Rise With Profit: November Auto Sales, Info Edge FIR, Donald Trump's Threat To BRICS | Podcast

Good morning!

Happy Monday to you. This is the daily morning update from NDTV Profit and I'm Alex Mathew. Over the next few minutes we'll bring you up to speed with everything you need to know to start the new week ahead of the curve.

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The big talking point at the start of trade—something that could have a bearing on equity, bond and currency markets—is the latest economic growth data that came in after market hours on Friday. In case you missed it, India's GDP growth was projected to rise around 6.5% in the quarter ended September, but the number came in at a sluggish 5.4%. That's the lowest in seven quarters and is down from 6.7% in the first quarter of the year.

In a sense, some of this slowdown has been visible in the texture of corporate earnings you've seen recently, with many more disappointments than we've been used to seeing. Sluggishness was most evident in the manufacturing space, which expanded about 2.2% compared with 7.2% in the first quarter. There are wide expectations that the second half of the financial year will be better than the first, but economists have already started lowering their expectations for the full year.

GST Collections Rise

The latest data on goods and services tax collections lends itself to that narrative. There was an 8.5% increase in the collections for the month of November at Rs 1.82 lakh crore. The growth was mainly on account of domestic transactions, which grew 9.4% to Rs 1.40 lakh crore, while revenue from tax on imports rose about 6%.

November Auto Sales

It's the start of a new month and auto sales data for November has started trickling in. Maruti Suzuki India dispatched 10% more cars to dealerships in November compared with last year, amid lacklustre demand. Total sales stood at about 1.8 lakh units last month. The number was aided by strong export growth. In fact, domestic sales growth was only a little over 5%.

Total sales of Hyundai Motor India Ltd. fell in November 2024 despite a surge in rural volumes. Domestic sales were lower by 2.4%, while exports rose over 20%. SUVs continue to be the biggest segment for the company, making up nearly 69% of the total volume in November.

Meanwhile, Escorts saw its tractor sales drop nearly 10% in November because of a shift of major festive days to October, according to a release. The rest of the numbers will come through today and will round out the picture, particularly with the two-wheeler sales. It's been a tough few months for the auto companies, and November doesn't seem to have been different.

RBI MPC Meet This Week

The highlight, this week, is going to be the outcome of the meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Reserve Bank of India. As of last week, the consensus estimates had pointed to another pause on interest rates, but I won't be surprised if there is a reaction to the fall in growth. The only concern is that inflation, particularly in certain pockets, has been sticky and may not give the MPC too much room to cut rates.

Info Edge Files FIR Against Rahul Yadav

Info Edge, the parent company of the jobs listing portal Naukri, has filed a first information report against Rahul Yadav, the founder of its portfolio company 4B Networks, and others, alleging fraudulent misuse of funds. That's based on a stock exchange notification.

For context, in July last year, Info Edge initiated arbitration proceedings against Yadav's company after the startup failed to provide crucial information regarding its operations and management for a forensic audit. Before that took place, in December of 2022, Info Edge had written off its equity investment of Rs 276 crore in 4B Networks, citing excessive cash burn, liquidity issues and uncertainty regarding funding options.  

Donald Trump's Tariff Threat To BRICS

In international news, US President-elect Donald Trump, in his typical style, has warned BRICS nations, which includes India, that he would require commitments that they would not move to create a new currency as an alternative to using the US dollar and repeated threats to levy a 100% tariff if they did. The BRICS nations—as Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are collectively known—had discussed the issue of de-dollarisation at a summit in 2023.

US stocks ended a shortened trading session higher, while Treasury yields declined across the curve. Speculation that President-elect Donald Trump will temper his most extreme trade policies drove the dollar down. The yield on the 10-year Treasury is down to 4.21% as of this morning, from about 4.37% just about a week back. That's a positive sign for emerging equity markets.

In the Asia Pacific region, two of the three early risers have started in the green. The Nikkei 225, last I checked, was the outlier, down about 0.3%.

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