Daily Financial News Analysis – 15th Oct'19

Table of Contents

2019 Economics Nobel

For their work on finding new ways to tackle poverty.
They are the first couple to win the economics Nobel, and the sixth Nobelwinning couple. Abhijit Banerjee Esther Duflo Michael Kremer
The Nobel citation said the work of the three economists has “ …improved efforts to … fight global poverty” by breaking down a complex problem into “smaller, more manageable questions” .
The authors’ insights included why poor families often invest in the education of only one of several children or why small farmers are often reluctant to use better farming methods.
Their central thesis was that small changes, including tweaks in existing structures, often produced lasting and big outcomes in reducing poverty.
“We live in an age of growing polarization. From Hungary to India, from the Philippines to the United States, from the United Kingdom to Brazil … the public conversation between the left and the right has turned more and more into a highdecibel slanging match.
” The award recognises that fast growth alone will not end poverty in general or its specific manifestations.
With Abhijit having studied at Kolkata’s South Point School, Presidency College and then at JNU in Delhi, India should be proud of his achievement and remind itself of the importance of science and scientific thinking.

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said banks have sufficient liquidity.
Efforts are being made to ensure that due payments are released to the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector by large corporates.
The ministry of corporate affairs has been asked to approach large companies that owe close to ₹40,000 crore to MSMEs.

Loans to the tune of Rs 81,781 crore were disbursed by the PSBs.
Advances to new customers having made up for as much as Rs 34,342 crore.
Fin Min said that the programme is a major success in improving the flow of credit to support economic growth.
The drive saw disbursement to all critical segments of the economy ahead of the Durga Puja festival. Banks have been asked to provide bill discounting facility to the MSME sector against payments due to them from large companies.
The second phase of the loan outreach programme would start from October 21 (before Diwali on October 27)

Retail inflation inched closer to the Reserve Bank of India’s medium-term target of 4% in September.
For the first time in 14 months
Reason: higher food prices
Economists maintain that the economic slowdown will prompt a sixth consecutive interest rate cut in December.
Wholesale inflation eased to its lowest level in more than three years.
Retail inflation accelerated to 3.99% last month, data released by the statistics office showed on Monday, compared with 3.28% in August.
Inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index was 3.7% in September 2018.
Retail food prices, which make up almost half of the inflation basket, increased 5.11% in September.
Vegetable prices shot up 15.4% during the month.
Overall, food inflation could remain high this year even as core inflation declines.
That should improve terms of trade for the farmers. Food prices would continue to rise till at least March 2020.
This festive season will be the litmus test for consumer spending and a lack of meaningful pickup could mean that growth could see a sharper decline than expected.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has assured the investors in the energy space that the government will honour its contractual commitments.
Companies like Cairn Energy, are facing challenges in the hydrocarbon space, renewable power developers are facing sudden changes in power purchase agreements in States like Andhra Pradesh.
Sitharaman also raised the issue of global crude oil prices, and sought views on how India can expand its energy resources mix.
The government is committed to giving every Indian access to energy.
Dharmendra Pradhan said, “I have appealed to the Finance Minister to look into the concerns of the industry…At least natural gas and ATF, should come in the ambit of Goods and Services Tax. ”
On investments Pradhan added, “We have successfully completed three bid rounds under Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) and two rounds of bidding under the Discovered Small Fields (DSF) policy.
Through these successful biddings, India is expected to garner an estimated investment of $ 58 billion in E&P sector by 2023.

The Union Cabinet will approve the strategic disinvestment of five PSUs.
This would serve as a booster for efforts to garner the bulk of the budgeted Rs 1.05-lakh-crore disinvestment receipts from privatisation and exchange traded funds (ETFs).
While strategic disinvestment and ETFs would contribute the most to achieve the disinvestment target this year, mobilisations from initial public offers (IPOs), buybacks, offer for sales and asset monetisation would be minimal this year, official sources said.
The department of investment and public asset management (DIPAM) on Friday invited proposals from asset valuers, transaction advisors and legal advisers to help the government in strategic disinvestment of these five companies.