Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Re at 41.85, inflation may come down

A globally-distressed dollar is turning out to be good news for Indians. With the dollar coming under pressure against most major currencies, the rupee has surged to close at a nine-year high of 41.85/86 against the dollar, up from Friday’s 42.51.

The global weakness of the dollar, coupled with the resumed inflows from foreign institutional investors (FIIs) and the tightening of domestic rates will ensure that traders buy the rupee, while the dollar is sold. A stronger rupee would ease inflation, as it brings down the cost of imports — particularly of crude oil. Indians will also not feel the global rise in gold prices as most of the increase will be offset by a cheaper dollar. For individuals, a weaker dollar means cheaper foreign holidays and the possibility of a fall in prices of imported electronics.

IT majors like TCS have been bracing for a weakening dollar. TCS on Monday announced that it has obtained a $1-billion hedge at a price range of 43.5-44.00. However, small exporters who do not have opportunity to hedge will be worst hit.

Clothing Manufacturers’ Association of India president Premal Udani said: “It’s already come to a stage where I might have to close down my factories. I have to quote 10% higher price and no one will be willing to buy at that price.” He reckons that many textile manufacturers are already exporting at a loss, because textile exporters work at margins lower than 10% and buyers aren’t willing to trade downwards from last year’s prices. The biggest exporters in the four sectors normally wouldn’t cover more than 50% of their foreign currency exposure. The textile industry foresees a drop of 20% in export targets for the fiscal ending March 2008, down to $10 billion from an expected $12 billion.

A currency appreciation of 10% will be hard to overcome, even as exporters managed to override the appreciation over the last year. “Over the past year, industries were able to cope with appreciation as well as a reduction in peak import duty to 7.5% due to increased productivity,” says Ajit Ranade, chief economist, Aditya Birla Group.

Traders felt that there is a strong likelihood that the central bank could be deriving comfort from the dollar weakening in offshore markets. Unless the RBI starts intervening aggressively in the forex market, the rupee is likely to continue strengthening against the dollar. As recently as July 2006, the rupee had touched a low of 47 against the dollar.

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Equities vs Equity Funds: A cost-benefit analysis

India has truly become a tax haven. If you are willing to take market-related risks, you can arrange your affairs in such a fashion that irrespective of the size of your funds, you do not have to pay even one single rupee as tax, legally!

Successive recent finance ministers, with a view to giving a boost to the share market, have doled out many tax concessions to the income from:

(i) Equities traded on a recognised stock exchange in India, and

(ii) Equity-based MF schemes.

Now, all that you have to do is to park all your investible funds in either of these two avenues and relax. The dividends are tax-free, and so are the long-term capital gains. The only question that needs an answer is — which of the two avenues should you choose?



Table 1 above presents a comparative gist of all the currently prevalent structure of equities and equity-based MF schemes.

Mutual Funds

There are so many definitions for mutual funds some of them are :
These are mutually owned funds invested in diversified securities. Shareholders are issued certificates as evidence of their ownership and participate proportionately in the earnings of the fund.
An investment company that pools money and can invest in a variety of securities, including fixed-income securities and money market instruments.
An investment company that pools the money of many individual investors and uses it to buy a diversified portfolio of securities.

stile there are so many definitions.