Thursday, July 09, 2015

Is India in danger of catching China disease?

It is hard to know what is happening in China as its government controls all information. Analysis by foreigners, based outside China, depends on their biases. China's stock market has plunged by around 30% since June although it is still higher year on year. About 45% of companies have suspended trading in their stocks so investors cannot get out. More than $3 trillion have been wiped off the market capitalization of companies. The government has stopped Initial Public Offerings and asked 21 brokerages to buy shares worth a total of $19.3 billion. Even after the fall companies are valued at an eye-watering 59 times their reported earnings. The meteoric rise of the stock market was due to the government encouraging citizens to buy shares so that retail investors comprise 80% of the market. Most of them were trading on money borrowed from banks, called margin trading, and as the value of their holdings have dropped it has triggered a forced sell off by the banks, to reduce their own risks. The market had gone up by 150% in the last year so a correction is good but it maybe dangerous for the Communist Party because it makes it look incompetent and tarnishes the gloss of omnipotence. The government does not want people demonstrating on the streets so it is doing everything to support the market just as Japan did 20 years ago. Some people see China's problems as bigger than that of Greece while others see a parallel with the US stock market just before the crash in 1929 which led to the Great Depression. While we would be ecstatic if China crashes, resulting in a civil war with division of the country and independence for Tibet, what about India. The Indian stock market has risen by 90% in the last one year but 70% of investment is by foreign investors. Less than 2.5% of Indians invest in the stock market probably because they need the regular income of term deposits in banks but mainly because they do not trust our markets or our companies. From 2008 till now value of shares of over 300 companies have fallen by over 90%. 80% of Indians believe that companies are corrupt. Earnings estimates of companies are falling although if the economy grows strongly, pulling poor people out of poverty, we could see a boom in earnings. Only 49% of companies fulfil proper disclosure practices. Because of low interest rates during the Congress Raj firms have borrowed vast sums of money which they are unable to repay because of lower profits. They have also borrowed from abroad without hedging against a fall in the rupee so if interest rate rises in the US many firms may have to default. They have only one solution which is for the RBI to lower interest rate in India but if wholesale prices have fallen by 2.5%, reducing input costs, and the retail prices have gone up by 5.1% then can we conclude that consumer prices have actually increased by 7.6%? The property price bubble is another story. We could end up like China, only poorer.

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