put in as operational performance, with competing investments willing to pay 100% indeminification than part indemnity as earlier. 

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The airline is running 24 out of its fleet of 64 planes, 200 schedules from 600 and have closed down kolkata operations without paying salaries for more than 2 months. They have IT demand notices pending as do BCCI who have not paid since 2009 to the IRS here due to pay INR 15-16 bln for three completed AYs

To top it all, Olympics will see just shooting stars for Indian prospects, close to call with qualifiers barely begun and more to come as airlines shut down operationa from losses

State Electricty Boards owe INR 1.77 tln to banks, Distribution companies another INR 750 bln becoming a priority for funding in the coming budget. The budget will make provision for a new National Electricity Fundthat will give th SEBs a 3-5% interest subsidy on loans it cannot afford to repay based on efficient performance in transmission and distribution. The Distcos are likely headed to a INR 1.16 Tln loss by 2014-15 according to a study conducted for the 13th Finance commission.

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Inflation data from the CPI index considered more carefully in global monetary policy is ready  with the CSO declaring data from tomorrow ( see last paragraph)

However as we pointed out in a post minutes ago, the Fixed income yields are almost tentatively poised at 8.2% with the markets a primary reason for the tentativeness as the urge to speculate comes to town on Indianomics. India's OMOs last week of INR 120 bln and the CRR chop to be worth INR 360 bln has not materialised, the inflation at a comfortable below 7% figure may rear its head again soon as manufactured goods indices are not dipping that well, staying nearly 8%

The 10 year at 8.2 % ansd the 12 and 15  year at 8.52% and 8.55% show the yield curve having steepened bu twith no CDS and swaps market with spread unnecessarily compensating to junk levels without liquidity for the market makers to fine tune the action, FIIs are unlikely to come bareback into a new Asian market. Even new bond issue bankers are getting a quarter of the fee last year.

According to Arjun P in the DNA analysis

Liquidity tightened by `56,000 crore last week with the system borrowing `167,000 crore from RBI on a daily average basis. The rising liquidity pressure led to the RBI buying government bonds in OMOs.

That's INR 560 bln out of the window even as banks move rates down and RBI borrowing now all corrected to 9.5% the designated MSF by RBI getting higher than India's high trade deficit and nearer 5 times banks could have released from their Central Bank acocunt after the CRR cut, almost all of it could easily be explained as amounts banks have in excess deposits with the RBI. Banks are moving to cut loan rates, having made affirmative stateements and SBI having seen as reducing Edu loan rates in the press.

The point is that the rates are precipitously poised on yield as rate cuts are months away and moves down could hit growth badly while yields moving up back to 8.5% ont he 10 year bond will necessitate the overtly stretched government finances to arrannge for another OMO  

Last but not the least Oil has moved up to $120 levels one spike to $150 likely and 12% of our supply in Iranian oil in as mucha  threat as also half our rice exports and many in tea and fruita and vegetables to Iran. The Afghanistani Oil we have planned for also travels thru Iranian ports huh! wow.

Inflation data on the CPI series is in for the first time as a yearly series becomes available from Tomorrow, and likely coming in near 8% ( watch the lovely rural vs urban vs composite chart at livemint.com) , instead of the feared 10% unless there is another spike in January data. As of December the rural indices have moved to 115 and the composite 113.9 data available from January 2011 when rural was 107 and composite 106. The urban sub index started from 104 in Jan 2011 and ended last year at 112.4

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The INR 120 bln or $2.4 bln to be added to the government account will leave it with 69% stake in the Oil major, though the subsidy bill is likely to increase further this year beyond the budgeted as the new biudget plans INR 5.5 tln in subsidies and thus adds only for the extra food subsidy bill in the new FSA likely. That oil is above $120 a barrel affects ONGC adversely as it foots more subsidy bills, but it has a pipeline of investors from the uwait and Abu Dhabi SWFs reported in the ET as well as CalPERS It seems Kotak has the elusive mandate of course pro bono / gratis without any revenue adds.

More importantly the SBI results added a new lot of NPAs and I could not get to the Results season analysis with so many virtual noises keeping me to strictly channeled lines for unemployed welfare withouting commiting anyone to donatons or funding these blogs. So, there it is that is all we could do on investments insurance and divestments on the stock exchanges as well. Also FIIs will be directly buying and selling equities and corporate bonds on the bourses as long as they can digest the seemingly lengthy KYC procedures.

