HURRAY! INDIA has proved herself once again. After a sweeping win of Indian artists at the Oscars (I am referring to Slumdog Millionaire winning 8 Oscar awards), an Indian bank has now surpassed the till-now global banking major - Citibank - in terms of market capitalization.

According to a report published in The Times of India, Citigroup, with assets worth $1.95 trillion (Rs 9,72,075 crore), now values less than our own the State Bank of India (SBI). On Tuesday morning (at …

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Equity Market
Monthly
Return % As on 31st Jan 08

BSE Sensex
-2.31%

S&P Nifty
-2.85%

BSE MID CAP
-9.08%

BSE SMALL CAP
-9.34%

BSE100
-3.96%

BSE200
-4.28%

BSE Bankex
-10.17%

BSE IT
0.38%

Dow Jones
-8.84%

FTSE
-6.42%

HangSeng
-7.71%

KLSE
0.88%

Kospi
3.35%

Nikkei
-9.77%

MSCI Emerging Markets Index
-3.12%

BSE Realty
-26.65%

Market Levels
As on 31st Jan 09

INR USD
48.875

Inflation
5.64

Gold
927.85

Crude (Brent)
44.94

10 Year US Treasury
2.83%

10 Year G Sec
6.21%

5 Year AAA
8.85%

5 Year G Sec
5.95%

Source: Bloomberg, MFI

The benchmark indices fell in January 2009 erasing out the gains reported in late December’08 and early January’09. This was despite the moderating inflation and the better-than-expected IIP numbers for November 2008 (reported in January). The weakness likely came in …

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Q3FY2009 seems to be a bad quarter for most media companies as the rate of the yoy growth tapers off substantially in the wake of a significant cut in the advertising spends in the key sectors, such as BFSI, real estate and automobiles. Also, a general sense of rational advertisement spend and fragmentation across media verticals due to an increase in competition would lead to a slower revenue growth. The Hindi general entertainment channel space continues to witness hefty competition with …

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After an outperformance in Q2FY2009, the Capital Goods sector underperformed the broader markets in Q3FY2009 amidst growing concerns of slowdown in order inflows and liquidity crunch. The Q3 saw the capital goods index underperform the benchmark index as the BSE Capital Goods index declined by 34.8% as against a 26.1% decline witnessed by BSE Sensex. The capital goods index in the monthly index of industrial production numbers continued to be volatile, as it rose by 3.1% in October 2008. The …

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Black Gold (i.e. Oil) has lost its sheen, and how! Today, the cost of a litre of petrol or diesel for Indian oil majors is less than the price of a bottle of packaged water. Back-of-the-envelope calculations show that a litre of petrol costs about Rs 11 and diesel about Rs 14, excluding transportation and sundry other charges. By contrast, a one-litre bottle of water costs between Rs 12-15. 

Here’s how the arithmetic goes. A barrel of crude oil contains about …

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Amidst the rising concerns at the macro level, the business growth at the industry level remained strong in Q3FY2009. The year-till-date credit growth (till December 19, 2008) stands at 24.4%, better than the ~22.0% credit growth recorded in the same period last year. The healthy credit demand is primarily due to the fact that alternative funding sources (external commercial borrowings, foreign currency convertible bonds) have dried up with rising risk aversion. Though the role of domestic banks has increased, the …

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The top line of the front-line information technology companies is expected to grow in the range 6.1-11.7% in Q3FY2009. The growth in the top line is expected to be primarily driven by the depreciation in the rupee against the US Dollar. The rupee’s depreciation is likely to contribute 10-12% of the top line growth for the front-line IT companies. In dollar terms, the front-line IT companies may miss the revenue guidance on account of a sharp cross-currency movement and muted …

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