Tag: forecasts

The Indian economy looks better than almost any other, according to some positive thinking analysts. If you consider prices, consumer price inflation in the US is at 8.5 percent, a 40-year high. In the euro area, it is 7.5 percent. These are economies used to inflation averaging less than 2 percent. Here in India we may groan over rising petrol and diesel costs and some spectacular price tags on individual food items. Naturally, criticism of the RBI has grown for not having placed greater emphasis much earlier on controlling inflation, which is now well above the target range. Still, India’s consumer price inflation is moderate at fractionally under 7 percent. Compared with the Brics economies, Brazilian inflation is in the double-digits at 11.3 percent, as is Russia’s at 16.7 percent. Only China has the inflation beast virtually slain, breathing slowly at just 1.5 per cent. (All numbers are as compiled by The Economist) Read more

S&P Global cut its growth forecasts for some of Asia's top economies including India, the Philippines, and Malaysia on Monday, offsetting upgrades to China and South Africa, and much of Latin America. The estimates, which feed into S&P's closely-followed sovereign ratings, saw India's growth projection cut to 9.5% from 11% due to its COVID-19 outbreak, the Philippines' lowered to 6% from 7.9% and Malaysia's downgraded to 4.1% from 6.2%.In contrast, China's forecast was surged up to 8.3% from 8%, Brazil's was upgraded to 4.7% from 3.4%, Mexico's to 5.8% from 4.9% while those of South Africa, Poland, and Russia were lifted to 4.2%, 4.5%, and 3.7%, respectively, from 3.6%, 3.4%, and 3.3%. "The top risk facing emerging market economies (EMs) is a slower-than-expected rollout of the vaccines," S&P's economists said in a news report, adding that the pandemic would only subside once vaccinations "reach a level consistent with herd immunity". Read more

Today the benchmark Nifty50 index achieved another milestone when it scaled a fresh record peak of 15,455.5. The feat comes just a day after the Reserve Bank of India issued caution over the meteoric rise in stock prices amid a ravaging Covid-19 pandemic. India's benchmark indices have more than doubled from the post-pandemic lows made in March 2020 while several individual companies have seen multi-fold jump in their stock prices. In May alone, nearly a dozen Nifty50 stocks have hit a lifetime high. These include State Bank of India, Wipro, Bajaj Finserv, Tata Steel, and JSW Steel. IT companies dominate the list of stocks that hit lifetime highs this year, followed by banks and financial services. "This order of asset price inflation in the context of the estimated 8 percent contraction in GDP in 2020-21 poses the risk of a bubble," the RBI said in its annual report yesterday. Read more