RIL continues to lose margins in Natural Gas even as shale prices firm up globally and global inventories keeep reducing, Indian yelds are scarily poised at 8.2% any step down or back up meaning instability, the equities have taken off heading to new exotic ranges of vanilla Nifty calls

The UP elections have been welcome for the ruling party and thus the markets as well. It would be good to see stability in the large state.

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Forced by focussed inspiration to stay on the boring subject, the markets have chosen a unique way to grow the index as each rise is followed by a forced chop off adnd 2 day consolidation, leaving a crop of inexperienced clueless on why $ 4 bln of portfolio FDI is enough. Banks have reached their true price potential however, and midcaps have not responded, so the anarchical rise will stay biut not for long

the ONGC FPO has again become a crucial test, and staying away an unwitting option. One wonders what the IPO market is headed for in institutional climes. Asia is a good retirement destination, people here should not try enterprise..seems to be the over bearing conclusion important to drive home, i doubt it is per chance

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Bank nifty and the Nifty 50, bang on 5550, not here but near somewhere..with ONGC directly sold on the exchanges in a week, TCS is a good short, the sector near burn, and the Bank Nifty could yet burn someone trying to short but just right to consider. ICICI Bank 960, HDFC Bank 528, and maybe not to hurry it intoa fall till mid afternoon tomorrow? Beleve me that i sall I can think about right now..

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A Catch up plateau by  samsung and LG combined with a year of slow growth in durables means the twins Samsung and LG have been separated in most categories to at least one #3 positionas Voltas and Videocoan have finally caught up with the latest mass technologies. S o till LED Displays become mandatory in the next 2-3 years don;t be surprised at people adding Videocon CTVs and Voltas A/cs. 

DTH subscribers are up to 45 mln, Dish TV having sold 20 mln of those ( and I have two wasted boxes lyng in the penthouse storage somewhere, so you now the counting) Tata Sky with 9 mln and Airtel 8.5 mln no doubt caught up by the big bang in CBS viewership and 18 prime (CNBC). 

Somehow, I am wondering why this population is not going to be 90 mln when there is more people with TV knowledge than the number of mobiles floating around! Anyone get there yet? This year will be more marketing start ups with image bazaar watermarked images as that is yet an untapped market, but aren;'t one of those handhelds or tv remoters spiked . Maybe you could spike teenagers sunglasses to recover the rest what market research cannot fnd in urban or rural fand from someone who actually wins more than a mirror in popularity contests. 

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A Catch up plateau by  samsung and LG combined with a year of slow growth in durabkles means the twins Samsung and LG have been separated in most actegories to at least one #3 positionas Voltas and Videocoan have finally caught up with the latest mass technologies. S o till LED Displays become mandatory in the next 2-3 years don;t be surprised at people adding Videocon CTVs and Voltas A/cs. 

DTH subscribers are up to 45 mln, Dish TV having sold 20 mln of those ( and I have two wasted boxes lyng in the penthouse storage somewhere, so you now the counting) Tata Sky with 9 mln and Airtel 8.5 mln no doubt caught up by the big bang in CBS viewership and 18 prime (CNBC). 

Somehow, I am wondering why this population is not going to be 90 mln when there is more people with TV knowledge than the number of mobiles floating around! Anyone get there yet? This year will be more marketing start ups with image bazaar watermarked images as that is yet an untapped market, but aren;'t one of those handhelds or tv remoters spiked . Maybe you could spike teenagers sunglasses to recover the rest what market research cannot fnd in urban or rural fand from someone who actually wins more than a mirror in popularity contests. 

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A Catch up plateau by  samsung and LG combined with a year of slow growth in durabkles means the twins Samsung and LG have been separated in most actegories to at least one #3 positionas Voltas and Videocoan have finally caught up with the latest mass technologies. S o till LED Displays become mandatory in the next 2-3 years don;t be surprised at people adding Videocon CTVs and Voltas A/cs. 

DTH subscribers are up to 45 mln, Dish TV having sold 20 mln of those ( and I have two wasted boxes lyng in the penthouse storage somewhere, so you now the counting) Tata Sky with 9 mln and Airtel 8.5 mln no doubt caught up by the big bang in CBS viewership and 18 prime (CNBC). 

Somehow, I am wondering why this population is not going to be 90 mln when there is more people with TV knowledge than the number of mobiles floating around! Anyone get there yet? This year will be more marketing start ups with image bazaar watermarked images as that is yet an untapped market, but aren;'t one of those handhelds or tv remoters spiked . Maybe you could spike teenagers sunglasses to recover the rest what market research cannot fnd in urban or rural fand from someone who actually wins more than a mirror in popularity contests. 

