Tough Times Ahead

The market cap of bt 500 companies rose 23.4 per cent during 2017/18, but things could get difficult going ahead.

- Anup Jayaram

TOUGH TIMES continue for India Inc. and the economy at large. The Indian economy has been buffeted by rising global oil prices and widening current account deficit, leading to a sharp fall in the value of the rupee. However, despite the weaker rupee, exports have not taken off. The only bright spot has been an 8.2 per cent increase in gross domestic product during the first quarter of 2018/19. However, there are few indicators that this can be sustained during the rest of the financial year.

With the next general elections a few months away, there are enough reasons for worry on the economic front. Over the past few weeks, the BSE Sensex has been in a free fall. It hit a high of 38,989.65 on August 29 but has since fallen 5,640 points and closed at 33,349 on October 26. But 2017/18 was an entirely different story. The aggregate average market capitalisation of BT 500 companies during 2017/18 (October 1, 2017-September 30, 2018), the period we have taken for our BT 500 study, increased 23.4 per cent. This is better than the 20.5 per rise the year before, and phenomenally better than the minuscule 0.1 per cent achieved the year before that.