COST Financial News

While interest rate-sensitive segments of affordable and low-income housing have started witnessing some impact of the rate hikes implemented earlier, any further increase may have resulted in hitting the demand in this segment. The central bank, through six successive increases since May 2022, had raised policy rates by a cumulative 250 basis points, taking the repo rate to 6.5% before hitting the pause in April. “The RBI's pause in rate hikes over the past few quarters will certainly pedal up the real estate growth pace.

The innovative platform intends to facilitate the effortless provision of credit by ensuring a smooth transmission of necessary digital data to lenders, the Reserve Bank of India said. The digital platform will have an open structure, open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and standards, enabling all participants in the financial sector to effortlessly link up using a 'plug and play' model. The platform is poised to be introduced as a pilot project with a carefully measured approach, both in terms of access to information providers and use cases.

Suzlon Energy shares jumped 5% to the day's high of Rs 20 in Thursday's early trade after the company's Board approved to launch qualified institutional placement (QIP) to raise up to Rs 2,000 crore. The QIP will be of Rs 1,500 crore, with an oversubscription option of Rs 500 crore. The issue opened on Wednesday.

United States likely rose in July for the first time in 12 months, driven higher by more expensive gasoline and suggesting that the fight against rising prices may prove bumpier in the months ahead. The inflation report the government will issue Thursday is expected to show that consumer prices increased 3.3% from 12 months earlier. That would mark an uptick from a 3% year-over-year increase in June — the lowest such figure in more than two years.

European Union rules that require proof that crops weren’t grown on deforested land, which producers say will add to the cost of making food. The latest example of the backlash comes from Brazil, the biggest global exporter of coffee and soybeans. Just this week, the nation’s agriculture minister, Carlos Fávaro, lashed out against the ban, casting doubt on whether it complies with the principles of the World Trade Organization. He added that Brazil is seeking to boost trade with others outside of the EU, including within the five-nation BRICS bloc that also includes Russia, India, China and South Africa. Brazil is already a steward of the environment, Fávaro said. “If Europe does not want to understand that, there are others that recognize what Brazil does,” he said. Complying with the new rules will involve implementing full traceability to complex production chains — a task that’s likely to be complicated and expensive. The requirement will apply to a wide range of products, from meat to palm oil, and that will add to agricultural costs at a time when food inflation is once again starting to pick up. Higher prices won’t just impact buyers in Europe. Since the market is so large, growers will likely need to adopt the new practices quite broadly. Consumers around the globe could end up footing the bill as producers pass on the new costs.

rice prices to the highest level in almost 15 years is renewing fears that food costs are going to get a lot more expensive for the world’s poorest people. The grain is vital to the diets of billions in Asia and Africa. Rice contributes as much as 60% of total calorie intake for people in parts of Southeast Asia and Africa, and that rises to 70% in countries like Bangladesh.

Shibani Sircar Kurian, Senior EVP, Fund Manager & Head -Equity Research, Kotak Mahindra AMC, says “on a relative basis, we are not as expensive as one would have imagined simply because the entire emerging market pack has also gone up. That provides some degree of downside support to the market, even though near term, because of absolute valuations, we could see some volatility.

FOR THE past two years, policymakers in most of the world’s biggest economies have faced an excruciating stagflationary dilemma. They have wrestled simultaneously with high inflation, which demands steep interest rates, and fears of a recession, which would normally call for policy easing. The exception is China.

real estate market is showing robust performance in the second quarter of 2023, with sales maintaining its momentum as new supply continues to pour in. Remarkably, even with the influx of new properties, prices in primary economic hotspots are skyrocketing. The ISB – Housing.com Housing Price Index (HPI) shows an increase of 7.21% in property prices during Q2 2023, a jump from both Q1 2023’s 6.78% and Q2 2022’s 2.83%.

WeWork shares approached zero on Wednesday after the one-time startup darling warned it could go bankrupt in a stunning reversal of fortune for a company that was once privately valued at $47 billion. The SoftBank-backed company has been in turmoil ever since its plans to go public in 2019 imploded after investors recoiled at its hefty losses, corporate governance lapses and the management style of then founder-CEO Adam Neumann. WeWork's woes did not abate in subsequent years.

Hindalco Industries with a target price of Rs 500. The current market price of Hindalco Industries is Rs 454.75.

Gold prices hovered near one-month lows on Thursday, as investors braced for the make-or-break U.S. inflation data that would shape the Federal Reserve's upcoming interest rate decisions. FUNDAMENTALS * Spot gold was steady at $1,916.19 per ounce by 0123 GMT, a few dollars away from its lowest level since July 10 hit on Wednesday.

Bob Iger's urgent need to overhaul Disney — to turn its streaming division into a profitable enterprise and pull back on its troubled traditional television business — came into sharp relief Wednesday. Disney's streaming operation lost $512 million in the most-recent quarter, the company said, bringing total streaming losses since 2019, when Disney+ was introduced, to more than $11 billion. Disney+ lost roughly 11.7 million subscribers worldwide in the three months that ended July 1, for a new total of 146.1 million.

Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger vowed to make its streaming services profitable via a planned October price hike on its ad-free Disney+ and Hulu plans and a crackdown on password sharing expected to extend through next year. The increases will raise the monthly cost of ad-free Disney+ by $3, or roughly 27%, to almost $14.

Techcrunch, “We actually have been looking at multiple markets around the world with an eye toward prioritizing those that are going to help us turn this business into a profitable business. What that basically means is there are some markets that we will invest less in local programming but still maintain the service." Bob Iger has also promised to turn the company profitable once again with a hike in prices of its ad-free Disney and Hulu plans from October this year and a crackdown on password sharing which is expected to commence from next year. While terming the near-term environment as ‘challenging’, Iger said, “I returned to Disney in November, and I've agreed to stay on longer, because there was more to accomplish before our transformation is complete," The media conglomerate plans to raise the price of its ad-free Disney plan by $3, or about 27 per cent, to $14.

The chief executive of Boral says the Australian economy will begin to grow again next year with the housing market reviving and inflation rising more slowly, flagging higher earnings at the building materials giant.

Jefferies said the 'Goldilocks position' for Indian equities is getting questioned with crude rallying, China gaining some traction, rising consumer inflation and yields moving up. With foreign portfolio investors turning net sellers and India underperforming the MSCI Emerging Markets index in the last one month, the near-term appears weak. In a Goldilocks situation, an economy sees a mix of steady growth and low inflation.

Treasury gains for Indian lenders are likely to moderate in the coming quarters as bond yields remain in a narrow range, with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) possibly sticking to a long pause. Banks will also see pressure on earnings growth with a likely increase in provisions for expected credit loss, a new accounting norm that is kicking in. For the first quarter, the State Bank of India reported a treasury income of ₹3,850 crore, the highest in the past 12 quarters.

Salary hikes for tech employees and leadership teams at startups in India cooled in FY23 after a two-year boom period as companies started to trim costs to stave off a broader funding winter, a survey by Elevation Capital showed. During the year, average salary hikes handed out to employees were between 8% and 12%, the survey of over 200 startups by the venture capital firm revealed.

startups to traditional Indian business groups, with four out of ten top professionals exiting in the past ten months joining large traditional groups, as unicorns, soonicorns, and other new-age companies seek to clamber out of a grim and protracted funding winter. Since September 2022, about 750 senior executives (CXOs and CXO-1) out of about 5,000 top professionals (with more than Rs 1 crore salary) exited unicorns and soonicorns.

By David Shepardson