2020 Financial News

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. For the world’s carmakers, the inexorable rise of Chinese electric vehicle-maker BYD and its local rivals in recent years has been a brutal lesson in disruptive innovation. China, a market that was once core to their global growth plans, has become a wasteland for their petrol-powered lineups as electric vehicles (EVs) grew from 6.2% of sales in 2020 to 45% last year.

Nifty 50’s forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio has fallen to multi-year lows, as the ongoing market selloff pushes valuations down sharply. The benchmark index’s P/E for 2025 and 2026 now stands at 18.5x and 16.2x, respectively, marking a significant compression in valuation multiples, brokerage Ventura noted. Historically, Nifty’s forward P/E has seen sharper declines during past market crises, including the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008 and the COVID 19-induced crash of 2020, when valuations dropped to 10.5x and 15x, respectively. The brokerage warned that if corrective mechanisms are not put in place, the current downturn could mirror past collapses.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. A recent news story in a prominent US daily reported that a number of non-profits in Washington DC are distributing robotic pets to residents aged 60 and older in some areas of the city to ease their loneliness and isolation. While in the US, about 28% of people aged 65 and older live by themselves, the number in that age group is projected to increase to 82 million by 2050, which will be 23% of the total population.

S. Jaishankar said during a discussion at Chatham House, a British policy institute. He acknowledged that the relationship has been shaped by decades of ups and downs, but the real challenge is managing the balance as both nations rise. Reflecting on the last 40 years, Jaishankar noted that peace along the border was seen as essential for better ties. However, the situation changed dramatically in 2020 when Chinese forces clashed with Indian troops in the Galwan Valley, leading to the deaths of around 20 Indian soldiers and multiple Chinese casualties. It was the most serious border confrontation in 45 years.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Someone once said, “Investing during a crisis is overrated, while investing during confusing times is underrated." The idea of making a fortune by investing at the bottom of a crisis is often glorified, fostering the belief that wealth is built by timing market downturns with precision. Stories of investors who seized opportunities during market collapses create the illusion that waiting for the next major crisis—and deploying capital at exactly the right moment—is the key to success.

Naxal operative from Jharkhand, who had been living in Delhi under a false identity, was arrested in Pitampura, Delhi Police said on Wednesday. She had been working as a domestic helper in Noida and different areas of Delhi since 2020, as per a PTI report.

China has signaled plans for a hydropower project in Tibet along one of the region’s main rivers, fanning speculation of a mega-dam that would test its engineering and diplomatic nous. The country will undertake the construction of a dam on the lower reaches of the Yarlung Tsangpo River in Tibet, and a power transmission project from Tibet to the Hong Kong area, the National Development and Reform Commission said in its annual report to the National People’s Congress on Wednesday. The Yarlung Tsangpo has long been mooted as a site for a mega-dam. In 2020, a state media report cited the head of government-owned Power Construction Corp. of China as saying the lower reaches of the river had a huge gorge with potential for 70 gigawatts of electricity generating capacity — more than triple that of the Three Gorges Dam, the largest in the world.

Donald Trump's much anticipated speech got underway on the wee hours of Wednesday and the 78-year-old Republican hailed the country's achievements in the last 40-odd-days and said that 'America is back'. «We have accomplished more in 43 days than most administrations accomplish in four years or eight years — and we are just getting started,» Trump said as chants of «USA, USA!» erupted from the lawmakers seated in the US Capitol. «The American Dream is surging — bigger and better than ever before. The American Dream is unstoppable, and our country is on the verge of a comeback the likes of which the world has never witnessed, and perhaps will never witness again.»

Samco Securities. The average one month forward returns stand at 2.68%, the study found. “We did a backtest to check what happens one month after the index closes for 8 or more consecutive negative sessions. Since 2002 there have been 9 instances of eight or more days of consecutive negative closing. The index closed on a positive note one month later in 6 out of these 9 instances,” Samco said in a note.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. A stock market ‘correction’ implies a sobering up of investors after a heady uprun in prices that overshot its rational limits. The slump in Indian indices over the past five months, a long slide unseen since 1996, has not been as deep as what we saw after crashes triggered by the West’s financial crisis of 2008 and the global outbreak of covid in 2020.

Bowmaker will support Simon Murphy, lead manager of the VT Tyndall Unconstrained UK Income fund, on the strategy and aim to cultivate and enhance the equity research process across Tyndall. He joins with nearly two decades of experience in financial services, including two years as an equity analyst at Barings Asset Management, over eight years as a deputy fund manager at Old Mutual Global Investors and, more recently, a stint at Merian Global Investors before it was acquired by Jupiter in 2020.  Tyndall IM hires Anthony Snowden as investment director as it expands private client team...

bear market, with the Nifty 50 down nearly 16% from its peak and smallcap and midcap stocks suffering their worst crash since 2020. But despite a 30-50% plunge in several hyped «narrative» stocks, valuations remain difficult to justify, brokerage Kotak Institutional Equities said. The brokerage said the broader market correction, exacerbated by the recent rout in smallcap and midcap stocks, has not translated into compelling investment opportunities. «We do not find value in most parts of the market despite the sharp correction across sectors and stocks. Flows have seen endless discussion among market participants but have proven (again) to be pointless to assess the market peak or correction,» Kotak Equities said.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. India’s share markets are reeling from a significant sell-off, just completing a disastrous week and the fifth straight month of free fall. The decline is fuelled by global headwinds and a palpable sense of investor panic.

Real estate project registrations declined to 19,760 in 2024 from 22,143 in 2023 and 25,230 in 2022, as developers grew more cautious after a two-year bull run in the sector, as per data provided by NSE-listed data analytics firm PropEquity. After the Covid pandemic, rising property transactions and values led to a surge in project registrations in 2022 and 2023. However, prices stabilised in 2024, leading to a slowdown in new launches. «With home prices settling, we have seen fewer new projects this year,» said Sachin Arora, founder of Moneytree Realty.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. In 2020, the Union government introduced three farm laws which were perceived by millions of farmers around the country as being biased towards big business and detrimental to their own interests.

Piramal Enterprises said in an exchange filing on Friday that it had received a tax demand of 15.02 billion rupees (nearly $172 million) for the sale of its pharmaceutical business to Piramal Pharma in fiscal year 2021. A tax office in the state of Maharashtra has asked the financial services company to pay 18% Goods and Services Tax (GST) on the deal, the latter said in the filing. The tax bill amounts to about 15% of its revenue for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2024. Piramal Enterprises said it has solid grounds to challenge the «unjustified» demand.

Tax season is now underway, and if you moved in 2024, you may be entitled to write off your moving expenses, assuming you qualify. Not all moves, however, qualify as an “eligible relocation,” and the ability to deduct moving expenses can be challenged by the taxman, which is what happened in a recent case decided earlier this month. But before delving into the details of this latest case, let’s briefly review the rules for deducting moving expenses.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has proposed revising the ₹500 crore exposure limit for index futures and options (F&O), along with other measures to strengthen risk assessment in the derivatives market.

Tata Motors are on track for their worst monthly losing streak in nearly a decade, as persistent selling pressure has pushed the stock down by 12.2% in February. This marks the seventh straight month of negative returns and the steepest monthly decline since October 2023, when the stock slumped 14%. The last time Tata Motors witnessed such an extended downtrend was in 2015 when the stock declined consecutively from March to September before rebounding in October. The worst-ever monthly drop for Tata Motors came in March 2020, when the stock tumbled nearly 45% amid the COVID-19 market crash.