El Niño News

Erratic rains have disrupted rice and potato cultivation, causing an increase of up to 12% in prices of these two essential staples of Indian households over the past month. Even though the government has banned exports of non-basmati rice, prices have shot up by 15% amid increased demand from south India where patchy rains in Karnataka have reduced kharif rice production. On the other hand, unpredictable rainfall in October has impacted sowing of the new potato crop, which will delay the arrival of the new crop, pushing up prices of the old stock of potatoes. Southern states are increasingly buying rice from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and West Bengal, inflating prices across the country. The Centre had banned exports of non-basmati rice from July 20 to ensure adequate supply in the domestic market and to control prices. Basmati rice prices have also shot up by 10% due to robust export demand from the Middle East. Suraj Agarwal, CEO of RiceVilla, a rice marketing and exporting company said, «Non-basmati rice prices have gone up as there was scarcity of rains in southern India leading to a shortage in supply.» He added that prices may remain firm over the next three to four months due to the expected impact of El Nino till the next summer crop in April 2024. According to the first advance estimates of the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers' Welfare, India's rice production has been pegged at 1,06.31 million metric tonnes, a 3.7% dip from the same season of last year. Interestingly, the decline is despite an increase in the area under kharif paddy production.

HDFC Securities noted that the key theme of the quarter was the continuation of input cost deflation, which helped companies improve their profitability in-spite of muted YoY revenue growth. It believes this benefit of commodity cost deflation is largely over and now future earnings growths have to be volume-led.

At least 76 people have died and 40,000 displaced from their homes since the rains began pounding the country in October. President William Ruto convened an emergency cabinet meeting on Monday and said 38 of Kenya's 47 counties had been affected by floods and mudslides made worse by the El Nino phenomenon. State House spokesperson Hussein Mohammed also noted «disease outbreaks, destruction of infrastructure and property as well as prolonged power outages» across Kenya and the region. The worst affected areas are the coastal cities of Mombasa and Malindi and the northern Kenya region which borders Somalia, also hit hard by flooding. In Kenya's Garissa town, thousands of people have been displaced after their homes were swept away. «All roads are destroyed.

MOGADISHU (Reuters) — The number of people killed by floods from heavy rains in Somalia has climbed to 96, state news agency SONNA said on Saturday.

Shipping companies have paid a total of $235 million so far this year to jump ahead of congestion at the Panama Canal as drought has dramatically limited how many ships can enter the waterway, according to data from Waypoint Port Services Ltd. That amount is 20% higher than what companies paid during all of 2022 for expedited passage.

Nifty has been flattish in the past 6 weeks and gave just a 1.6 percent return in the past one quarter on the back of multiple headwinds. Moreover, strong DII flows have also been neutralized by FII outflows. Still, the market has taken all headwinds in its stride and the action has been very stock-specific as Mid/small caps continue to outperform large caps, a report by domestic brokerage house Prabhudas Lilladher stated.

Nifty may hit a target of 22,584 in the next 12 months even as the market manoeuvres through headwinds like US interest rates, El Nino's impact on crops and inflation, volatile crude prices and the election year in India, Prabhudas Lilladher said in a note on Wednesday. The brokerage remains positive on auto, banks, capital goods, hospitals, and discretionary consumption and picks Max Healthcare, Hindalco Industries, Eris Lifesciences and Sunteck Realty as its conviction buys. As its contra picks, Prabhudas has added Kajaria Ceramics and Restaurant Brands Asia while removing SBI, Carborundum, Chalet Hotels and Crompton Greaves Consumer Electricals. The broking firm has also raised its target price on Maruti Suzuki, Ceat, Aarti Industries, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, Supreme Industries, Voltamp Transformers, RR Kabel, Fortis, Max Healthcare Institute, Jindal Stainless, IPCA and Lupin.

Sugar prices are soaring in many places

Lower prices and ample stockpiles have helped make India one of the top shippers globally over the past decade, recently accounting for almost 40% of the total. African nations like Benin and Senegal are among the top buyers. But Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who will seek reelection next year, has repeatedly tightened restrictions on shipments in a bid to curb domestic price rises and shield Indian consumers.

fixed deposits (FDs), you will be happy to know that the era of rising interest rates on fixed deposits is not over yet. Some factors that indicate this is credit growth remaining much higher than deposit growth; the recent decision of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to increase the investment limit of non-callable deposits to Rs 1 crore; and the expected higher food inflation due to El Niño hitting India’s food production. As an FD investor, you can take advantage of rising interest rates to invest in term deposits. But, first, let’s understand how interest rates of fixed deposits will be impacted in the short term and long term.

GrainCorp has unveiled a $50 million share buyback and declared a special dividend in a sign of confidence the business can withstand adverse weather conditions expected to affect Australian farmers.

Equity funds with the most diversified portfolios How markets are placed The benchmark BSE Sensex lost over 1,637 points in October 2023, which was the highest monthly absolute loss in 2023. Though the markets have made some recovery in November due to falling crude oil prices and softening of US bond yields, they are expected to stay volatile over the next few months. A Prabhudas Lilladher Diwali Picks report expects the next few months to be volatile due to the El Nino impact on inflation, global volatility in commodities and interest rates. “The strong resilience of the US economy, despite high inflation, is likely to keep policy rates high, which can impact FPI inflow in the near term,” it states. Equity fund concentration ET Wealth tried to study the concentration of equity diversified funds, in terms of their respective average concentration of AUM in the top five stocks and sectors, over the last year.

Somalia and neighbouring countries in East Africa following a historic drought as a once-in-a-century event. Around 1.6 million people in Somalia could be affected by the heavy seasonal downpours, which have been worsened by the combined impact of two climate phenomenons, El Niño, and the Indian Ocean Dipole, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement late on Thursday.

LIMA (Reuters) — Peru's government on Thursday announced a set of more than two dozen new measures aimed at boosting investments in the Andean nation, which is undergoing a recession.

Moody’s Investor Service, reaffirming its 6.7% growth forecast for the Indian economy for 2023. “With exports remaining weak amid an unfavourable global economic backdrop, strong domestic demand will likely sustain growth in the near-term,” the research firm said Thursday, predicting the Indian economy to grow 6.1% in 2024 and 6.3% in the subsequent year. India’s economy grew 7.8% in the April-June quarter; Moody’s expects growth momentum to have continued in subsequent quarters. “High-frequency indicators show that the economy's strong Q2 momentum carried into Q3.

El Nino weather pattern is set to last until at least April 2024, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Wednesday, pushing up temperatures in a year already on track to be the warmest on record. The WMO said there was a 90% likelihood that the naturally-occurring event will continue through the northern hemisphere winter, following a similar projection last month from a U.S. government forecaster. El Nino is a warming of ocean surface temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific, and it can provoke extreme weather phenomena from wildfires to tropical cyclones and prolonged droughts.

El Nino, U.S. forecasters say — if past years are any indication.Officials at the U.S.

India’s V-Guard Industries reported second-quarter profit on Tuesday in line with analyst estimates, as more Indians bought air conditioner stabilisers and inverters in a quarter that saw the country’s driest monsoon in over a century.

For the second year in a row, U.S. shoppers are seeing double-digit inflation in the candy aisle

By Nelson Bocanegra

According to Datasembly, a retail price tracking company, the prices of candy and gum have surged by an average of 13% this month compared to last October, which is more than double the 6% increase in all grocery prices. This increase comes on top of a 14% jump in candy and gum prices in October 2022. Weather Impact The driving force behind these higher prices is adverse weather conditions.