A few stray thoughts and a few general observations and a few points of view (all my own work), like the iconic Busybee used to say…
Like, in the span of barely two weeks, between May 22 and June 2, GoI has suddenly moved the needle on disinvestment with a series of OFS. First 8% of Central Bank, then 2% of Coal India, then 6% of NHPC. Sadly, all three were trading close to their 52-week lows. So, I’m wondering, did the government just get generous towards investors? Or has its responses to the volatile oil market fueled a fire under its seat? Or what?
Like, has anyone noticed that there’s no fan-fare/chest-thumping around GST collections lately? After years of hearing about record breaking collections, month after month, should we worry that this radio silence on a slower growth rate means GoI is worried?
Like, the Union Budget for FY27 raised capital expenditure by another 11.5% while disinvestment targets have not been met for many years. So, if we’re not selling the family silver to fix the house, who’ll pick up the tab? Should we believe that generous household contributions of the RBI and state-owned banks (in the form of bumper dividends) will cover it? Or has the family accountant quietly secured an increase in the credit limit?
Like, a couple of days ago MoSPI informed us that India's GDP grew by a robust 7.7% in FY26. That’s good news. But then why are some reports suggesting that aggregate corporate earnings growth (EPS) slowed to around 10%, during the same time? Confusing, na?
All these contradictions in the numbers! Are we causing them by reading too much into the numbers? Or misreading them? Like the Nobel laurate Ronald Coase reportedly observed, "If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything."
This post is a humble attempt to pay homage to the late, great literary artist, Behram Contractor, who always called it like he saw it.
𝐷𝑖𝑠𝑐𝑙𝑎𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑟: 𝐹𝑜𝑟 𝑖𝑛𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑝𝑢𝑟𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑛𝑙𝑦. 𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑𝑛'𝑡 𝑏𝑒 𝑠𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑎𝑠 𝑎 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑜𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑢𝑦/ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑑/𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑐𝑘𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑖𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑜𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑏𝑑 𝑎𝑛𝑦𝑜𝑛𝑒'𝑠 𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠.
