Business Today 22-Aug-21

Ever since the pandemic hit India, those following the financial markets have often been baffled by the huge disconnect between what is going on in the equity markets, and the devastation caused by Covid-19. The one segment of the economy which has seemingly taken the pandemic in its stride has been the stock markets. After an initial setback in March 2020, when the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex hit its calendar year low of 25,639, the market has been on a roll, hitting its all-time high of 53,291 points in mid-July this year. This runaway rise has led to another phenomenon — the advent of thousands of new investors into the equity markets, hungry for information and advice on how and where to invest. Consider the figures: broking firms saw a…

↘ The Central government reported non-debt receipts of ₹3.5 lakh crore for april-may 2021, the highest for the first two months of any fiscal ↘ These accounted for a higher-than-average 18 per cent of the government’s target for the fiscal. the sharp rise was due to the RBI transferring its dividend earlier than usual ↘ Tax collections remained stronger than normal across the board. still, the government spent 13.7 per cent of its annual budgeted expenditure in april-may, less than the five-year average of 18.2 per cent…

↘ Long-term fund-raising by non-banking enterprises dropped to a three-year low of ₹1.27 lakh crore in Q1 of Fy22 ↘ Their fund-raising had stayed above ₹2 lakh crore for the past five quarters and topped ₹3 lakh crore in the previous quarter ↘ In the latest quarter, ₹25,790 crore, or roughly 20 per cent of the total, was raised against fresh equity PRIMARY MARKET FUND MOBILISATION BY NON-BANKING COMPANIES (`000 Cr) Numbers rounded off; Source: RBI…

↘ Automobile sales to dealerships staged a recovery in June, led by passenger vehicles, due to easing of lockdown restrictions in various states as India exits the second Covid-19 wave ↘ Automakers sold 2,31,633 passenger vehicles, a jump of 163 per cent over May and 119 per cent over June 2020 ↘ On a sequential basis, two-wheeler volumes tripled in June, while they doubled for tractors as well as commercial vehicles, and grew nearly 7.5 times for three-wheelers Sequential numbers compared to May; Source: SIAM…

↘ Retail sales in India tumbled 50 per cent in June 2021, compared to June 2019, a year before the pandemic, according to the Retailers Association of India ↘ The industry body’s latest survey showed a steep drop in all major discretionary categories, with the biggest being a 66 per cent slide in sports goods ↘ Even the food and grocery category saw a 7 per cent drop, though it was the only category to notch a single-digit decline ↘ The declines were more or less equal nation-wide, spread between the North zone’s 43 per cent drop and the East’s 55 per cent fall RETAIL SALES (June '21 vs June '19 % change) Source: Retailers Association of India…

↘ Urban men lost the most jobs during the second wave of Covid-19, while urban women suffered the least, a reversal of the trend seen in the first wave ↘ Urban men, who hold about 28 per cent of total jobs, accounted for 26.3 per cent of job losses between March 2020 and March 2021. This went up to 30.3 per cent in the March-June 2021 period ↘ Urban women, who account for about 3 per cent jobs, had accounted for 38.7 per cent job losses in the first wave. This fell to 0.11 per cent in the 2nd wave Source: CMIe…