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Just hoping for my readers who are with me in buying puts on the Nifty anf the Bank Nifty, adding and averaging on put is not advised till it creams off the top at 5550, it again consolidates and your puts are going to be burnt ashen

Most of it is just 'oh' that' on the fundamental worries but fact remains there is no good performance coming out of the woodwork , just no worms in there as always is true for our hindu economy. Time to grow back in strngth HDFC Bank might suggest but I'd say time to attack those illiquid global markets where we like 150 bp premium on our loans and focus on we are out of coal for our power needs for one. The unbranded consumption in lifestyle has been 85% for 30 years now, and oh that can't make it to 5600-5800-5900 just because aviation and healthcareg ot restructured. i need work! 

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India's unbranded consumption of Oils: 87%, India's unbranded consumer goods market - 87%, India's consumption of unbranded milk 85%...someone's been sc%^%&^ ng with the data man, wWhen will we get accurate data!

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Rinfra readied Capex plans for INR 80 bln to follow up with financing unhindered by existing infra spend leverage and BSES got another INR 50 bln from IDBI, in unlinked transactions. The BSES transaction has been committed to the Delhi State apparently. The distcom was among India's best run companies in the pre liberalisation era. 

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Even as Kingfisher continued under the burden of the 280% ADF increase at DIAL to Rs 70 per passenger, Tata motors was unhindered by the 75% fall in profits locally as it amassed hiuughe groeth in China which now forms 1&% of its Auto sales. Sales of CV in India increased to 131,220 vehicles. 

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Even as banks tried to make a point to IRDA on zonal delimitation and monitoring of their books while RBI was their regulator, the Reserve Bank in the meantime, apart from keeping an eye on the not so bad NPA situation where NPAs have grown by INR 467 bln in 5 years or 91% ( Bad Loans = 90 days due) and the good liquidity situation for India where spreads are an always ok 150 bp, approved a new added appendage to our growing cash and payments systems.

White Label ATMs will be allowed to operate across the country giving more jobs to frustrated Citibankers and cash ferrying companies like Brinks Arya for interchange fee. The ATMs will not deploy according to banks which have been stymied by the economic cost of adding ATMs but will charge for each transaction perhaps at or above the rates of Rs 20 per ATM transaction, and not include the five freee transactions Bank ATMs promise you.

Citi did buy the 7-11 ATMs in the US ( over 6000 of them) in after 10 years of simple growht mechanics of these ubiquitous machines in the US. I lke the new SV Road stationon the Bengaluru metro where the ATms from HDFC Bank are so neatly placed on all entrances and exits along with the cash chargng machines for your ticket cards.

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Inflation fell to 6.55% for the month even as fuel inflation rules the waves at 14.21% and the RBI governor chose the opportune time to connect with Indian business thinkers on the need to rein in fiscal policy and the challenges facing inflation politically correctly. 

The Bad Loan conference was a good piece of advice too, India not affected by the European Deleveraging but indian investors liking the look of the prices of Oil only to see the whole thing come unstuck as domestic fdemand in bank loans (retail) has already dropped to low double digits in the festival quarter reports, the December data published in livemint today. 

The year end forecast may well be maintained only be the base effect on vegetables and select cereals and pulses that jolted the nation in 2010 and 2011 and the ride down in manufacturing (food and non food primary inflation) Core inflation 6.7%

Citi colleagues discovered the time to ascribve the unease around low inflation to "Structural factors" which they are while they lost the Citi Private Wealth management team with Abhinav Taparia to another raid by IIFL for its own ( achcha mauka lage kabhi to rummy hoti hai)

RBI's inflation expectations survey has shown a never before unanimity in endorsing that prices will rise further from here, 77% saying they expect prices to rise by more than the current rate. 

We could have followed up on bancassurance' new face and many other interesting non NPAs on the India strategy firmament but right now trying to stay on the Treadmill... 

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The NPA game

The INR 8 tln SBI book of advances, grew its net NPA component to 4.6%, bad loans ( 6 months) to $1.6bln even after the 20% writedown of the rupee and gross NPAs $1.2 bln adding INR 81.61 bln and INR 6152 bln to bad loans and Gross NPAs - Tough game to understand but you'll follow the various definitions across our series' from the last 3 years..

