Lighting a fuse

The positive impact of the Union Budget 2015-16, which contains many path-breaking features, will be felt over the years

By Mohan Sule
Ever since the deregulation of the London financial markets by Margaret Thatcher in October 1987, every reform is expected to produce a Big Bang. Following the opening up India’s economy by the P V Narasimha Rao-Manmohan Singh duo in 1991, every budget since then is viewed as a make-or-break occurrence. The urge for lofty deliverables stems from the fact that the country is always in a crisis mode. The causes may vary, ranging from lack of rainfall, runaway public expenditure, galloping inflation to the after-effects of global catastrophes. Consequently, the collective will of the nation imposes on those at the helm mythical powers to bring order to the chaos, not one day at a time but at the stroke of a pen, unmindful that magnificent edifices that can withstand time are built brick by brick. There has to be a reason to undertake destruction to raise a new architecture. Britain was losing its preeminence as a global hub for doing business due to the outcry system for executing trades and fixed brokerage. India was on the verge of default and had to pawn its gold for foreign exchange to meet its import requirement. In present times, the corruption and the populist policies of the UPA government had turned off investors, plunging the currency to a new low. Hence, the hopes of a quick turnaround by those who had lost more than two years of their lives fighting price rise and stagnation had reached unrealistic proportions by the time Narendra Modi ascended to power. The report card so far: the Wholesale Price Index near zero, bidding for natural resources, infra projects on the fast-track, and initiatives such as Make in India, Digital India and Swatch Bharat launched to make India an attractive destination.

If the first budget of the new government in July 2014 was crammed with good intentions like cleaning the Ganga, setting up smart cities, running bullet trains and making India a magnet for religious tourism, this budget’s four cornerstones are financial inclusion, creation of jobs, building up of infrastructure to improve the quality of life, and tax transparency. The approach is to treat the root cause of inequality rather than the symptoms by offering curatives such as subsidies and guaranteed wages for digging holes leading to nowhere. The rural employment scheme has not been abandoned. In fact, the allocation to it has been increased, probably necessitated not only due to wider coverage of road and irrigation projects but also to make up for the deficient rainfall last year, which had led to slump in sales of consumer durables. As such, the pumping of more liquidity in rural areas could act as quantitative easing for FMCG, automobile, cement and steel makers and telecom services providers. An indirect fiscal stimulus will be cash transfers in lieu of subsidies and providing health, medical and pension benefits for a nominal premium. The idea of universal insurance coverage is path breaking like the Jan Dhan Yojna, the universal banking system. Similarly, the intention to bring in a bankruptcy code is a historic development. It will aid in creative destruction and evolution of new opportunities, so vital for a dynamic economy.


Clearly influenced by the role of venture capitalists in nurturing and sustaining Silicon Valley ideas, the Mudra Bank is a concept whose time had come. Despite the inroads by microfinance agencies, unorganized businesses have very few bankable avenues to rely on. The pampering of the poor and the marginalized is not at the expense of big companies. Another game changer is the offer of five 4,000-MW ultra mega power plants, with all clearances in place, to bidders. Other infra projects, usually victims of the crossfire between the industry and environmental ministries, too, can benefit from this novel concept. The scrapping of wealth tax and replacing it with surcharge on the income tax of the super rich will result in better compliance. An important step towards stability of the tax regime is the cut in corporate tax by 5% over four years in return of elimination of tax exemptions and doing away with retrospective taxation. The 2% increase in service tax along with higher freight for coal, cement and steel, will be inflationary in the short term but is a transition to the era of goods and service tax, which is 14%, from April 2016. Besides, GST will replace all other existing Central and state levies. If a realistic roadmap is drawn to nip benami transactions, it will indeed be one more visionary feature of the budget. The stock market, comfortable with cold numbers, appeared confused at a vision statement instead. It need not. The fallout from the budget will gradually gather momentum to create a transformational change in the way we are governed.

