Data recap: IT results, PMI readings, air traffic

livemint.com:

Mint in the week gone by. Top software services firms that declared their latest earnings painted a subdued outlook for the fiscal year 2024-25, while the seasonally adjusted HSBC flash composite purchasing managers’ index (PMI) output index for India surged to nearly a 14-year high of 62.2 in April. The corporate earnings season began with information technology (IT) majors Infosys, Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) releasing their results for the March quarter.

The results seem to have dampened investors’ spirits as they offered little reassurance about the sector's near-term prospects, a Mint report said. Both TCS and Infosys reported strong deal wins, but the persistent gap between these deals and actual revenue growth indicates slow conversions. While TCS's management is confident about the new financial year, Infosys and Wipro have provided unimpressive guidance for the near future.

Soaring inflation in India was a key political issue in the 2014 elections, and seems to be an issue once again. After the BJP came to power in 2014, inflation slid below 10% – and even dropped below 5% for a while — until it entered a phase of severe volatility owing to successive food price shocks in the past three years, a Mint analysis showed. A pre-poll survey by CSDS-Lokniti showed that nearly one in four Indians see rising prices as the most important issue influencing their voting decision in these elections.