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A growth-oriented budget, passage of reform Bills in Parliament, reduction in interest rates and stability in global markets top the wishlist of Dalal Street for the new year 2015.
Driven by robust investor sentiment, impressive foreign fund inflow and formation of a new majority government at the Centre, the stock market benchmark Sensex generated a bumper return of about 30 per cent for investors in 2014.
Union Budget
Analysts said markets are keenly waiting for the Union Budget 2015 to be presented in February.
Market entities believe the upcoming budget could be a make or break event as this would be first full budget from the new government and hopes are high with the Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, indicating start of second-generation reforms going forward.
“In our opinion, long-term investors are waiting on fringes with hope to get clarity on issues related to taxation (especially retrospective), GAAR, FDI in various sectors. Any disappointment from Budget can trigger steep correction in markets,” IndiaNivesh Securities’ Research Head Daljeet S Kohli said.
Market experts said the government should ensure smooth functioning of the Budget session and try to pass as many Bills as possible because market behaviour will be determined to a large extent by how the budget session steers the way.
Insurance, GST Bill
Highlighting the market wishlist for 2015, Anand Rathi Financial Services’ Co-Founder and Vice-Chairman Pradeep Gupta said: “Intended reforms such as insurance, GST Bill need to be passed by Parliament before the Budget. RBI to begin reduction of interest rates up to 100 bps during 2015.”
“A growth-oriented budget stimulating investments in infrastructure and boosting consumption demand to be achieved by enabling ease of doing business and stable tax policies.”
Issues like environment, land, power, coal, and mining are to be effectively addressed through administrative and clearance process. This will manifest the impact of relaxed FDI limit in defence, railways and planned increase in insurance, Gupta added.
“There is a lot of hope from the new government and having received sufficient time to settle in at the Centre, the hope for 2015 budget is going to be very high in terms of not only focus on achieving fiscal deficit target but also being path-breaking in terms of some of the key expenditure reforms and clearance of GST and Insurance Bill,” Prabhudas Lilladher’ Joint Managing Director Amisha Vora said.
Interest rate cut
On expectations from RBI this year, she said, as outlook for inflation has become very benign, it appears that 2015 should be the year where finally we will see reversal in interest rate cycle.
Reliance Securities CEO Vikrant Gugnani said that 2014 turned out to be a great year for many, especially for those who have been linked to the Indian stock market either directly or indirectly, and believed in the India story.
“Unfortunately for many others, who continue to remain sceptical and wary of participating in the long-term India growth story through equities, they have just missed 30 per cent gains in 2014 in the Indian stock market,” he added.
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