FIRST PRINCIPLES

Crisis will have an impact

UMA SHASHIKANT

Posted: Monday, Oct 06, 2008 at 1644 hrs IST
Updated: Monday, Oct 06, 2008 at 1644 hrs IST


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: Make no mistake, the global financial crisis will affect the Indian economy by way of shortage of international credit and drying up of portfolios inflows
We now know that the crisis in the US financial system is spreading into Europe, and the prognosis is that the developed countries are set for a painful recession. Therefore, the worry is not about how diversified away from the US our businesses are, but what happens to the globalisation strategies of companies. There are three implications. First, the crisis is in the credit markets, and spreads have widened too much for anyone to be able to afford to borrow in international markets. There is simply no one out there willing to take the risk of lending. Borrowing-based expansion plans of several companies will be impacted. Second, portfolio flows into emerging markets will take quite a while to resume. As institutional investors re-look their investment strategies, and hedge funds brace for redemptions, there will be very little global money seeking markets like India. Third, our large projects will face a setback due to lack of funding. The missed opportunity of enabling foreign investment in infrastructure and other capita-intensive sectors will hurt. Just as our expanding businesses have exhausted their internal resources, and have begun to consider borrowing, the markets for long-term debt have dried up.

Buy at leisure
The fall in prices from the peak is over 50 per cent in many cases, and several stocks have gone back to their April 2007 levels. Stock market enthusiasts have begun to point out that the time to buy is upon us. Markets tend to overreact to both optimism and pessimism. When the outlook is positive, investors believe that paying even 30 times the earnings of a company is cheap; when the outlook turns negative, even at 15 times earnings, there are no takers. The languishing markets are not factoring a 50 per cent drop in earnings and prospects for companies. They are simply indicating that the future is uncertain and unknown. The reluctance to buy comes from not being able to judge who will stay and survive, and who may close down. When the risks are so high, and the unknowns are too many, there is no hurry to buy. Battered markets do not turn up and run at short notice. Any gains from these levels will promptly be pruned by those that like...

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