MAKING SENSE OF THE MARKET LEAP

Low-interest rates, corporate deleveraging and retail frenzy push Sensex above 60,000 in September. Let’s understand the rationale behind the bull run and why retail investors need to be cautious amid the euphoria.

- Rajiv Ranjan Singh

The dichotomy between the economy and the stock market has been one of the biggest enigmas of the past 18 months. The period will be remembered as the best for the stock market, but also one which saw the highest gross domestic product (GDP) contraction in the history of India.

The fear instilled by the Covid pandemic pushed the stock market in a panic zone in March 2020, but that also sowed the seeds of the next bull run. In the next 18 months, the BSE Sensex zoomed over 34,000 points from its March 2020 low of 25,639. Similarly, the Nifty moved up around 11,300 points from its March 2020 low of 7,511.

Remarkably, in this calendar year, the Nifty 50 index climbed to its all-time high in 46 out of 180 trading sessions. The Nifty index is a composition of 50 stocks, while the Sensex contains 30 stocks.

The stock market is being supported by adequate liquidity from foreign investors. Thanks to the massive balance sheet expansion by the US central bank, the Federal Reserve, and the European Central Bank (ECB), the world is awash with liquidity. Every month, the Fed is buying bonds worth $120 billion. Its balance sheet is $8.45-trillionlarge, a 102 per cent increase on a year-on-year basis. Never in history has any central bank expanded its balance sheet by $4 trillion in a single year. ECB’s balance sheet was worth €8.2 trillion at the end of September, according to Refinitiv. In search of return, money is pouring into high-growth markets like India, which attracted $31 billion in the last one year ending July.