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A month after finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented her maiden Union Budget, stock markets fell like a pack of cards with foreign investors pulling out Rs 15,000 crore in the month of July alone. The surcharge on the super rich announced in the Union Budget has set off alarm bells among investors. But it is not the foreign investors that the government should be worried about, there are larger macro-economic issues that require urgent remedial measures, believe experts who deliberated on ‘The Economy – 1 Month After Budget’ at the 11th edition of The Finapolis Knowledge Series held on August 8.

The panel comprised Mohan Guruswamy, economist and political analyst, Saumen Chakraborty, president and CFO of Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, Yogesh Bhat, senior vice-president-investments of ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company and Puja Mehra, a senior journalist and author.

Kingshuk Nag, former resident editor of The Times of India, who moderated the discussion said although there is no pessimism, the optimism has definitely tapered.

Mohan Guruswamy, economist and political analyst, said the Union Budget missed the strong intent to transform India into a $5 trillion economy and wondered why the super rich should not be taxed. “It doesn’t matter if the FIIs come and go, one should be worried if the FDI money goes out,” he said.

Puja Mehra said, “For three years, the GDP growth has been slowing down. The slowdown was not an outcome of Balance of Payment (BoP) crisis or increase in global oil prices. This was not an outcome of external shocks. This was an outcome of policy failures and cumulative effect of successive governments not continuing the reform process led to the slowdown.”

To Kingshuk Nag’s question whether the slowdown was indeed an outcome of internal shocks, Saumen Chakraborty said, “More than the slowdown what bothers me most is the sentiment or the business confidence index. I see a drastic drop in business confidence index pre-budget to post-budget.”

On ‘why the economy is slowing down and how can it be accelerated’, Yogesh Bhat attributed it to the festering tri- balance sheet problem — the balance sheets of the government, corporates and individuals.

One way to revive economy is to kick-start investments. The other thing that the government should do is stop tax terrorism, felt Puja Mehra but Kingshuk Nag wondered whether “the government should behave like a school master with a cane or behave like a father”, sending everyone into a burst of laughter.

Kick starting real estate and MSME sectors can boost the economy, pointed out Yogesh Bhat while Saumen Chakraborty thought the government needed to restore trust. All the panelists agreed that the government should unleash animal spirits to revive the economy.

India may well be the fastest growing major economy globally, but it faces serious headwinds with weak macroeconomic data, slowing growth, lower private investment farm crisis, growing joblessness and declined demand, experts said while deliberating on ‘The challenges ahead for BJP 2.0’ at The Finapolis Knowledge Series held on June 17, 2019.

Panelists Nimesh Chandan, head of equities at Canara Robeco, Himanshu, associate professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, M R Vikram, chartered accountant and partner of M Anandam and Co, and C Parthasarathy, chairman of the Karvy Group discussed some of the key macro-economic issues that the BJP 2.0 will have to address during the next five years and offered some solutions. The discussion was moderated by former resident editor of The Times of India, Kingshuk Nag.

C Parthasarathy, chairman of the Karvy Group, said consumer spending over the years has declined substantially and no concerted attempt was made in employment generation.

Himanshu, associate professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, thinks the economic challenges of the BJP 2.0 are no different from the ones BJP 1.0 faced in the last five years. The two additional challenges in the BJP 2.0 are the farm crisis and job creation.

Nimesh Chandan, head of equities at Canara Robeco, said the complex GST and the unilateral decision of demonetization impacted businesses, demand, capex growth and capacity utilization.

M R Vikram, chartered accountant and partner of M Anandam and Co, one real challenge that the BJP 2.0 has to face is the crisis of credibility that the government has created for itself.

More than the budget, the stock markets are looking forward to the elections right now, said some of the experts at the ninth edition of The Finapolis Knowledge Series held in Hyderabad on February 12, 2019.

The Finapolis Knowledge Series is an endeavour by the Karvy group to spread awareness on a variety of topics of interest to businesses, investors and individuals.

In the ninth edition, four panelists deliberated on the topic “India’s Growth Story: From Budget To Elections”. The panel comprised Aarati Krishnan, consulting editor for Value Research and the Hindu Group, Shubham Agarwal, founder and CEO of fintech firm Quantsapp, M.R. Vikram, chartered accountant and partner of M Anandam and Co, and C. Parthasarathy, chairman of the Karvy Group. The discussion was moderated by former resident editor of Times of India, Kingshuk Nag.

“The market was not very excited about the budget. It got absorbed as if the market was already expecting it to happen. The markets enjoy events. If the Narendra Modi-led government returns to power in the elections, the July budget will not be an event for the markets. However, if the government changes there might be a dramatic difference as the focus area may shift completely,” said Shubham Agarwal.

“The stock market should not give too much importance to this budget. It wasn’t very upset during budget day and did not move wildly. The focus would be on who comes to power and whether there is a coalition,” said Aarati Krishnan.

“There is an open school of thought that believes that as economies mature, the dividing line between the government and the economy is very clear and irrespective of who comes to power, the economy will continue on its growth path. That is the established understanding of economic growth. Hence, no matter who comes to power in July, it will have very little impact on the economy even if the markets feel some pressure,” said C. Parthasarathy.

