Asian Markets Dive, Indian Markets on Edge Again

On Episode 896 of The Core Report, financial journalist Govindraj Ethiraj talks to C S Vigneshwar, President at NOTES(00:00) Stories of the Day(00:50) Asian Markets Dive, Indian Markets On Edge Again(03:08) A Slew of Measures to Attract Foreign Portfolio Investments and NRI Savings is Not Working Yet.(10:46) Why Indian Car Sales Hit a Record High in May(19:27) Airline Profits will Halve This Year Despite Revenue and Seat Loads Rising(20:47) Will a No Car Friday in BKC in Mumbai Work?Subscribe to "How India’s Economy Works" - Spotify | Apple | Youtube—NOTE: This transcript contains the host's monologue and includes interview transcripts by a machine. Human eyes have gone through the script but there might still be errors in some of the text, so please refer to the audio in case you need to clarify any part. If you want to get in touch regarding any feedback, you can drop us a message on feedback@ morning, it's Tuesday the 9th of June and this is Govindraj Ethiraj broadcasting and streaming usually from Mumbai but in transit right now. Our top stories and themes… Asian markets dive, Indian markets on edge again. A slew of measures to attract portfolio investments from overseas investors and NRI savings is not working Indian car sales hit a record high in May. Airline profits will halve this year despite revenue and seat loads rising. Will a no car Friday in Bandra-Kurdla complex in Mumbai work? The Markets, The War, and FPIsWhat a day it was in Asia after Wall discussed the volatility on the Nasdaq Composite just yesterday, highlighting once again how the markets can produce dramatic upswings and also downswings. It's the kind of extreme moves even the bravest and most seasoned of investors would worry about. On Monday, South Korean stocks took a sharp dive as investors pulled out from AI KOSPI index fell as much as 8.8%, triggering a 20-minute trading halt by the stock exchange shortly after market opened as memory chip makers like Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix crashed, according to a Bloomberg report. The South Korean market had overtaken India in market capitalisation and value just a week ago. Intraday moves of 5% or more are common in Korea now, partly thanks to the popularity of leveraged exchange-traded funds tracking Korea's chip and the rebalancing trades required for such products, according to the Bloomberg , it is with some interest I noted that several investors in India want a piece of the SpaceX IPO buy that's opening. SpaceX's long-awaited IPO, expected to fetch a $1.75 trillion valuation, has set off a frenzy amongst retail investors clamouring for a share of Elon Musk's rocket satellite and AI empire, according to Reuters. Several valuation experts quoted in many places is too high.SpaceX has apparently earmarked as much as 30% or $22.5 billion in shares for retail investors, which is apparently rare for an IPO that is usually dominated by institutional buyers. Trading under the symbol SPCX, SpaceX has picked a handful of brokerage firms to distribute shares in the IPO to retail customers in the US. If you have an overseas trading account, you can bid from India, but of course you could also buy when it lists later this point to drive home is of course the volatility, particularly right now with massive fund movements between markets and asset classes, including Bitcoin, too, in this case the SpaceX IPO. Back home, the Nifty 50 and Sensex ended lower, thanks to increased tensions in West Asia. Once again, the Nifty 50 was down 243 points to 23,123 and the Sensex was down 719 points to 73, Nifty mid cap and small cap were down 2 at 1.4 and 1.9% each. There's more action on the fixed income side. Global funds apparently bought about $469 million worth of index eligible bonds on Friday, which is the most since June 2025 after the Indian government scrapped taxes on overseas investment in government securities and added new long tenor bonds to the fully accessible route under which securities are eligible for inclusion in global bond indices, according to of this did not help the rupee on Monday, which was down 0.8% in its sharpest fall in four weeks to settle at Rs 95.70 per dollar, which also suggests that while all these moves are welcome and may work in the medium to long term, they may not necessarily move the needle immediately. Bloomberg quoted HSBC saying that India may not see significant pickup in foreign demand for sovereign debt over the next three months as investors stay cautious on global inflation. He also said that El Nino risks and renewed expectations for rate hikes are likely to weigh in the first half of the third said India needs about $7 to $8 billion a month in capital inflows to fund its external account, while the Reserve Bank measures may bring in about $5 billion a month over the next few months. India's relatively low real yield means that...