Housing loans showing healthy growth: Chidambaram
At a time when the economic growth in India remains stuck at decade
lows, the demand for home loans is growing at a healthy pace, indicating
a strong underlying demand for residential property.
In a press conference, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said housing loan disbursal of public sector banks showed 42 percent increase in the first quarter and 61 percent in the second quarter of this current fiscal, as compared to a year earlier.
The finance minister comments came after he met the heads to PSU banks to take stock of the banks' performance. Indian state-run banks' credit growth has been "satisfactory" and is expected to remain so for the rest of the fiscal year, while housing loans have shown a "very healthy" growth, the minister said.
Keki Mistry, vice chairman & CEO of HDFC, the country's largest
mortgage lender, yesterday said that the demand for individual housing
loans remained strong during the second quarter. Mortgage lender HDFC
posted a 10.27 per cent jump in its standalone post tax profit for the
September quarter at Rs. 1,266.33 crore. Mistry said the company is confident of maintaining its 18-20 per cent loan growth target for the fiscal.
Concerned over defaults by big borrowers, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said the government is monitoring the top 30 NPA accounts in each PSU bank and asked the lenders to set up separate verticals to recover money from written-off accounts.
The finance minister said he hoped that non-performing assets (NPAs) are a "function of economy" and would improve with the recovery in economic growth. "We are monitoring the top 30 non-performing asset accounts in each bank, each zone. It is a matter of concern that it is the big borrowers (with loans of over Rs. 1 crore) who are defaulting," Chidambaram said.
The minister said the situation was not as bad as it was in 2000, when gross NPAs touched a high of 14 per cent. The NPAs, which plateaued over the years at about 2 per cent, have started creeping up with the deceleration in growth in the past few years.
As of June, the gross NPA of nationalised banks was 3.89 per cent and State Bank Group at 5.50 per cent. Chidambaram said that like the State Bank of India (SBI), other PSU banks should set up separate verticals to recover as much as possible from accounts that were written off
Changing jobs? 5 tips on transferring PF
New Delhi:
When you shift jobs you either withdraw your PF or transfer
it. Withdrawal is not really desirable, as you stand to lose compounding
benefit of the balance which has already accumulated. But, irrespective
of whether you choose to withdraw or transfer, it is seen on many
occasions that there are inordinate delays or the in the case of
transfer, it just doesn't happen.
Here are 5 tips to transfer or withdraw your PF:
- Track the status on the Employee Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) website: You can visit the EPFO website and track the status of your request by selecting the state in which the PF office is located, the regional PF office where the account is maintained, the establishment code and the account number. The extension code field is normally left blank.
- Generate E-Passbook for old and new accounts: The new initiative of the EPFO enabling generation of E-Passbook will help in giving you the exact status of the PF transfer. There may be a delay in you getting your passbook, but this will be intimated to you via SMS when it is ready for download. Remember that you will not be able to download the passbook for more than one account with the same organization.
- Find out where the transfer is stuck: In a PF transfer, normally the new employer, the sending PF office and the receiving PF office are involved. In some cases the sending and receiving offices will be the same. In order to enable the transfer, you would have submitted Form 13 to your new employer. Ask for an acknowledgement of this form submission to the receiving PF office from your new employer. You can use this to follow up with the receiving PF office. You can also consider meeting the PF officials in person, although this may not always be possible. Sometimes, your PF may have been with the old company's PF Trust. In this case, you should follow up with your old employer for the same.
- Document your grievance: The EPFO has an online tool for raising grievances called the Grievance Management System. If you are unsure about the status of your PF transfer, you must raise separate grievances with both the sending PF office as well as the receiving PF office. You will be provided with a grievance number, which you must carefully preserve. Although there has not been a good track record for this online process, it is recommended that this is done as the first step. If you do not get a response to this, you can send a physical letter to the concerned PF office with details of your grievance and reference to the online grievance reference number through speed post. Do remember to inform both the new employer as well as the old employer of this process.
-
Use the Right to Information (RTI) Act: As the next
step, you can use RTI and send an application to the Public Information
Office under the concerned PF office. The application must be
accompanied by a postal order for Rs.
10 favouring the respective Accounts office. As there is no fixed
format for the application, you can briefly explain the background of
your case as well as give references to all your previous complaints.
Attach copies of such earlier correspondence, wherever possible. If
there is an absence of response under this within 30 days of filing the
application, you can opt for an appeal process under the RTI.
Why earnings reports are important
Each financial quarter, publicly-traded companies are required to submit their earnings to report their performance. Through these reports, shareholders are made aware of the general 'health' of the company- its net income, sales, EPS (earnings per share), expenses, etc. Often, current and potential investors compare an earnings report from previous years.
There are many different ways to analyze an earnings report, but a quick and easy way is to compare the actual reported figures versus what is expected by the market beforehand. Before an earnings report is announced, analysts are polled in advance and asked what figures they are expecting. The media takes the average from analysts and releases the 'forecast' numbers to the public. The market then, in turn, takes the 'forecast' numbers and factors them into the price of the stock.
As soon as the earnings report is made public, the market swings into action. If the numbers released are better than expected (say, the net profit is higher than what analysts were expecting) and other reported figures in the report are generally better than expected, the stock will immediately jump up. If the earnings is announced after market hours, then the opening price of the stock jumps up the next day.
Most investors and traders already know this information. What they might not be knowing, however, is exactly how much of an impact an earnings report has on a stock's price.
From 1st October onward, companies have started releasing their Q2 earnings reports for FY 2014. Often, investors and traders simply look to 'buy' or 'sell' depending on whether or not the reported figures are better or worse than analyst estimates. However, since actual numbers are almost immediately priced into a stock, it is wiser to know the potential impact of an earnings report on a stock's price.
Investors usually look at a company's net profit and compare it to the expected figure to gauge whether or not a company beat analyst expectations. Therefore, if we look at the Q1 earnings reports for FY 2014 and look the net profits report for all 30 companies that comprise the Sensex, we can see exactly what kind of an impact an earnings report has an a stock's price.
Here is a table that does exactly that. It takes into account:
- Company name (all 30 stocks from the Sensex are included)
- Q1 net income that was expected by analysts before the earnings report
- Actual Q1 net income that was reported
- Company's earnings report date
- 'Forecast spread' (in percentage) between the actual and expected figures
- Opening price for the stock on the date the earnings report was released
- Closing price for the stock the immediate next trading day after the earnings report was released.
- Net price movement due to the earnings report.
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