Opportunity in setbacks

The AAP win and the spy scandal in the capital should be used as springboards to illustrate the power of competition

By Mohan Sule
The sweep of the radical Aam Aadmi Party cloaked as an anticorruption crusader in the national capital has spooked the market. The impact was particularly severe on the two power distribution companies servicing the region. During its short stint a year ago, AAP had demanded an audit of the discoms by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. The idea was to spot instances of inflating profit to prod them to cut their consumer bills. The inference the market drew was that the statutory auditors could not be relied upon. Stocks of energy explorers suffered a setback on revelations that their officials were caught ferreting out policy papers from government offices. The episode revealed the pervasive role of the government in influencing the fluctuations in the bottom lines of oil and gas producers. The fear is that, in the aftermath of these two developments, caution could subsume courage. The fallout could be a slowdown in the pace of rollback of subsidies. Already the moderate increase in the minimum support price to farmers’ crop this year is being blamed for BJP’s poll debacle in an urban region like Delhi instead of acknowledging its contribution along with soft crude prices and deregulation of diesel to bring down the wholesale price index to below zero and the consumer prices index to the 5% level. Populist pressure is forcing the government to rethink the amendments to the land acquisition bill to ease buying of farmland to put up transport and industrial corridors through public-private partnership.

On the positive side, the crackdown on companies’ spies will accelerate the process towards transparency by both the government and the corporate sector. Companies will have to work out the cost-effectiveness of acquiring the rights to dig out natural resources. Service and pricing will determine the margin rather than monopoly status. With a healthy inflow of tax receipts due to more players, the government can concentrate on its social obligations. HDFC boss Deepak Parekh will not have room to complain about the difficulty in doing business even after the Modi Sarkar completing nine months. In fact, the prime minister can point to the changes in the housing finance sector to emphasis the point that market forces can be the best leveler. Atrocious practices like pre-payment penalty have faded and barriers to transfer the loan to another lender offering better terms have come down. Players have realized that lobbying with the government for favors and to create artificial controls to curb competition will not attract good discounting despite a bulging bottom line. A steel and power producer, with the promoter close to the erstwhile UPA regime, saw its market cap plunge after the Supreme Court cancelled coal blocks allotted since 1993. The stock has bounced back after the company won the bids for the same blocks it had to surrender. Many companies have reworked their business models to stay on top of the game. The IT sector has focused on exports. Had it concentrated on the domestic market, PSUs would have been the main clients. Pharmaceutical companies chained to tight controls in the domestic market have used their copycat skills to become cheap producers of generic drugs for the developed markets. Facing the onslaught of foreign competition, Bajaj Auto shifted gear to cater to overseas customers.

On the other side, the failure of the 2G spectrum auction in November 2012 to attract any bids for regions with a high base price is a reminder to the government that there is a limit to milking the corporate sector to bridge the fiscal deficit. The increase in tax revenue as the market expands due to healthy competition in the marketplace is a better solution to widen the tax base. Competition in buying coal and supplying electricity will moderate tariffs and also ensure uninterrupted supply the same way competition to buy land to put up projects in the healthcare, education and infrastructure space will benefit farmers rather than a law that makes it time-consuming to even put up a bid. The symmetric opportunity for wealth creation will boost valuations, like those of e-tailers, rather than by accessing confidential information. Consumers, too, will realize that competition and not subsidies will lead to efficiency, enabling reform-minded political parties to reclaim the space from fringe parties. Elimination of waiting lists to procure two-wheelers and telecom connections post reforms is the best illustration of the power of a level-playing field. The Delhi election results show that a lot of work has to be done to transform the prevalent socialist mindset accumulated over the last six decades of government being the provider of all essential services and at the same time keeping taxes low and using PSUs to provide lifelong low-paying jobs.

Timid love

The RBI’s cautious stance on interest rates has set back India’s recovery timetable


By Mohan Sule
The market is sensitive. At all times it looks for clues to determine future trends. Savvy stock pickers are alert to developments around the globe. A bumper wheat crop translates into soft prices, benefiting companies packaging foods. The rebuilding efforts following natural disasters lead to higher usage of metals and cement. A growing economy would be a copious consumer of fast food and talk time as well as decorative and industrial paints. Nowhere is thinking on the feet so essential than while tracking the yield curve. Supply and cost of money is vital to keep the wheels of the economy moving. Due to global integration, intervention by a central bank anywhere could have a positive impact at home but reverberate adversely elsewhere. Not surprisingly, central bankers are under round-the-clock scrutiny of the market. More subtle is their speech, more is the anxiety to uncover the nuances. However, of late, the statements are becoming ambiguous and open-ended. They seem to rely on historical data than act in anticipation of certain events. This is similar to treating a patient after falling sick rather than taking preventive action to ward off the illness. The US Federal Reserve, for example, has been repeating it will keep interest rates as low as possible till the need arises. The worry about the sustainability of the recovery of the domestic economy comes out clearly. The fall in oil prices will slow down or even stall the pace of growth of inflation to the targeted level of 2% by June to trigger a spike in interest rates. In the emerging markets, however, the pronouncement has been greeted with relief as dollar inflows in search of better yields will continue. But, for exporters, the volatility in the US economy is a cause of concern.

