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Greece, Budget, Credit Policy Key Triggers Now: Jaipuria

  • With the CSO expectations of India's FY12 GDP coming in below 7%, there is a consensus that the Reserve Bank will cut rates in April, says Jyotivardhan Jaipuria, head of research of BofA-ML in an exclusive interview to CNBC-TV18. He ruled out any downgrades in earnings in this fiscal and termed third quarter numbers of Indian corporates as "In-line with expectations."Speaking about markets, which has seen a run-away rally in the month of January, Jaipuria said a lot depends on the Greece outcome. However, the impending Budget and Credit policy will be key triggers for the bourses in the days to come . At the moment, foreign investors are looking to buy Indian equities at every dip, he said.Jaipuria sees telecom companies carrying the burden of regulatory concerns for some more time and says the infrastructure sector will continue to underperform due to implementation issues.
  • Q: What is the call on earning trajectory? You were one of the most circumspect getting into earning season. Would you say we have come out relatively better or as bad as you expected?
  • A: Earnings are in line with expectations. In some sense what has not happened is earnings are not turned out to be worse than expectations. We saw that in the previous quarter also, where earnings were more or less in line with what analysts had been expecting because analysts have marked down their earnings quite a bit. We are still seeing some down risks to FY13 earnings in spite of this current earnings being more or less in line. We have not a major disaster where earnings have disappointed totally.
  • Q: What is the call on the market now? We have had a spectacular 20% rally from the lows to the current levels or near about, do you see this kind of momentum continuing, is it justified by fundamentals?
  • A: There are two-three events which will come up now. One is Greece and what will happen globally. In India there are two things coming up March, first is the assembly elections and what the results are going and the second will be the Budget and credit policy. All of these will come in the gap of 10-15 days and they will determine the future course of market.
  • Q: You have got quite a few policy leaders in your conference, from the Ministry of Finance, Planning Commission, infrastructure companies NHAI etc. What sense do you get, is the market over expecting on the policy front or do you think it will actually get the positive news that it is pricing in over the next few weeks?
  • A: More than the Budget lot of policy action may happen outside the Budget. The good thing I would say, policymakers are aware that there has been a general feeling that there is a sense of drift, so they need to take some steps show that people think that policy making is back into action.
  • Secondly, we had lot of talks about problems in the power sector, coal issues in power and other infrastructure areas like railways. So, the focus is going to be on PPP for most of these infrastructure projects. Hopefully, the government will be able to address that. I don't think it is a one month issue it is going to be over the course of the next six months.

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