Money In The Markets

The BSE Sensex touching 30,000 is a reminder that there is a lot more steam in the Indian markets to still ride on, by Narayan Krishnamurthy.

On April 26, the bellwether S&P BSE Sensex breached the 30,000 mark. The whole of April has witnessed frantic activity in the stock markets and many were waiting in anticipation of this momentous occasion. Celebrations at the BSE are evident with a giant cake and bonhomie among the market participants and the CEO, Ashish Chauhan. The last time the Sensex touched this mark was two years ago in March 2015 for a while, but could not hold on to it. This time around, market players and brokers feel there is scope to go up from here based on the improved economic indicators.

Acche Din

We are past the half way mark of the Narendra Modi government’s present tenure and the global market participants find Indian markets to be promising with a stable government at the centre. The post-demonetisation phase has gone down well with investors—retail and institutional, who are finally waking up to participating in the Indian stock markets directly or indirectly through mutual funds. In fact, the mutual fund inflow in recent years has been scaling new heights each passing month, which is only bringing in more investors into the markets to gain from.

At the same time, policy changes are pushing down guaranteed returns on fixed income schemes and removing several tax arbitrages that existed across financial instruments. Compound this with a situation of high inflation, which is opening eyes of several investors on the need to consider investing their money into equities for some real wealth building.