Hello Espresso Lovers! We’re back with the latest brew! Firstly, a big, heartfelt thank you for all the love, appreciation and feedback for the Independence Day special. It truly means a lot. We’ll only do our best to ensure that the chuckle on your face stays all through every single edition!
The US national debt has now crossed $40 trillion. In numbers, that is 40,000,000,000,000. On any other day, you’d ask, trillion me kitne zero hote hai pata bhi hai? (Do you even know how many zeroes a trillion has?) To be honest, it had to be googled to write it here as well!
So how does the Trump Administration plan to bring it down? Had it been rhetoric, everyone would have had some answer or the other. But here, Scott Bessent, the Treasury Secretary, gave an answer that left everyone scratching their heads. “Global growth!” is what he told CNBC. Maybe once they find new ways of how Iran came begging for a deal, or once the grand White House ballroom is constructed, they could look to find an answer to that number. Else, over to the next administration! Sannu ki!
Back home, CAS continues to dominate market discourse. No other subject would have garnered as much attention as it has in just three weeks of being implemented. So much so that the SEBI Chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey had to step up and make it amply clear to everyone that CAS IS HERE TO STAY. Within hours of him putting his foot down, the regulator busted a CAS manipulation scandal!
Two entities were busted and barred from the securities market until further orders for improper gains during the Sensex weekly expiry on August 13. See more on that here. That order came at a record speed. Less than four working days. In times when cases take an eternity to resolve or which aren’t resolved even after an eternity, SEBI’s pace meant two things – One, they mean business, and two, don’t angry the regulator!
The second from SEBI was its annual study of retail participation in the futures and options market. Some things do not change, even if change is the only constant. Nine out of 10 traders lost money in F&O last year, nine out of 10 traders lost money in F&O in this year as well. See more on that here. But the highlight was this one little nugget – Women traders are around 17% of the total count and their loss-making ratio, is lower, compared to men! Who dares to question the fact that women are better money managers then men?
Modern medicine may just have had its Eureka moment. A personalised cancer vaccine developed jointly by Merck and Moderna showed positive results in a late-stage trial. Two important aspects – the fact that the Melanoma relapse does not occur within the usual 2-3 year timeframe after the first removal, and the cancer does not spread to other parts of the body- were both achieved in this study! Moderna became a household name during the COVID-19 pandemic, and this could well be its comeback story with the stock surging 177% in just a single session on the news. Here’s our in-house doctor Ekta Batra breaking it down for you and explaining the significance of this announcement.
The market has done nothing in the last one week. No reaction to rising oil prices, bond yields, SEBI studies, CAS orders, nothing. It is almost as it after all the action it has seen during the first six months of the year, it does not want to go anywhere. All of last week, barring Thursday, was an absolute snooze fest with the Nifty grinding down, but not moving convincingly in either direction. However, there is a certain section of the market that is quietly doing its job and ensuring that investors are laughing all the way to the bank.
The IPO market has sprung out of nowhere and come to light in the last two months. A total of 34 IPOs have already come about between July and August, and more are lined up for next week. The bigger story is the fact that the last six IPO listings have delivered an average listing premium of around 35%. Technocraft, Dhoot Transmission, Milky Mist, Behari Lal Engineering, Shiprocket, have all delivered handsome returns to shareholders. In fact, Behari Lal Engineering nearly doubled from its issue price. The bulls would hope that at least this aspect of the market sustains, even if the Nifty goes nowhere for the rest of the year.
The US debt hit $40 trillion, the Treasury Department intervened in the bond market, bond yields cooled off but then are back at elevated levels – So much has happened in the US last week, but the one man, conspicuously absent from making a comment or a remark, has been the new Fed Chair, Kevin Warsh. We told you a couple of editions back about how he is walking on a tightrope, but his silence on all of this has only led to more questions than answers. The street would hopefully hear from him next week during the Jackson Hole Symposium, where all the central bankers gather and deliberate upon the happenings in the global economy.
Raamdeo Agrawal of Motilal Oswal is very happy with the earnings season and believes that this is the start of the earnings reacceleration. He expects the Nifty EPS to be at ₹1,450 next year and expects the capital markets theme to have strong growth potential due to minimum capex requirements. He also sees the AMC industry continuing to grow at 20% or more in the future. Watch the entire interview right here.
It is time to take your leave on this edition of Markets Espresso. We’ll be back next week with the latest brew, hoping that the market wakes up from its slumber and the IPOs continue to deliver shareholder wealth! Until then, do like, share, subscribe and follow us on our social media platforms. Hasta la vista!