There is comfort that the Fed has spelt out its roadmap to raise interest rates. In that sense there is certainty about its action. However, the helplessness in charting the trajectory of growth and inflation due to confluence of international events is evident. The concern about the unpredictable undercurrents in the global economy is also on display in the actions of our central bank. It unexpectedly cut the lending rate by 25 basis points a couple of weeks before a scheduled policy meet after the wholesale price index slumped to near zero and consumer price index touched the 5% level in December. The market saw the action as the beginning of the rate-cut cycle. Yet, the Reserve Bank of India did not act at its sixth bimonthly review of the monetary policy early February. Instead it reiterated the old message that further easing of monetary policy would depend on data about disinflationary pressures. Also, the quality of fiscal consolidation as well as easing supply constraints of key inputs such as power, land, minerals and infrastructure would be key factors in determining future course. The first condition is understandable in view of the budget to be presented a few weeks later. What is puzzling is the second caveat. Infrastructure modernization is always a work in progress and has long gestation. Does this mean that, unless these two important criteria are met, the central bank will continue to tinker with reserve requirements of cash and government bond holdings?

Reading between the lines it is clear that the RBI has put the onus of economic revival on the government. Nonetheless, it has revealed why it decided to pause in carrying out further rate reduction. Banks have not passed on the earlier cut to customers. Their priority is cleaning up the balance sheet. Many have had to make higher provisions as some loans are beyond recovery. Another reason for the cautious stance was the looming hike in interest rates by the Fed, which could see tapering of inflow of foreign portfolio funds. Hence, the frenetic rush to build up the foreign currency chest. The market is not convinced. It believes rate cuts would enable hard-pressed borrowers to repay some of their loans. This would free funds of banks for lending. By lowering the statutory liquidity requirement of banks, the central bank seems to have acknowledged this problem. Whether banks will feel embolden to lend to infrastructure projects again when they are busy tackling their previous sour loans to this sector is debatable. Instead, another 50-bp cut in the lending rate might have prompted them to pass on at least some of the relief to new clients and at the same restructure a portion of the existing bad loans at softer rates to steadily chip at the mountain of non-performing assets. Improvement in market sentiment due to increase in consumption as a result could have attracted foreign investors. Buoyant equities would have fetched PSUs lined up for divestment better valuations, helping to bridge the fiscal deficit. By its timidity, the RBI has set back India’s recovery timetable.

Tale of 2 companies

The out-of-form TCS and HUL reveal the urgency of better deliveries by the central bank and the government

By Mohan Sule
At first glance, they do not even resemble chalk and cheese. One is an Indian company that is becoming transnational. The other is the Indian outfit of a multinational company. One has a dominant presence in an emerging sector, offering back-office tech solutions, while the other is an old warhorse persuading buyers to upgrade their lifestyles by consuming its products. TCS is known as a leading outsourcing supplier; HUL has outsourced most of its manufacturing to local enterprises. The fortunes of one swing with the movement of currency, while volatility in crude oil prices boost or cut the input costs of the other. Yet there are similarities in their operations. Both apparently run businesses that are called defensive by market folks. Banks need their ATMs to function even during a bear phase just as ordinary folks have to brush their teeth and bath irrespective of an economic downturn. Both are constituents of the broad market indices of the NSE and the BSE. They are run by professional managers. In quest of growth, both are rapidly expanding their footprints across geographies: one overseas, another at home. Of late, the two companies are increasingly changing their complexions to become cyclical plays. A slowdown in its export markets affects the prospects of one, while poor monsoon and high inflation result in resistance for the products of the other. With the economies across the globe getting tightly integrated, both encounter a bull and bust phase at the same time. Also, the foreign exchange market and the oil market are increasingly getting linked. Fall in oil prices bolsters the economies of the developed countries, the main market of TCS, as well as the domestic economy, the domain of HUL. At the same time, the local currency appreciates on good growth prospects, hurting the revenue of exporters. A strong currency encourages imports and intensifies competition in the domestic market.