As expected by some in the market, though I ahve apparently been busy elsewhere INR 21.88 bln was added in restructuring, on top of the 5.64 bln in June popping the loss reserves out of INR 27 bln in the two quarters ( though the ones provided for restructuring were never provided in reserve) 

PCR has not had any additional cash either, hitting 62% from 67% in the last quarter having been upped by design for the year per se Another $ 1 billion or INR 50 bln  is expected by the year end in NPAs The iron and Sugar setor problems are going to track for some time as will further dockets inr estructyuring media using variously ya nomura note evaluatiing it to be followed by a MOS update ont he bank report they arte having so much fun with. the PSE bans have accepted the hit for systemisation and will recover from here but SBI's jump back on more debt raising in QIP is unlikely to keep it up , esp if the market doth correct.

Improved NIMs

On the back of its deposits the bank continued growing NIMs and like HDFC Bank grew credit better than average, ( more SME disasters added without underwriting?)  at 17.5% in advances

QOQ comparison

Net interest income grew from INR 100.42 bln or $ 2bln to > $2.2 bln in one quarter or INR 114.65 bln, NIM coming in at 4.05% the 9 months of the fiscal having added INR 315.7 bln in NII and Other income dropping yoy with weakness to INR 90.87 bln or $1.8 bln

Stafee Expenses and profits somehow both grew in low double digits on year, maintaining equanimity sequentially even as net profit jumped 16% sequentially despite higher NPAs on higher restructuring

The Opr Profit of INR 72.6 bln for the quarter and INR 219.77 bln for the nine months is barely adequate ( apparently bey design as the bank tries to adequately capitalise itself after INR 8000 crores from the government and another INR 4500 crores in QIP ( targeting a rnage of $500 mlon to $1 bln currently) The Bank CDS has been trading above default near 200 bps before capitalisation byut has not reported enough liquidity yet.

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JP Morgan already uses Indian Cognizant and Wipro and its own IDC for up to $400 mln a year in outsourcing business and would be adding another $400 mln, presumably in 100s of billions while rationalising the no. of vendors globally. JP Morgan also signds up with Accenture IDC in India. Accenture and Cognizant are its top two sector picks as well.

Apple aborted its India Development Centre in 2005/6 and now outsources a big $100 mln a year to India, it is looking to grow the same to $400 mln per year After the JP Morgan visit to campuses last week, this week Apple's O Connor was in town at the end of January promising jobs to Infy and Wipro 

Vendor rationalisation was again posted as the main clause of StanChart's increasing reliance on Indian outsourcing from its SCOPE centre in Chennai hoping to save upto $7 mln a year on it already high rates based on European domicile. SCOPE supports 8500 employees

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While some jurisdictions provide a 30 day disclosure period for private transactions including the new Insider trading law for Capitol Hill, the UK regulator requires a 4 day window within which disclosures have to be reported. Jaspal Bindra as Asia CEO for SCB, seems to have gone for a 30 day disclosure, sharing information of his 153,000 share pledge with an offshore credit corporation after 23 odd days had passed, the UK office using the 4 day window before publishing the information thru the UK  bank regulators. 

Standard Chartered is headquartered in the UK.

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Or on bad news accumulate. A good bottom for Tata Steel when you open your brokerage application but till then, note that Tata Steel is just booking inventories to below fair price because of the market slump in its European operation , a simple cash flow switch that will dawn on the market in due course and it hjas always been good for the rough ride from the top of Snow mountain.

Rajat Bose is a classic, however, don't bother Gati is sell on news always becaus e there is no upward trade on our 4PL ready logistics industry, waiting for World Bank to issue GPS to all cash rich surface transport companies in India..the listed businesses , not so much as more cities get out of reach for surface freight in remote warehouses and sorporate contracted businesses though not State Electricity boards.

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do reember CTS is the no. 1 employer with good MBA salariesm, bank jobs are tenuous and consultancies about to slide down with Mitt Romney. Seriously though i expect PE to get into front seats and the European and US Investment Banks to show up and carry home smaller baggage this tie. There ar emore cliches. I hope IIMA still goes or the desi beat with indian Pharma and coffeee businesses looking bright and chirpy with the breakfast sandwich. 

How about not jumping into enterprise from Campus? Think about it.

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Perchance if you need, you coul deasily shift out to shorting the Nifty, and if you don't want to go thru local KYC trade short contracts on the Chicago and Singapore exchanges. the 5400 short is the news of the networks, even as the Euro short trade gets into readiness to cover for two successive bout of losses to global investors after having beaten the banks on the big long on European banks in September..

