The month of April is over and May, the hottest month of the year has commenced. The silver lining to this month is the availability of fruit like mangoes and looking forward to the prospects of monsoon breaking over parts of the country towards the end of the month. Temperatures in the countries capital are even hotter than what the met department indicates. The second part of the budget session is on in parliament and surprise of surprise it is actually functioning. We do have the occasional marching to the well of the house and sloganeering and some stoppages as well but by and large legislative work is happening. There are a lot of issues that are currently being discussed which have raised the temperature and these include Uttrakhand and the VIP hopper scam as well. The honourable Supreme Court is making matters tough for wilful defaulter Vijay Mallya as well and currently Mallya in his defence seems to be getting nowhere.
April futures saw a very weak expiry with NIFTY losing 132 points on expiry day. For the month however NIFTY gained 130.75 points or 1.69% to close at 7,847.25 points.
The dilemma as to why just PSU banks have NPA’s and their private bank counterparts do not even though many of the borrowers are common has been partially resolved. ICICI Bank while declaring its results for the quarter ended March 2016 and year ended March 2015-16 has made a special provision of Rs 3,600 crs over and above provision for NPA’s. This clearly shows the stress that the banking system is undergoing.
All the action seems to be happening only in the primary market. The secondary offering from Thyrocare technologies received excellent response and was oversubscribed 39.24 times. The QIB portion received bids for 24.40 times, Retail portion 5.27 times and HNI’s a whopping 138.70 times. If grey market premiums of around Rs 250 are considered, HNI’s will make money even at this level of subscription. Clearly money making could never be so easy and sustainable.
The issue from Ujjivan Financial Services Limited which opened for subscription on Thursday closes today. The issue is the second from the microfinance sector and like Equitas Holdings is yet another of the ten players granted SFB licence. The issue will receive good response as all the action in the subscription space happens only in the last couple of hours on the last day of the issue. Watch out for subscription between 2pm and 4pm for gauging the response.
Wednesday sees the issue from Parag Milk Foods opening. The issue comprises of a fresh issue of Rs 300 crs and an offer for sale of approx. Rs 467 crs at the top end of the price band of Rs 220-227. More on this issue post the anchor allocation which happens on Tuesday.
Markets will be volatile and the key drivers would be any news from Parliament and the weather gods signalling the break of monsoon over Kerala.