The December 2014 quarter amplified the woes of TCS and HUL as both got caught in the crosscurrents of the global and local economies. Loss of consumer confidence was the major reason for the slowdown of the US and the Indian economies for the better part of 2014. However, the causes of the manifestation were different. US buyers had become risk averse after the collapse of home prices, while Indian users saw their disposable income shrink after spending on costly food items. TCS’s revenue was near flat over the September 2014 quarter and HUL’s volume growth slipped to 3% over the year. The software major had last recorded such a performance five years ago and the FMCG giant two quarters ago. HUL had to focus on volume rather than on pricing to drive even this tepid growth, while the highest attrition rate in six fiscals kept TCS afloat. The software services provider blamed the holiday season for the lackluster show. The consumer staples maker, which could increase its margin by a percentage point solely due to fall in price of an important input, attributed the late onset of winter and intense competition for the personal-care category nearly halving sales. Both the companies find themselves at a crossroads. Their markets have become price conscious after the turmoil in their economies.


The poor form of the two leaders in their categories, one a play on the export market and another on the domestic market, reflects the state of the economy. The Reserve Bank of India will have to accelerate its rate-cut cycle. This will encourage consumer spending and discourage short-term foreign investors from parking their funds in the country for higher yields. The upward pressure on the Indian currency will ease and give breathing space to the central bank instead of being overwhelmed by the dollar deluge, necessitating a mopping up operation to maintain the rupee’s competitiveness, which could trigger inflation. The delicate nature of recovery will reign in the finance minister from tampering with personal or capital gains taxes in the coming budget. With the rural market losing its growth momentum after deficient rainfall, there will have to be determined efforts to bring investment into these areas. The rural employment guarantee scheme has been modified to funnel money only into productive assets. The haste in passing the land acquisition ordinance now appears appropriate. If the PSU divestment program succeeds and a good amount of money collected from the telecom spectrum auction, there will scope for reduction in personal taxes. Falling oil prices have provided room to clean up the country’s balance sheet. The recent price correction could be an opportunity for investors to take a fresh look at these companies, which have the scale to claw back their way to leadership roles.

Changing lanes

To counter the possibility of slowing foreign inflows, the focus has to shift to boosting consumption to justify the rich equity valuations

By Mohan Sule
Is consumption going to replace liquidity-driven investment as the pivot for the economy to spin? Symptoms of the change in the mood of the market became noticeable after the equity market crash on 6 January 2014. Overriding the fears of the US Federal Reserve raising interest rates following the 5% growth of the US economy in the third quarter of last calendar was oil’s fall from grace. It pointed to the slowing of the world economy, particularly China, and triggered worries about what it meant for oil producing countries. Remittances from NRIs in the Gulf region form nearly 6% of India’s foreign exchange inflows. The contagion effect of the slowdown in consumption of oil could be as devastating as the 2008 meltdown of the financial markets, when credit dried up as lenders saddled with exotic derivatives, composed of home mortgages of varying degrees of default risks, were left with worthless securities on their balance sheets. The withdrawal of liquidity decelerated the growth engines around the world. The conclusion was that however attractive an economy, it needed inflow of cash to keep its wheels turning. Low interest rates in the US after the dotcom bubble bust at the turn of this century allowed investors to borrow cheap and stash the funds in high-interest rate emerging economies. Quantitative easing or the bond-buying program of the Fed following the collapse of some too-big-to-fail banks injected liquidity in the market when traditional avenues of borrowings had closed down.

The market did sulk after the announcement of the gradual phasing out of the QE programs. However, the Fed’s vow to keep rates near zero till the US economy was on an irreversible path of growth blunted concerns of credit turning scarce. Money poured into assets with the potential to beat inflation in the local economies and low interest rates in the developed world. In India and China, the flow was mainly into stocks and property. As a result, Shanghai and Mumbai were among the best performing markets in the emerging economies in 2014. Due to the Reserve Bank of India tightening lending norms to developers, the property market may not have a crash-landing like it is feared will happen in China, infamous for its financial institutions’ dodgy book keeping. The dangers of investment-led growth, without the backing of consumption, are now becoming evident in both the countries, which share the common trait of high savings rate. In India, manufacturing growth is lagging as reforms are yet to percolate to the grassroots. China is facing a slump as domestic consumption is unable to fill the gap created by the comatose exports markets. India’s wholesale inflation, majorly comprising the manufacturing sector, is down to zero, while retail inflation is sliding as the specter of drought and famine has receded despite deficient southwest and northeast monsoon.