The Indian Nfty is, yess rightly priced and this time all Indiabulls out of money from having run up the good scrips aalways in short supply to a point where even the in favour bankks look like keeling over from ythe joy at SBi's 2170 and ICICI 's 930..Have fun on the shorts, and do not short the Bank Nifty because still too many PSU banks in that who will be springboarding from the NPA mania affecting them. No their NPA position has not improved but the deed is done and it won't get worse, esp in the prices that as usual have over corrected

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Indusind Bank led by ex ABN AMRO(RBS) CE Ramesh Sobti grew into invesor confidence with H1performance growing assets to INR 250 bln and balance sheet to INR 330 bln New banks are likely 2 years further down the road in India with new private  sector commercial banking regulations setting the bar and requiring changes to voting regulations and some ther in the Banking regulation in the Parliament. 

Indusind shares have tripled in one year and two QIPs of $100 mln and $250 mln were conducted at INR 88 per share and INR 234 per sahare in the September 2009 and September 2010

Earlier Rabobank sold most of its 26% holding in YES ( 75 mln shares sold ) exiting the investment at around 26 times its price offered at the time of founding of the bank. Foreign institutions hold only 4.76% in YES and Rabobank stake was bought by domestic investors(LIC) and mutual funds(birla Mutual Fund and DSP Merrill MF) apart from a couple of Citigroup customers (3.06 mln shares)

It had reported ly spent a $100 mln on the DB credit card portfolio last year

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The IIP has just come in , manufacturing reporting just 1.8% growth in December, 9 month IIP composite managing a low 3.6% against a 7.2% par for the course and the Sensex and nifty looking like they are about to change direction.

Non durable and Durable goods maintained high growth at just less than 14% in staples ( non durables) and Durables a  low 5.3%, electricity down to 9.1% from its 14% and basic goods also under the weather at 4% vs 6.3%.

December Inflation had come in at 7.47% after a 9.11% November but imported inflation is likely to make a cmeback by next month's report. the january WPI report is due over the weekend

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Happy days for investors, and writing puts is back in fashion as indices cannot go back from 5400 , of course other pre screened experts listing the analysis from their account on ET NOw, Bloomberg and others. Of course I expected the markets to fall back, but late tradin gyesterday put paid to that and it seems ddue care was taken  of investors holding shorts than shock and awe tactics which the late surges and high opens are uesed to by another of Finance's exclusive gentlemen's clubs. And no I am not voting for more female empowerment, the markets are more than democratic and the club salvo is only to the ltraders that almost script int down for every session.

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Happy days for investors, and writing puts is back in fashion as indices cannot go back from 5400 , of course other pre screened experts listing the analysis from their account on ET NOw, Bloomberg and others. Of course I expected the markets to fall back, but late tradin gyesterday put paid to that and it seems ddue care was taken  of investors holding shorts than shock and awe tactics which the late surges and high opens are uesed to by another of Finance's exclusive gentlemen's clubs. And no I am not voting for more female empowerment, the markets are more than democratic and the club salvo is only to the ltraders that almost script int down for every session.

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Though the Nifty hit 5400 and many of us from Global MBA schools have managed to hang on to senior jobs in Global 500 corporations, India's own growth stroy as a leading light in Asia is much more subdued and most would say lost except that whatever one does , India will be the no. 3 Economy behind the China and the US inc. balance sheeets in GDP and in young working population, it now enjoys and advantage to grow its GDP to the 7% 'sing song rate' and higher on average, jumping in the boom years. 

Our banking superstructure is however hardly $2 tln, Foreign banks contributing hardly 10% in market share, Indian CDS still unlisted in globally liquid markets and India's Iranian connection with $12 bln in purchases or 12% of our requirmement pauid in rupees , still a diplomatic thorn in the side of the US after being virtually ignored on Foreign policy. Whither from here and all that, markets are good enough to get the Capital back into Capital goods and we should get about our infrastructure and welfare spending for the next 5 years, even head in the sand would not matter as we reap the "dividend" of this laid back super growth.

Also, Indonesia is catching up and we are not a major partner in Asia or Africa. . China has military intentions. We are not very social in the world of social media and in jumping opportunities on our neighbours, London's looking like a crown of thorns, Europe lost to the world for a few years and the US has apparently realised it is not very good in global businesses, it;s Financial sector pulling out of everywhere except the US itself. just a thought..

BTW, interesting tidbits, 5 metro projects together bought insurance worth INR 700 bln for INR 3 bln in premium income for the GICs, CTS sales add to the US GDP ( and it's good someone does that, being treated as cost for so much manpower really sucks) and Credit Suisse' $1 Tln balance sheet is not rid of all the ooze yet, this year ending with a $670 mln loss and $3 bln in bonuses from 5, ever wonder why? 