Not just the general elections in 2019, but the state elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in the end of the year are going to play an important role in determining the stock market’s trajectory this year, said experts at the eighth edition of The Finapolis Knowledge Series held in Hyderabad on July 27.

The Finapolis Knowledge Series is an endeavour by the Karvy group to spread awareness on a variety of topics of interest to businesses, investors and individuals.

In the eighth edition, four panellists deliberated on the topic “Bulls, Bears and Politics: The Impact of Politics on Stock Markets”. The panel featured Manish Gunwani, chief investment officer of Reliance Mutual Fund, Rajat Jain, chief investment officer at Principal Mutual Fund India, R Srinivasan, editor of The Hindu Business Line, and Nadendla Manohar, former speaker of the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly.

In the keynote address, V Ganesh, CEO of Karvy Computershare, said the government is likely to boost expenditure in infrastructure before the elections, which will impact the markets.

“The market will be looking at two factors in the run-up to the elections — how the political alliances evolve and the three state elections of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in November and December. The existing government has a lot of seats in this belt. Even the vote swings will be analysed threadbare to get a sense of how things are moving. Any news of alliance in the states will have a certain impact on the markets,” said Manish Gunwani.

“Markets would like predictability and certainty,” said Rajat Jain.

“Domestic investors do not like to be a part of uncertainty and hence, they only participate after the elections,” said R Srinivasan.

Agreeing with other panellists that the markets look for stability in governance, Nadendla Manohar said, “The markets doing well is a reflection of the economy. However, there are several other issues other than political ones at play in the markets. The agrarian sector is badly hit and the farmers believe that the government has not done enough. Whatever they have done in the form of the recent minimum support price programme has come too late. These factors will play an important role in the markets and in politics this year,” he said.

All panellists agreed that in the election year markets do well and eventually what happens depends on the budget.

“There a lot of participation of retail investors who comprise more than half of mutual fund assets, at present. A good chunk of this is also on equity. These make the political parties more accountable,” Rajat Jain said.

The evening ended with the audience seeking answers from the panellists on the impact of geo-political tensions on the Indian equity markets and the overall political scenario.

The cosy relationship between the government and industrial houses can be one of the primary reasons for the rise in non-performing assets of the banking sector which is under the control of the government, said experts at the panel discussion on ‘The Economy: Will it be a roller coaster ride?’ organised by Karvy as part of ‘The Finapolis Knowledge Series’.

The panel discussion featured economic and political analyst Mohan Guruswamy, Santanu Mukherjee, former MD of State Bank of Hyderabad, and Vetri Subramaniam, group president and head equity of UTI Asset Management Company Ltd.

“The banking sector is in a state of crisis and while the RBI has been sleeping, the government has not cracked the whip,” said Guruswamy. He said the political system needed to be reformed to prevent siphoning of funds.

There is also a need to integrate use of technology to crack down on tax defaulters. “In Europe, if you are a tax payer, you will get a notice from the IT department with your social security number and the tax you are expected to pay,” said Mukherjee. A similar system could do wonders in India.

“One of the primary concerns of the economy is that there is not enough credit to lend to genuine borrowers. The lending ability of banks is constrained and to some extent, growth also gets constrained and this in turns limit’s the economy’s potential to grow,” said Subramaniam.

Deviating from the popular perception that the Union Budget would be a populist one, panelists speaking at the 6th edition of The Finapolis Knowledge Series organized by the Karvy Group at Park Hotel on January 11 agreed that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley would focus on spending more to create employment opportunities.

Karvy Group chairman and Managing Director C. Parthasarathy, who was one of the panelist speaking on ‘Will Budget 2018 Kickstart Growth and Employment?’, said the Union Budget would be growth oriented. Other speakers were chartered accountant M.R Vikram, Editorial Director of Business Standard A.K. Bhattacharya and Partner in Gandhi and Gandhi chartered accountant firm Ajay Gandhi.

Although there is no magic mantra for success in start-ups, the best formula to get started is it to “Just do It”, said the panelists at the 5th edition of The Finapolis Knowledge Series organised by the Karvy Group on August 24 at The Trident, Hyderabad.

Popular names in the business Dr. Srikanth Sundararajan, Mr Rahul Narvekar, Mr Srinivas Kollipara and Ms Lakshmi Nambiar spoke on the topic “Startups: Is There a Formula for Success” amidst an august gathering of entrepreneurs, academicians and students.

The fourth edition evaluated what future of India holds in terms of opportunities and possible areas of challenges in the environment of rapid globalisation. Panelists were of the opinion that India can play a major role in the global space in spite of China being seen as a rising economy and tough competitor in world markets.

The third edition of the Finapolis series witnessed tremendous footfall especially due to well-known panelists. The discussion centered around common stock market myths and analysed investor speculation while also being suggestive that equities remains the best bet, being one of the strongest in the asset class.

The second edition discussed the myriad after effects of a unified tax structure which was then under talks to be implemented in India: the Goods and Services tax. The discussion debated if this new tax structure could be India’s new mantra for growth.

The first edition of the series was a discussion on how the Indian budget could boost employment opportunities and trigger growth in national income.