Economic Update

India’s consumer price inflation rose marginally to 3.05% in May from 2.99% in April owing to costlier food items. The wholesale price-based inflation fell to a 22-month low of 2.45% in May from 3.07% in April.

India's industrial output grew to a six-month high of 3.4% in April compared with revised 0.36% growth in March. The exports rose 3.93% to $29.99 billion in May, while imports jumped 4.31% to $45.35 billion.

Debt Market Update

Systemic liquidity was in surplus, prompting the central bank to conduct reverse repo auctions to drain away excess liquidity and keep the call rate from dipping too low.

Government bond prices ended sharply higher. Gilts advanced as slower domestic economic growth recorded as per the latest domestic GDP data, boosted hopes of monetary easing by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

Forex Update

The rupee had advanced earlier, tracking a decline in crude oil prices, but later lost some ground as crude oil prices registered an uptick.

Hopes that the US Federal Reserve may ease monetary policy following the release of US jobs data, and an increase in risk appetite after China’s central bank announced measures to prop up the Yuan, augured well for the Indian currency.

Regulatory Update

The central bank released guidelines under large-exposure framework; - the additional guidelines on economic interdependence would be applicable from April 1, 2020.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) prescribed norms for rating agencies including probability of default benchmarks to enhance the rating standards.

The above report is sourced from CRISIL Research, a division of CRISIL Limited (CRISIL) and Aditya Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund /Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC Limited does not guarantee the accuracy, adequacy or completeness of the Data / Report and is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of Data / Report.

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