The MCX promoter war continues with their options sold to trading members on the exchange and yet with a call option for the promoters to buy back!! USE also has 49.75% stake from trading members, rather a gentlemen's club and the road to Asia for FIIs is still thru the ubiquitous forex trade, the kind we have almost closed off with just $300 bln inr eserves, a rising import bill at least would have been taken care off if there was the free trade in currency, but then we do not want to lose our safety and swap it for the currency volatility of the banana republics, the tiger economies and the big brother bears from Russia and Brazil..we are happy with half a dozen indonesia deals and half a dozen in Africa?

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Though India has not moved on from Iranian Oil this year and likely will not do so, having found an option through OBC to complete purchases with Iran, the deficit is still the once is a quarter, $14.7 bln as Exports underperform Import growth by half, $25.4 bln in Exports belying their growth while India unlike other Asian and European economies, unable to cap import growth as domestic demand and growth of 6% claim higher 20% growth in Imports to a yearly average bill remaining at just under $40 bln, th bill coming to $40.1 blln iin January 2012

India imports 550,000 bpd from Iran even as China corners an additional 200,000 bpd from Saudi Arabia

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Cognizant probably understands India's BPL/Welfare story better and infact a more judicious take on India's education imblalances and the famed traing and ramp up of new trainees as it consolidates twice the hires in the year over the other Top 4 in the indian IT industry. though, rightfully, it should have been #2, the December quarter saw CTS report only $6.3 bln for the year 2011 overall, 34,000 hires added even as Wipro's 12 month score of $5.99 bln, the slowest was crossed easily. The 130,000s trong company will likely end 2012 nearer 175,000 even as it aiims to grow by 22% to $7.53 bln 

With warehouse practices for human resources allowing CTS to ramp up eeven the weak Banking and Finance accounts in a challenging 2011, it is growing to th e place where it can actually leverage its own volumes in the volume bidding game, more in tune with American government's prefered low cost immigrant replacements than the flailing consulting led models and new non It umbrella shops likely in the next few years to cater to the other sectors in the US based on the low cost immigrant strategy 

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Temasek sells ICICI Bank

The block deal for 16 mln shares went in at the proposed 925 and about and the market and the banks would seem to be done at this level, except for HDFC Bank which is still growing credit demand and ICICI Bank is not likely to be any inferior fundamentallt despite 3.5% and over contribution of Gross NPAs adding to the massive 30% NPA growth this fiscal to INR 770 bln or $16 bln. ICICI Bank net NPAs are a little less than 1%

Bharti Airtel

Bharti Airtel, seems to have been mercilessly hammered t, the buying opportunity open with same EBITDA of 32.5%, almost profitable African operations with a new #2 in Tanzania, and the tax hit likely to follow again while pricing power returns in the Indian market with ARPUs of 187 and 415 mins good to keep. 44.6 paisa per minute realisation is higher by 1.4 p than last quarter. Continuing Capex in Africa is a good sign. time for analysis later..

The 2.5 mln customers added in Africa are 30% of the new additions for all operators, something about mobile banking in Africa too ( Money transfers) giving it tremendous advantage esp with newer infrastructure taking shape

Digital TV still disappoints but is growing faster than the others. Service quality is good, despite reliance on automation for delivery and software enhancements, changes ot channel packs

GMR Infrastructure

Gross Revenue up 45% yoy, INR 63.2 bln for 9 months , Net Revenues INR 56.755 bln, EBITDA lower in Q3 (growth) , PAT affected by Tarriff loss at DIAL to INR 2.27 bln , Net Salesof 19.99 bln for the quarter. Highways EBITDA is up 88%, PAT of -0.01 bln

Expenses are hgher by more than 50% for the overall company. Fuel costs up 32% in Airport Vertical, INR 11.5 bln from Airports incl INR 3.5 bln from Male

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DBS assets in India grew to INR 237 bln according to results discussed by CEO Piyush Gupta and reported in ET. The bank is hoping that subsidiarisation nod from the RBI will come with better branch infrastrcture hopes for the bank. ING Vysya and Indusind bank would compare in size with DBS with INR 335 bln in assets

The bank has 12 branches in India

Piyush Gupta operates from Taipei ahile DBS counts Singapore and Hongkong as its largest markets.

