Author: CP

Morgan Stanley recommendations are following the Indian market but not lading it ;-). Morgan has upgraded India to Equal weight from Underweight.

India’s quant model ranking has improved from #19 to #13 making it the biggest gainer in rank on the month. India has had a major jump in its relative EPS growth (#6 to #2) indicating a less severe deterioration on these metrics over the last month than other EM markets. On the trailing P/E (#17 to #11) and P/CE metrics (#13 to #10) India has also improved significantly.

However, India remains locked at the bottom of the asset class on the dividend yield metric. The market’s technical ranking has also improved (#14 to #9).

You can recall, Morgan Stanley has got many forecasts about India wrong. Former Morgan Analyst Andy Xie had told India will slip into Bear Phase in 2006 but it made an all time high in Jan-08.

For the week ending 6 Dec ’08, headline (wholesale price index, WPI) inflation fell to 6.84%, beating our and street estimates by large margins.

For the first time, Primary prices fell, backed by easing in food articles (food grains, fruits, vegetables and condiment and spices). Non-food articles also witnessed a fall. We expect the current trend to continue, further easing primary price inflation.

Except food products, all the major components witnessed a fall. Basic metals, alloy, chemicals and transport equipment fell. The week under review saw cuts in the administered fuel (petrol and diesel) as well as non-administered fuel.

Going forward, Inflation is softening ahead of our expectations. The cut in cenvat, a stronger rupee and the pass-through of falling international commodity prices now indicate that India might slide into a technical deflation much sooner than our earlier forecast.

We have finally got the list of Advance Tax Numbers from IT Authorities in Mumbai and here is the picture.

For Q3FY09, PSU Banks led by SBI, Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Central Bank of India have remitted higher Advance tax compared to Q3FY08.

Private Banks [ICICI / HDFC Bank] advance tax payments were below Q3FY08. The worst was from Mahindra & Mahindra which has paid mere Rs 4 crore compared to 60 crore a year ago. Ultratech and Tata Steel have also paid significantly lesser tax. The following chart shows the numbers.