Consumption falls when prices of goods and services increase at a pace faster than economic growth. Interest rates are hiked to cool inflation. The artificial barriers on supply results in underutilization of capacity, created during the boom period. Lowering of interest rates should indicate that the economy is not in a good shape and it needs liquidity injection. Instead, investors view the development favorably for stemming the outflow from equities. It is considered positive for sectors whose top line depends on borrowings by consumers. Hence, the beginning of the softening of interest rates sends a strong message that the central bank wants consumption to increase. Both China and India seem to be on the same page on this issue. After consistently ramping up interest rates, China’s central bank executed a U-turn in November. Another round of reduction is due anytime now. The RBI, too, has signaled its readiness to begin its cycle of rate cuts from this year. An important player in determining the cost of money is the government, which comes to the market to meet its expenditure needs. The success of the current phase of PSU divestment, therefore, is important as it will remove the presence of the elephant from the room. Even the forthcoming telecom spectrum auction is receiving attention for its ability to improve the country’s balance sheet. However, bagging licenses at reasonable rates is the key to ensure competition, so vital to increase usage. The government’s idea of allowing consumers to choose their power suppliers will be a step up the pyramid, the bottom being the unleashing of competition in the consumer staples and discretionary space. Improved consumption will moderate valuations of heated stocks, enabling more investors to enter and better price discovery. For all these reasons, investors should go out to eat, play and buy.

Lessons from 2014

Investors learn that entry point is crucial, a theme can go out of favor, and identifiable promoters can be a mixed blessing

By Mohan Sule
Do not time the market, investors are repeatedly warned. Yet the gains made by an investor who jumped into the ring after the euphoria generated by the Lok Sabha election results and who entered before the polls would have varied vastly despite the difference of a few days. And, of course, those who invested during the policy paralysis years of 2012 and 2013 would have reaped a bumper harvest compared with the latecomers fired up by the Make-in-India initiative. The market touched a historic high last year but has come off since then. Perhaps investors fishing for stocks late last year, when some of the mid-year optimism had vanished, might earn better return than those who wait end February 2015 for the Budget, which is expected to take another step in reforming the economy and provide a new trigger for the market. If indeed interest rates come down as anticipated, fixed income instruments will lose their luster and there will be no substitute to beat equity to create wealth. The main takeaway of 2014, therefore, is the entry point is crucial for the degree of appreciation. A dramatic change can alter the market’s likes and dislikes. During the UPA rule, companies with promoters close to the ruling dispensation were sought due to their ability to circumvent regulations and influence law makers to write legislation favorable to them.

Nothing symbolised the rampant crony capitalism better than the commodity producers. Their stratospheric valuations partly reflected the hunger for steel, iron, coal, aluminum, and copper in a growing economy and also factored the reality that the high entry barriers in the form of proximity to the ruling elite, passed down from generation to generation, would insulate the domestic sector from any competition. This remained true till the globe was not integrated. After the World Trade Organization’s Marrakesh treaty became effective 1995, the sector’s return ratios started fluctuating in tune with the global cycles of boom and bust instead of displaying a secular trend. Another reason was the increasing court interventions. Cancellation by the Supreme Court of the coal blocks assigned since 1993 has turned the commodity sector a hot potato. With most of the market cap shared by big houses in the private sector and inefficient public sector, investors had to turn to defensives like the domestic-oriented FMCG sector and the outward-looking pharmaceutical makers in 2014. The result was a rise and rise in their valuations in the absence of the next big idea as tech services providers confronted currency volatility and a lukewarm US market and the infrastructure players needed more time for the hazy policy overhang to disperse. So despite the optimism about India’s potential, investors found safety in the known.

However, there can be an exception. The refinery sector was very near to qualify for the honor as even diesel was deregulated, taking advantage of the falling crude oil prices. Though the measure will reduce the government’s subsidy burden and has the capacity to do wonders to India’s fiscal deficit, oil marketing companies are far from being the toast of the economy. Of what good are lower prices if industrial activity slows down, as was evident late in the year? Instead of dimming the attraction, falling gold prices have spurred buying of the metal, but not of related stocks. The increasing imports strained the current account deficit. The joker in the pack in 2014 was the banking sector. How a supposedly bright outlook can numb investors to forget historical performance is clearly on show here. Banks are caught between mounting non-performing loans and the need to disburse credit for industrial activity to pick up. The market believes cut in interest rates, around the corner, is the solution. Besides increase in offtake, there will be treasury income by dint of a portfolio of high coupon debt instruments. Indications of the government reducing its stake to 51% provide comfort that banks will be given the freedom to address shareholders’ concerns. Not surprisingly, beaten-down PSU banks were in demand. This leads to the final lesson. Is an identifiable promoter a good thing? Mukesh Ambani placing his wife and children on the boards of his group companies is taken as a sign of confidence in his businesses and eyebrows are raised when Infosys’s founders sell stake. The travails of the Sahara group, the FTIL group, Kingfisher Airlines and now SpiceJet led market participants to wonder how they got charmed by larger-than-life promoters just as by self-styled investor activists, who have dismissed the losers in the NSEL default crisis as bad investors.