India and Singapore operate in each others territory thru the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement including GIC and Temasek holdings in India and tenets on free transfer of information between the two nations including banking wealth questions

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• Bank results season : ICICI Bank begets the vote of confidence, PNB grows NPAs (india.advantages.us)
• India Earnings Season: ING Vysya Bank uses the gap, Indusind builds on its early momentum (india.advantages.us)
• Bank results season : ICICI Bank begets the vote of confidence, PNB grows NPAs (awardz.wordpress.com)
• Bank Results season: Here's the new pedigree of bankers (Yes Bank Q3 2012) (india.advantages.us)
• FDI momentum for India's growth (awardz.wordpress.com)

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The good results coming could not carry the market beyond 5400, the point as expected acting like the precipitous fall is just around the corner. 

If you are not bought in Puts each morning likely gives you a good entry point this week as the markets can't decide where to go. 

Of course if there are enough buyers with daily FII buys hitting $200 mln at Thursday or Friday last, and ICICI or SBI breaking out ( HDFC Bank is also not looking busy going down so is likely staying up but stable) and the GDP report dull of course putting paid to that with 2.5% farm growth and 6.9% the official estimate from MOF for the annual rate of growth

Limited Iron ore mining allowed in Karnataka with output capped at 30 mln tons and 49 mines allowed to open could still be reason to rejoice. In house producers will have to transfer or sell to others at marketprices and no tbased on contracted prices.

The Power generation target is going down by 25 GW and that is an awful cut in the Twelfth plan target, Adani Power results testimony to bad fx trade spoiling another good business model with guaranteed 16% earnings(ROE) and Opto, Cipla and Lupin keep Pharma strong

The TCS and Infys are getting ripe for the big down mov eand the next piece of economic data could just do it esp with subsidies capped at much less than 50% reimbursement to 37.9% hardly higher than last year's 33% when it was expected to double for the government as well

A couple of airlines could soon be wiped out with KFA and Air India living on borrowed tme and Spicejet having "substantially eroded" net worth

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The yields hit a new low abruptly on strength of the market rally today at 8.12% on the 10 year bond. I agree not liely to go further south without RBI action to cover this gap first. Equity markets exceptionally strong US open likely to be strong today, Europe next watch at noon. 

The yields will however not move up beyond 8.3% and you have to be betting on good liquidity remaining in the Indian Markets with RBI claiming the 10k crores OMO ($2 bln) and the CRR cut likely to finally come unstuck for banks keeping 29% (of NDTL) deposits with the RBI against a much lower requirement. 

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If you are one of the few who still haven't bought any puts on the Nifty, first congratulationsa re in store at your acuity of perception and second, this is the last day before they become too overpriced to make a spread or a plain old style slam dunk profit

Also if you are globally correlated on  Indian futures, the Giants won the Superbowl and that means great things for the US markets, believe me. If you don't check out the statistics. 

Markets have opened strong , for those waiting for the bait and switch, today is the finale when we start that mid session. Though we could do it any time this week, after all it is a responsible market with depth and breadth making it the most attractive globally and not just raw growth in property prices.

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Gopal Vittal joined Hindustan Unilever in 2008 and a year back HSBC borrowed Hind Unilever Champion  Srikanth S for its marketing unit . Both are listed in the mdeia today as having switched otu with Gopal Vittal back at Airtel trunning as Group Director - Special Projects and HSBC losing its India Marketing Champion who was last heading Media for Asia and was Head Marketing at lever Kimberley Clark in Asia

HSBC is apparently still on weak marketing spends as a stable bank marketing strategy relying on facetime for its economists and fund managers in various network announcements

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Amazon.com landed in India ahead of its Firdst fulfilment center as its own internal business models are delightfully more complex than the country's FDI,. sales tax and excise regulations. While packaging centers may get into excise inspector boruhahas with the Supreme Court adjudicating ( Freaky Friday Speculations)  adventurours Amazon executives may also be wary of getting subjected to multi Octroi, SAles tax and local taxes ahead of GST roll out in the country.

At least those are the typical silly stuff one avoids by starting a totally desi business in e commerce thence it can be sure of getting what fabmall and now flipcart are getting int erms of taxes and accounting. 

the testing of waters with junglee.com is however more likely to backfire till it comes with its full range of shipping made available at a safe and reliable amazon.in. Indian custoemrs a re a fickle lot and though they suspect nothing in government and business is above board they by and large do not expect tpo partake of that in their daily lives. We did not welcome the Apple stores till the latest IMacs and iPhones (iPods) were available simultaneously and we will not let Amazon get by on ebay like junglee.com. 

FDI wise , trying to escape a multi brand regulation framework is going ot be impossible for amazon and waiting for amazon.in til 100% FDI is allowed would be one option that India phobes have shown favor for but likely that will only lose them more business in the World's #2 English speaking Consumer market. The loss is all yours as Chindia trundles along.

