Economy Financial News

Flying between Sydney and Melbourne is generating more revenue than any other route in the world – almost double the level before the COVID-19 pandemic – despite a fall in the number of passengers travelling.

By David Lawder and Ann Saphir

gifting companies are feeling the freeze of the slowdown in the IT and IT-enabled services sector this Diwali season. IT/ITeS companies — which, with their huge workforces, are among the biggest spenders on Diwali gifts — have slashed their gift budgets by up to 50% and some have done away with gifting altogether, gifting companies such as PrintStop, IGP, Loopify and Swageazy told ET. «There's a blanket reduction in gift budgets. IT typically accounts for about 50% of our clients; there's been a 50% drop in their spends,» said Pratik Shah, cofounder of customised gifting company PrintStop.

₹10.6 trillion, official data released on Friday showed, creating additional spending room for the government in an election year. Provisional data till 9 November showed the government has so far collected 58% of the ₹18.2 trillion budgeted for FY24. Gross direct tax receipts (without adjusting for refunds of ₹1.77 trillion) were ₹12.37 trillion, 18% above last year’s ₹ 10.52 trillion.

Bank of Canada senior deputy governor Carolyn Rogers laid out the central bank’s view of the interest rate path going forward at an event in Vancouver Nov. 9 and indebted Canadians may not like what she had to say. The Financial Post’s Ian Vandaelle breaks down four key takeaways from Rogers’ speech.

The Bank of Canada’s No. 2 official urged preparation for interest rates staying elevated for longer.

By Amruta Khandekar and Shristi Achar A

Investors should brace for fresh turmoil next week as the stock market faces several market-moving events, including key economic data as well as earnings from the major U.S. retailers.

Samvat 2079 came to an end on Friday, but benchmark Nifty50 has managed to give double-digit returns this year and investors turned wealthier by a staggering Rs 64 lakh crore. The new year as per the Hindu calendar began on a promising note for Dalal Street with benchmark indices hitting lifetime highs on December 1, 2022. However, hawkish monetary policy actions by the US Federal Reserve and expectations of a recession in the world’s largest economy dampened the mood and dragged down markets. Adding fuel to the fire was the explosive report by US-based Hindenburg Research against the Adani Group in late January, which not only triggered an exit by foreign investors from Indian equities, but it eroded over $100 billion wealth only in Adani group stocks within the span of a month. The downfall in the markets saw benchmark indices hit their 52-week lows on March 20, 2023. From its December highs, the index had corrected about 11%. Licking their wounds, the bulls on Dalal Street made a strong comeback and the non-stop run since March-end took the Nifty 50 past the 20000-mark milestone to an all-time high of 20222.45 points. From the March lows, the index has rallied a sharp 20%. While the year brought high levels of volatility amid major global and domestic events, several stocks turned superstars, particularly in the midcap and smallcap segments. The 50-stock index has net gained more than 10% since last Diwali, but the Nifty MidSmallcap 400 index has rallied a whopping 32% in the same period.

There’s been an unwritten rule during the past decade of climate diplomacy: Good things can happen when the world’s two biggest economies are aligned.

US Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell on Thursday rattled financial markets worldwide by saying that the central bank was not yet confident that interest rates were at a sufficiently restrictive level to bring inflation to its 2% target. The statement, which leaves the door open for more Fed rate hikes, yanked five-year US bond yields above 5%, pushed the rupee to a record low versus the dollar, and sent stock markets tumbling.

Refinitiv after a glitch on the electronic trading platform caused trading volumes in the foreign exchange market to dry up, causing volatility in the rupee, which marked new lows versus the US dollar on Friday. Market sources told ET that the trading outage, which occurred around mid-day, resulted in orders drying up, exacerbating volatility in the rupee’s exchange rate amid a global selloff in stocks and bonds due to hawkish comments by the US Federal Reserve chairman. The rupee closed at an all-time low of 83.34 per US dollar on Friday. Intraday, the rupee weakened to as much as 83.48/$1, also a fresh low.

Mint takes a look at the CAFRAL report and what it says about consumption. The report said household consumption expenditure increased from ₹49 trillion in 2012 to about ₹143 trillion in 2022, or about 6% year-on-year (yoy) since FY14 except for the pandemic period of FY19 to FY 2021. Despite a changing growth rate over the years, the share of consumption expenditure in GDP rose from 56.5% in FY12 to 60.9% in FY22.

ROME (Reuters) — The Italian economy is likely to slow further in the next few months after stagnating in the third quarter, national statistics bureau ISTAT said on Friday.

N Jayakumar, MD, Prime Securities, says “it is a stock picker's market as far as the small and midcap end is concerned. We have to be really careful about IPOs. Almost by corollary and by default, we are extremely bullish on being in the larger end of the markets and from that point of view, there are a lot more buys in the larger end and the largecaps also offer a combination of liquidity, valuation comfort and the overall theme that India is the destination of choice for so many people has never been more amplified.” India is in great form not only on the cricket pitch, but also as far as markets are concerned. When you look at the comparative landscape, all the economies are suffering, markets are not doing great but we are barely under 5% from all-time high. We may not have done well on the index front but midcaps have been doing great for the longest period of time. Is this enthusiasm justified or are we seeing early phases of froth building in parts of the market? We have seen the froth build up in one, the small SME exchanges where IPOs have been going gangbusters, listing premiums have been large and virtually every company which has gone there has been able to sail through. It has also been there in some of the small and midcap end of the market. So, at least in the listed space, while we can talk about the space as a whole, inevitably veterans will tell you that we are able to dig out gems even in this market even though certain spaces are overheated.

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Vinit Bolinjkar, Head of Research, Ventura Securities, sees the Nifty around 24,000-25,000 by next Diwali, which implies a 24-29 percent upside. For Muhurat trading, he advised investors that rather than focusing solely on the share price, it's important to evaluate the company valuations and the potential for future expansion and growth prospects. A decent allocation of 10 percent of the portfolio in gold provides stability, he added.

economy failed to grow in the July-to-September period but at least managed to avoid the start of a recession, figures from the Office for National Statistics showed on Friday. The 0% change in gross domestic product in the third quarter compared with a forecast for a 0.1% fall in a Reuters poll of economists, which many analysts said was likely to represent the start of a recession.

Bank of India (RBI) with a sense of assurance, enabling them to maintain interest rates at a stable level over the coming months, as suggested by experts. According to a Mint poll of 17 economists, India’s retail inflation likely cooled to 4.8 per cent in October from 5 per cent in September. However, economists warned that vegetable prices still pose an upside risk to their forecasts.

By Sophie Yu and Casey Hall