Year of the Bull

AS 2024 SLIPS AWAY, what memories remain and what does 2025 portend? Key general elections in India, the United States, Britain, France and Bangladesh threw up old and new faces.

- MINHAZ MERCHANT

If 2024 was riven by wars in Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon, 2025 promises a breakout of peace. President-elect Donald Trump has pledged he will end the Russia-Ukraine war through swift negotiations. A ceasefire in Gaza along with a release of the Israeli hostages still in the custody of Hamas will follow.

An end to conflicts in Europe and West Asia will be welcome to India whose exports have been affected by shipping disruptions in the Gulf of Aden, forcing Indian container ships to take the longer, costlier route around South Africa's Cape of Good Hope.

Foreign investors are bullish about the Indian economy in 2025. The NDA's electoral victories in Haryana and Maharashtra have ended talk of the Narendra Modi government not completing its full five-year term. Investors seeking stability in government are enthused. Despite fears of an incipient bear market, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) are likely to return to Indian stocks in 2025. But is the Indian stock market expensive compared to its global peers? Not if you take the US Nasdaq where price earning (P/E) ratios are around 25, similar to the Indian stock market's P/E of 24.

Sensex at 2,00,000?