Junglee.com itself came and left back in 1996 and now will feature 12 million products from 14000 brands to keep the portal available, but consumers are likely to wait till Amazon can get a clear decision, esp if it can introdsuce Prime here, international shipping is a bore and a real swindle on a retail shopper's budget as Jeff Bezos would understand 

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18000 Crores capital added by government

$3.6 bln has been promised by MoF to fund state owned banks immediately after the budget to facilitate ramping up the Tier I common/capital ratios on the FY2012 balance sheet. SBI was promised INR 1.6 bln or INR7800 crores

ECB/FCCB funding welcome

Meanwhile, the changed fortunes of the rupees could not stop ECB/FCCB borrowing as $4.46 bln was mopped up in December on top of $1.58 bln in November.of this $2.7 bln is project based on automatic route across 90 projects , small QIPs of less than $3000 mln from mid cap and large corporates

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Earlier adopted by SBI when it raised short term deposits to 6-6.5%, HDFC Bank is pushing for annual savings budgets up for grabs this month offering upto 9.25% for one year deposits.

There is nothing confounding in getting aggressive on these terms and neither does it reflect on the bank's liquidity flush as it is from the 0.5% CRR cut, that released techncally 35,000 crores or $ 7 bln in the Inter bank markets even if the release of INR 20,000 crores does not satisfy the bank's immediate liquidity, it is probably just fine tuning its Treasury strategy to optimise costs as it dleivers the consistent 3.1% NIM for this coming quarter. The deposits will compete with banks like Yes and Kotak who have grown savings bank deposits by 50% this quarter after deregulation of savings bank rates 

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Telcos would now be paying $250 mln per MHz as a likely avrerage price for new spectrum, including 122 canceled licences. Even if 61 o fthose licenses are purchased at the new price of upto $2 bln on average per operator , that is $12 bln more in the government kitty and hopefully larger at $20-24 bln with all licensees buying the regional spectrum in the new dispensation. 

However that also means an expensive mobile bill as ARPUs below 100 Airtel educates us to grows back in billin grates by 60-70% to pay for the new spectrum and in the case of new telcos making older pricing plans virtually impossible to emulate even though someone with a reputable network like Uninor ( among the newbies) only has 36-40 mln customers and at a much lower ARPU. 

Chidambaram may not be arraigned by the court later this week (today/tomorrow) but uirreparable harm may have been done to the Indian Body politic with or without Sibal Prices can easily cross 4 times the bid (not bid) auction prices used in 2008

Inflation is coming back too and so are dire predictions of slow growth for India as Rupee's best is barely below 50 against the Dollar. All in all time for banks to start the nose down from 5250 to something near 5000 to assess and predicate the course for the rest of the old fisc in waiting for the budget. 

PSE Auctions are still likely a good thing but the government receipts could close on the Spectrum deal faster. Also with the new plan period in action, Infra plays being financed by debt funds  and inviting new participation around the globe are also likely to bring the cheer back as interest rates start the climb down in 2-3 months.

Posted via email from The India Investment Post

Hat Tip: team-bhp.com has a long lasting resource hopefully, which really works up the Indian Auto sales numbers, best I have seen yet

In January 2012 the recovery chords from December continued into a more coherent score as Maruti reported domestic sales of more than a 100k and exports growth of 53% or more than 7000 units to 14.5k units for the month. Mahindra continued its better performance with almost 45k vehicles for the month of which 19,325 were passenger cars/MUVs/SUVs.

The old 2,3 at 14% share each ramped up behind Maruti with Tata Motors and Hyundai scoring 34,600 and 33,900 respectively Hyundai's exports of 12,000 units put it firmly in no. 2 with 49,901 in January 2012

Ford and GM posted single digit declines to 9,200 and 8,200 respectively  while Toyota came back stongly with 7,700 units of the Eon to 17,500

VW and Nissan also managed to sell more than 5000 units and the luxury segments would have probably added only 250 other vehicles incl VW and Audi

Skoda sold more than 3000 units under new management while Honda grew back from 1000 units in December but still sold only 1,725 units for the month

Thus Cars sales for the month have grown more than 20% from December 2011 to 270k or a 3.2 mln annual run rate incl exports

SIAM reports 2011 total sales to 19,46,000 units and the 10% yoy growth likely takes it to 2.2 mln four wheelers and another million in Commercial Vehicles from 800k in 2011 at a faster clip

In the Two wheelers, Hero Moto scored a consistent 520k and Honda came in third with less than 190k while Bajaj Auto reports tomroow at the 330k figure 

Posted via email from The India Investment Post