The free food casino.

"India's sizzling stock rally just got hotter on Friday (12 January) with Sensex and Nifty breaking its previous all-time high touched on the New Year day. Sensex ended the day with a gain of 847 points at 72,568 points while Nifty crossed the 21,900 level led by gains in heavyweights TCS and Infosys." "In dollar terms, the Indian stock market was near the $4.5 trillion and looks poised to take over Hong Kong as the world's fourth largest hub of equities." ET. Markets are expected to rise even further as, "Led by strong topline and improved profitability, at least 23 companies are likely to see their profits more than doubling year-on-year (YoY) in the December quarter, according to the estimates given by Motilal Oswal Financial Services." ET. Even though, "Private final consumer expenditure (PFCE) growth is estimated tumbling to 4.4% this year from 7.5% in FY23," and "Nominal per capita consumer expenditure growth fell to 8.5% in FY24 from 13.8% last year. This plays out in a context of steep drawdown of household financial savings - to 5.1% of GDP in FY23 from 7.2% in FY22 - and a rapid increase in  financial liabilities to 5.8% of GDP in FY23 from 3.8% the year before." FE. "The Indian economy is facing the challenge of lower consumption growth as high inflation is impacting people in the lower income bracket," and "the challenge is to bring down inflation so that people can have more disposable income in their hands," said Devendra Kumar Pant. Naturally, "Foreign direct investment (FDI) into India has slumped in the past year," as "net foreign investment in the year through September fell to $13 billion, according to calculations from HSBC Holdings Plc, down from $38 billion in the same period from a year earlier." ET. Why are the markets soaring? Because individual investors are being drawn to stocks. "Mutual fund assets under custody (AUC)  crossed the Rs 50-trillion mark at Rs 50.7 trillion for the first time," even as "debt witnessed outflows to the tune of Rs 755.5993 billion." Mint. While investing in stocks through mutual funds, punters are also investing directly. "As the domestic equity keeps on making new peaks every other day," "the total new Demat account openings touched a new high of 4.2 million, taking the number of total Demat accounts to 139.3 million." ET. Demat, or dematerialised, accounts hold shares and securities in electronic format, thus eliminating paperwork. Bajaj Finserv. Not just shares, people are gambling in derivative markets. "Against Rs 5 billion invested in NSE's secondary market, direct retail pumped Rs 505 billion into equity futures and equity options during April-September. The economy is doing great and the recovery is not K-shaped as others are saying, said SK Ghosh. As the government has promised free food grains to 813.5 million people for five years (pib.gov.in), Rs 8.5 trillion has shifted down from the top 10% of the population and so, "50% of the overall expenditure will be done by 90% of the people which before the pandemic was at 65%". ET. Mr Ghosh is chief economist at State Bank of India which is controlled by the government. Is free food a sign of wealth? India is now a giant casino as people gamble in shares and derivatives. Care for a flutter?