Forward earning

2014 provided clues if India should cling to the time-tested model of state benevolence or look forward to uncertainty

By Mohan Sule
It is not only investors who face the classic dilemma of choosing between a glorious past and a hazy outlook while zeroing in on a stock In the fading year, even the Grand Old Party had to confront this existential dilemma. Nothing brought the turmoil in sharp focus than the celebration of the 125th birth anniversary of our first prime minister. The giveaway was the jaded overseas dignitaries gracing the occasion as the great man’s great grandson without an iota of charisma of his illustrious lineage gave an angry speech about the angry new rulers of India that was becoming not recognizable day by day from the era of royals dipping into the public coffers to write off loans, subsidize essential items and distribute freebies. In return they got unquestioned loyalty from the common man, believing that remaining poor and deprived was an un-escapable fate, brushing aside any doubts of a cynical ploy to nurture vote bank politics. It was left to the worldwide web to chip at this wall of resistance, tweet by tweet. Acerbic and irreverent, Indians at last found a platform to listen to others’ opinionated voices and give vent to the innermost and often seditious thoughts about the serial scandals of the UPA government. So there was a strange spectacle of the silent troika of mother-son-and-loyal retainer being downgraded to ordinary politicians from their sanctimonious pedestal by a raucous citizenry discovering its new power to effect change. And India took a U turn.


No one understood the power of communication better than the vendor selling hot brew on a railway platform in Gujarat. If an ordinary commodity like tea could be packaged and marketed with the promise of a shakeout from the slumber of pessimism, then surely the country was ready to buy a dream of electricity on tap, smooth roads, low-cost houses and jobs aplenty. The capitalization of the demographic dividend paid off in May, at least for the investors. After the scare of food inflation going out of hand due to below-normal southwest monsoon, the market surged on expectation of bumper earning going forward. Steps to open up to more FDI were seen as transformational, never mind the small issue of retail. The surest sign of a bull market is when tech company incubators switch to dishing out stock tips guised as investor services startups offering clarity on macro mumbo jumbo. Like the mesmerizing babas, some of them now ensconced behind bars after revelation of their human foibles, how many corpses are littered behind the barricade of pay walls built by these Internet investment gurus, with their attention spanning intra-day, will be known only after a Sebi crackdown. Serendipitously, oil prices nearly halved from the peak and the wholesale price index growth dropped to zero by mid December. The taunts of missing-in-action acche din by the opposition soon lost resonance as bond buyers made merry at the expense of a stubborn central bank. Instead the attention of the nation was riveted by celebrities taking the broom for a Swachh Bharat. The Digital India, smart cities and Make-in-India campaigns reverberated around the globe despite no breakthrough on land acquisitions, environmental clearances and labor laws. Yet, the social inclusion program of Jan Dhan Yojana, without a rupee of giveaway, proved to be a smashing success, shutting up the nitpickers, and throwing up the nation’s first Teflon head of the government and second only to the US president of the Good-Morning-America fame.


But every dream has to end. Even after six months of an energized establishment, Corporate India is still awaiting a trickle, leave alone the anticipated gush, of infra orders. The market that seemed unconcerned about the US central bank raising interest rates next year and the resultant slowing of foreign inflows into emerging economies, got panicky on Chinese blues and Russia’s rouble rout and skidded along with the currency. Eruptions in the euro region fuelled anxiety about how oil exporting countries would cope as their revenues shrink. A low-cost airline appeared to be grounded soon after the aborted takeoff a high-cost one. Hardly had one PSU sale flagged off than the market looked poised to upend, raising worries about fiscal deficit, on the mend due to the commodity price crash, if the divestment target is not met and if the exercise is jinxed. Once coveted, then becoming a laughing stock, the global turbulence hinted of a comeback of gold as a safe haven just as the dollar was post-2008 credit crunch. Why stocks are tumbling despite low inflation and loss-making digital businesses getting cash infusion, while offline entities are not sure if the primary market will be enticed by historical performance, perhaps answers the question nagging investors whether to cling to the past or look forward to an uncertain future.