Economy is fine says the Economic Advisor.. As usual I beg to disagree..

The Economic advisor to the prime minister says the economy is doing fine and we can expect a growth rate of 8.5% this year. Good News.

As always I am a naysayer and my only grouse is that we have inflation running at an average of 10% for the last four quarters and with nominal interest rates lower than the inflation rates we have already run into negative real interest rate territory for the last three quarters. This does not bode well for the foreign exchange rate front. As long as the real interest rate remains negative, Rupee will keep being under stress, new symbol not withstanding. May be, this is good for the software companies and other export led businesses, but since we are an oil importing economy with a trade deficit of close to a billion dollars and heavy reliance on "invisibles" to Balance our BOP, we need more to be done on the trade deficit side.

All through the blog you will find mention of this inflation in India being more due to non availability of supply than the over supply of money. Managing this inflation by using monetary policy is like managing hypertension by asking the heart to pump less blood rather than by exercising more. Ask any doctor for a remedy he will certainly say that your body needs exercise to counter high BP and not drugs to slow your heart down. But our regulators are not "doctors" they have their monetary policy blinkers on all the time.

what next? INR (sorry I still do not have the font to write the symbol of the Rupee) will weaken to offset for the negative real interest rate for another six months and then if we see some inflation management (monetary or otherwise) we may see a stop to the rupee losing value.

This, along with the money due to be pulled out from emerging markets, thanks to the new act signed by Obama will lead to depressed markets for the next six months. a recovery for the markets is seen only later.

A review of the economy is expected on the 26th evening. The shape of things to come will be decided later. But, since it is an RBI event and therefore a monetary event, it may not give any medicine for the disease of low investment and low supply kind of situation we are in.

Till then short a few August futures and make money.

Annual Credit Policy and its effects.

The Reserve Bank of India has come out with its annual policy document which we popularly refer to as the credit policy. This time theRBI has maintained the bank rate at 6.0% repo at 4.75% and reverse repo at 3.25%. It has also maintained the CRR at 5% of the net time deposits. The GDP forecast has been pegged at 6% and inflation is being expected to hover at 5%. RBI also expects that the gross fiscal deficit to be at 6.8% up from 2.7% in 2007-08 and 6.2% in 2008-09.
What does all this mean to the common man and to the person who would like to invest his money in his own business or the business managed by somebody through the stock exchange? let's take a hard look at this issue.

If the Government thinks that inflation is to hover around 5% and the popular discounting rate is 4.75% then it is committing itself to a regime of negative real interest rates. This is bound to result in capital flight, capital flight means that FIIs (the temporary or the hedge fund type) are bound to pull out part of their money weakening the Rupee and strenghtening the Dollar. A weaker rupee will mean fuel prices will go up in India and bring down the profitability of oil companies. Exporters like software companies and other export oriented companies will do well due to the competitive pricing available to them.

Capital flight could also result in sudden contraction of the money market making liquity remote and thus pushing down inflation. But, that is just a pipe dream given the way the Indian economy operates. Indian economy has more resilience and is bigger in the unorganized sector than the organized sector, that will increase the woes of the government by supplying more and more of M3 for the government to keep absorbing if the government wants to keep a check on liquidity.

Another pertinent point that has been brought out time and again by various experts is about the inflation based on WPI and CPI. This time the RBI document itself has thrown its hands up in despair and is wondering why WPI and CPI are not showing positive correlation as they were earlier. The answer is simple! people have changed their consumption habit and manufacturers have changed their consumption habits too, but the RBI has not changed its basket of commodities for a long time. Times are changing but the measures are not changing with the times and thats the trouble!!

Stock markets have been having a great time for the time being. Technically speaking, the nifty has to cross and close above 4640 to signal a distinct break out. If the NIFTY breaks out then we can look forward to going back to the old highs of 6000 on the NIFTY. Fundamentally, things are not so rosy, with negative real interest rates, weakening Rupee, a large fiscal deficit and a ruling PE of 20, its going to be hard for the markets to put up a brave face and trudge the bull mountain.

From here the view is more pessimistic than optimistic.

Stimulus package completed?

Remember? I had written about the stimulus package on december 4th. After that I thought that I should take a break in posting data. The entire package came in two stages and now the petrol and diesel prices cut will also come in two phases. Indian polity probably does not believe that the current slowdown is for real therefore the speed of response is that slow.
All through Indian contemporary history economists have derisively chided our economy and called it the hindu rate of growth.
Let us spend some time on this phenomenon of hindu rate of growth.
Indian inaction is legendary by now. Inaction in war, inaction in peace and inaction in strategy. One of our erstwhile Prime Ministers famously quoted "deciding not to do anything is also a decision". Our politicians, most of whom are lawyers are used to biding time and asking for adjournements in courts of law. They bring this innate trait to the governance table and wish away the problems thinking that time is the greatest healer. Since these lawyers are used to asking for time and biding time theie cases and thier governments bide time till the defendant or in this case the economy dies on its own.
Economies do not die as people have their own ingenuity for survival. They somehow survive based on their "jugad" (thats the hindi word for improvisation). This "jugad" keeps the Indian economy from going to the ruins. Since, government is ambivalent about the economy the entrepreneurs themselves find ways to prosper. This leads to slower growth with no incentive to grow faster and farther.
That's why we have the hindu rate of growth. India was pushed by the IMF to liberalise, privatise and globalise its economy as the economy was in trouble, now that the troubles are over and as our ex-FM said "A finance minister of any country would be ready to give his right hand for a slowed down growth of 7% in GDP". Complacency has set in, Government is counting months in power, elections are around the corner and government bides time letting prices to go south (PRICES ARE NOT GOING SOUTH BECAUSE OF SUPPLY AUGMENTATION BUT BECAUSE OF REDUCED CONSUMER CONFIDENCE AND REDUCED EARNINGS) thinking that lower inflation will be good for a return to power for the ruling alliance.
The ruling alliance needs to know that people of India want action not inaction. With the proliferation of communication networks, it is impossible to gag people and run the government on rumour mills and PR programmes. Decisive action is needed and it can only come from men of action. So where are our men of action can anybody stand up to be counted?

THE CRR CUT

CRR has been cut to 6.5% bringing in 40000 crores in the market. Banks have been asked to lend the money. Lets see where they could end up lending....
If you were running a bank...
Would you lend to the farmers for buying seeds, tractors, harvesting equipment, hauling equipment, etc. only to be told later that you can forget the loan and it will converted to a 10 year govt bond earning you a measly 7%?
Would you lend to a small scale industrial entrepreneur who does not know what are accounts and who would hide all his misdoings as stock/inventory in his balance sheet. would you finance his junk called inventory and wait till he defaults and then reschedule his loan so that it does not pop up as NPA on your books?
Would you lend to the sophisticated corporate who would indulge in speculation in real estate setting up useless malls in the remotest of places, where people do only window shopping?
Would you lend to Mutual funds who are facing redemption pressures and holding stocks which have come down 80% of their purchase price. Most of them junk as they were bought chasing unrealistic dreams?
Would you lend to salaried class who are already peeved at their finances and are in no need of more loans?
Would you raise credit card limits, lend for two wheelers, personal loans, etc and write away all the money?
What would you do with this liquidity?
Is liquidity the problem? Is Inflation the problem? Is complacency that "India has slowed its growth to 7.5%" a problem?
This Diwali seems to be more of a Diwala than Diwali.
By the way expect some relief from the markets tomorrow on the back of the CRR cut. But global cues will be bad as always and will act as dampeners.