Economy Financial News

Investing.com-- Most Asian currencies kept to a tight range on Monday, while the dollar steadied near two-week highs as focus turned squarely to a swathe of central bank meetings helmed by the Bank of Japan and Federal Reserve. 

Investing.com-- Oil prices moved little in Asian trade on Monday after a strong run-up over the past week, with traders now hunkering down before a string of key central bank meetings this week helmed by the Federal Reserve.

Investing.com-- Chinese industrial production grew more than expected in the first two months of 2024, as manufacturing output continued to benefit from supportive policies and monetary stimulus from the government.

BKC. In a post on social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) on March 17, Kotak responded to user Nilesh Shah's (@NileshShah68) post converting the USD real estate sale to Indian Rupees. "New York commercial office building going at ₹~ 16000 per Sq Ft." wrote Shah.

Bitcoin and gold are zooming, which is not new, because the things people trade in go up and down. These two asset classes don’t interest me, and from time to time, I marvel why people invest in these. Is the current bull run in the two more or less the same? The answer is, mostly, yes. However, I’ll point out something that is different. Gold and Bitcoin are both useless asset classes that produce nothing. In origin and nature, these couldn’t be more different. Gold is the simplest form of wealth to understand; if it’s physical gold, it’s worth something. It has been used as a store of wealth and currency for millennia. Bitcoin is quite the opposite. In physical sense, it does not exist; it is entirely a technological construct. Fifteen years after its invention, relatively few people understand what it is and why it’s worth anything. I don’t know how many people genuinely understand what a blockchain, token, or NFT is, or what a crypto transaction actually does. Yet, in global finance, both are functionally the same. They are both functioning as currencies that are being used as havens from the rain of US dollars, which has now become a flood. Despite their fundamental differences, convergence in their function as safe havens reveals a broader narrative about diversifying assets in times of economic uncertainty. The deluge of US dollars can potentially safeguard their wealth against inflation and devaluation. At least, that’s the theory.

₹11.1 trillion for FY25 in the interim budget in February. Virmani said expectations of growth beating estimates this year was really the capital expenditure multiplier of the budget working through the system, which will continue over the years and get better. Building infrastructure is helping not just the GDP growth, but has also added more employment for construction workers, he said.

By Wayne Cole

Investing.com-- Singapore’s key non-oil exports fell more than expected in February, as a new-year boost in demand now appeared to be running out of steam, while strong figures for January were also revised lower.

By Judy Hua and Kevin Yao

By Makiko Yamazaki, Scott Murdoch and Kane Wu

India, ranked as the world’s fifth-largest economy, is primed for significant progress driven by a robust government framework, a stable macroeconomy, substantial investments in infrastructure, and a foreign policy prioritising national interests, said Romal Shetty, CEO of Deloitte-South Asia. The government and corporates have jointly set standards of excellence, he said.

digital revolution that’s overshadowed many global markets, rapid urbanisation, growth of the premium consumer segment, and an increasingly robust regulatory framework, India seems poised to achieve its target of becoming a $10-trillion economy. Broad-based recovery, higher private capex, loans to tier II and tier III areas, better capitalisation of investments and a massive push on education and upskilling are critical components of this growth trajectory. Piramal Group chairman Ajay Piramal, Larsen & Toubro managing director SN Subrahmanyan, Nykaa founder Falguni Nayar and Hindustan Unilever managing director Rohit Jawa talked about what it will take for India to achieve its targets in a discussion moderated by Arijit Barman. Edited excerpts: In the last one year, the retail sector has seen a decline in value and volume growth in rural and lower income markets. Is this year’s recovery because of a lower base or is consumption demand returning?

India, which has been transformed from “an economy with promise” to being on the cusp of becoming the third largest one after the US and China, Satyan Gajwani, vice chairman, Times Internet, said in his welcome address at the ET Awards for Corporate Excellence 2023. “Today, we mark 25 years since the founding of the ET Awards,” he said. “Way back in 1998, when we launched this endeavour to celebrate the best of Indian business, the Sensex hovered around 4,000 points — it has grown 18 times and is about to touch 75,000.” Gajwani spoke about the remarkable growth of India’s stock markets, showcasing a news report from ET in 1998 quoting a survey result of 3,000 households that preferred selling their stocks rather than buying them.

Carrying out any survey is a challenge not just because its sampling process must be right, but there is often an ‘information and understanding’ asymmetry between surveyors and respondents. Asking a man on the street what he thinks of the economy, for example, is an exercise fraught with trouble since only a tiny proportion of people would have studied economics and perceptions can vary widely. If one were asked the quantity of a certain product (say, spinach) consumed in the last 7 or 30 days, can one really remember how much? This is a problem with such consumer surveys.

ZURICH (Reuters) — Swiss banking giant UBS will look for merger and acquisitions opportunities in the United States in the next few years, its chairman told the NZZ newspaper on Sunday.

inflation has slowed sharply, petrol prices are down, jobs are plentiful, incomes are rising and the stockmarket is strong. But survey after survey suggests that Americans are in fact quite unhappy. They think that the economy is in bad shape and that President Joe Biden is mismanaging it.

2024 Lok Sabha polls, known as the largest democratic exercise in the world, will be announced on June 4. When asked if he was preparing for the 2029 Lok Sabha polls, PM Modi said, ‘you are stuck on 2029’. "Find out what Modi is.

Nifty ended with weekly declines of 2.1% amid massive selling in state-owned company stocks along with energy, realty and financial stocks. However, the IT pack ended with weekly gains. When markets resume trading on Monday, a host of important domestic and global events lined-up during the holiday-truncated week are likely to impact them. «The upcoming week will place a significant focus on monetary policy, as the Fed will begin its two-day policy meeting on March 19. The US Federal Reserve (FED) will announce its interest rate decision after its two-day policy meeting on March 20, 2024. According to reports, the US Federal Reserve will leave its benchmark overnight interest rate unchanged,» Pravesh Gour, Senior Technical Analyst at Swastika Investmart said.

Federal Reserve in no rush to start lowering interest rates. Industrial production figures illustrated a euro area economy that’s merely limping along. In Japan, speculation intensified for the first rate hike in more than a decade after the country’s largest labor union secured big wage deals. The world of geopolitics continued to evolve, including Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil refineries, declining foreign investment in China and US concerns about Beijing’s subsidies for shipbuilders.

Amisha Vora, Chairperson & MD, Prabhudas Lilladher, says “for quite some time, the sentiment was intact and the correction was shallow and this was not so broad-based. In the last 7-10 days, there was a broader correction across market caps,, less in Nifty but of course across market caps, a number of advance declines was also very sharp in favour of declines. Once a time like that comes, most of the people, their portfolios, their positions, their exposures get realigned. There are M2M related issues. So once that sets in, it takes a little time for things to stabilise and then the bull market to resurrect or the advance to resurrect.” Last few days have been pretty rocky as far as the broader markets are concerned. Which are the areas your clients have been nibbling in and you have been recommending them to buy? Amisha Vora: After a very long time, the correction looks a little broad-based and seems to have just started.

Narendra Modi on Saturday said that he is actively strategizing for the year 2047, stressing the focus on “long-term planning". When asked at the India Today Conclave whether Prime Minister Modi is already preparing for the 2029 Lok Sabha elections, the Prime Minister said, “Find out what Modi is. You are stuck on 2029 but I am planning for 2047." PM Modi further mentioned that today the mood of the nation is about making India a Viksit Bharat.