NSE Nifty may drift towards 5,000 levels on falling market multiples and earnings downgrades.

The blog is an extract from my article in Business Standard on the earnings season and the outlook for India Inc in FY14...

Mr. Chidambaram has made his arithmetic work in Budget 2013-14. While many of our expectations were met, can’t help feel that the Budget has missed out on several counts. The market didn’t respond well on Budget day. Whether the economy responds or not, remains to be seen.

We take it as a foregone conclusion that the Finance Minister will deliver a reform-centric Budget in the wake of the sustained country downgrade scare. In our opinion, the FM cannot even afford a Budget which is termed as a non-event, leave alone a bad one. Here’s what Mr. P Chidambaram is likely to do…

The newly introduced Rajiv Gandhi Equity Savings Scheme (RGESS) is a fantastic opportunity for first time investors to save tax and benefit from equity participation in the long term. The problem is that there’s hardly any awareness about this scheme among the target population

Pessimists will always find a bagful of excuses to worry. If the supposed ‘end of the world’ theory is shrugged off with 2012 behind us, then doomsday predictors may now turn to the so called ominous number 13 in the New Year. In reality, it’s a case of seeing the proverbial glass ‘half full’ or ‘half empty’. Personally, I see good reason to be hopeful for equities in 2013...

During the course of our field exposure as part of the FLAME initiative, we have come to acknowledge the fact that the process of spreading financial awareness begins with exploding quite a few myths about financial literacy, which are more deep-rooted in the minds of common people than what meets the eye…

The immediate support for the Nifty is 5,625, which is a multiple support, based on coincidence of the 50 daily moving average

There is lot of steam left for the stock market in the coming months. The Government’s new found vigour for decision making is likely to continue. The ‘risk on’ trade will be an extended one after the open ended quantitative easing announced in September. Already FII flows have crossed $18bn ytd, one of the highest run rates witnessed in several years. Whether this is the start to a new bull market is open for debate. Nevertheless, the current situation presents a tactical opportunity for equities, not to be missed, especially in quality stocks outside the benchmark indices.

“The whole thing is that ki bhaiya sabse bada rupaiya” - Many are divided on their analysis of the Rupee’s continuing fall. What we really need to do is to attack the root cause, not merely look to treat the symptoms