The Hindu Business Line : Boston Analytics launches Stock Market Diaries

Mumbai, May 28 Boston Analytics, a customised knowledge services company, launched what it referred to as ‘Stock Market Diaries’. These are a set of “total return indices” including dividends and asset pricing factor-based portfolios; they are not indices that just track performance, based on market capitalisation.

Performance analysis

“With more money flowing into India’s respective stock markets than ever, the country desperately needs a more sophisticated view of its stock market and far greater depth into stock performance analysis than a simple market cap index can give. The Stock Market Diaries will provide deep insight disseminated into a wide breadth of categories that fit just about any style of investing,” said Mr Rashid Bilimoria, CEO and Co-Founder, Boston Analytics.

The Boston Analytics India Market Index series aims to represent the Indian stock universe with its computation, including the impact of capital gains and dividends. The market index has been carefully designed to comprehensively cover the essential features of the universe of Indian stocks, said a statement from the company. The market index has also been designed to be easily divided into sub-indices based on asset factors such as market capitalisation, price-to-book values and momentum.

Boston Analytics also announced the launch of its Boston Consumer Sentiment Index (BACSI) for India. This monthly index will try to gauge the Indian consumers’ changing opinion and expectations on the macro economic, household financial conditions and consumption.

Collecting samples

The index is based on a monthly survey conducted on over 3,000 respondents across Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai. “We hope to collect samples from across the country by the end of this year, with the number of respondents hopefully reaching up to 10,000,” said Mr Sam Thomas, Director, Boston Analytics.

The BACSI comprises two sub-indices — the current situation index and the expectation index — and five derived indices covering employment conditions, inflation, real estate, investment and consumer spending.

According to the company, the BACSI for the month of May fell by 0.8 per cent from what it was in April and stood at 94.2. This reflects an inclination to save more and spend less and is primarily due to increasing inflationary concerns. “A Consumer Sentiment Index is a good indicator of a slowdown in an economy. According to our study, the BACSI at a nationwide level has been declining since January of this year. This persistent decline shows a decrease in the aggregate demand on the part of the consumers and a possible slowdown in the overall economy,” said Mr Thomas.