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Reining in the F&O beast: How can policymakers can...

While F&O as a hedging tool is necessary for the markets, unsuspecting and inadequately informed retail investors do run the...

Boosting MSME productivity key to 10.5% GDP surge; here's why

Union Budget 2024-25: Accelerating the Ease of Doing Business

Union Budget 2024-25: A 10-lane Expressway for Viksit Bharat

COVER STORY

India’s F&O frenzy: Who will burst the high-stakes bubble?

Deep Dive

India's SaaS market is eying $50 billion by 2030, driven by AI and start-up innovation

From Maruti to Tata Motors, India's top carmakers are racing to meet CNG demand, but EVs and infra hurdles loom

C.K. Venkataraman, Managing Director, Titan Company (Photo: Hardik Chhabra)

Can Titan’s ₹1 lakh crore dream sparkle amid challenges?

Vande Bharat, the indigenous semi-high-speed train, has travelled a long way

Vande Bharat train: From near scrapping in 2017 to Indian Railways' modernization icon

The gross merchandise value (GMV) of quick commerce has ballooned from just $0.10 billion in FY20 to $3.3 billion in FY24

The unstoppable rise of quick commerce: How Blinkit, Zepto, and Swiggy Instamart are dominating the market

'For long-term investors, India presents a great opportunity': CPP Investments CEO John Graham on betting big on India’s growth

John Graham, President & CEO of Canadian pension fund CPP Investments, talks about the India growth story, navigating geopolitical risks and a whole lot more

Anand Adhikari

Vantage Point

Lessons learnt remain, some top global VCs put profit threshold before investing, writes Sourav Majumdar

End of funding winter? All eyes on June 4 as PE, VC deals start getting cooked again Sourav Majumdar

(From Left) Abhay Hanjura, co-founder, Licious; Vivek Gupta, co-founder, Licious (Photo: Selvaprakash Lakshmanan)

Licious sinks its teeth into offline market: How the unicorn meat delivery start-up is looking at offline success for its next growth phase

Krishna Gopalan

Sep 01, 2024

Can the F&O Beast be Tamed?

Driven by soaring stock indices, retail investors are rushing into the high-risk Futures & Options (F&O) market, especially index options. Our cover story dives into the risks retail investors face in this complex space and explores what policymakers can do to enhance safety. We also cover the latest move by American short-seller Hindenburg Research, which has now targeted SEBI Chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch with conflict-of-interest allegations in the ongoing Adani probe. Despite SEBI's denial, the controversy is heating up. Catch these stories and more in the latest issue of Business Today, on stands now..

Photographik

Bullion Bulls

Investors so far in 2024, as geopolitical tensions, indications of rate cuts by global central banks, and General elections in India sparked rallies in these metals. Here’s a look at the numbers:

15.5%: Return (YTD) delivered by gold in 2024 as of June 6, 2024, compared to 10% a year ago
24%: Surge in silver prices in 2024 so far, compared to 6% in the corresponding period in 2023
Rs 78,000: The likely (spot) price of gold (per 10 gm) by the year-end, while the silver (spot) price is expected to touch Rs 1.1 lakh per kg by the end of 2024

Barbers employed at a small shop in Faridabad, Haryana (Photo: Arun Kumar)

AT YOUR SERVICE

MORE THAN 17.6 MILLION PEOPLE JOINED THE WORKFORCE IN FY24—THE HIGHEST SINCE FY17. OF THEM, 16.1 MILLION JOINED THE SERVICES SECTOR, THE BIGGEST EMPLOYMENT PROVIDER, MAKING UP 39% OF THE TOTAL JOBS. HERE’S WHAT THE NUMBERS SHOW

11%: Growth in services sector jobs; the total workforce stands at 164.5 million vs 148.5 million in FY23
9.6 million: Jobs created in personal non-professional services (barbers, carpenters, etc.), making up 60% of new jobs in the services sector
423.3 million: Current size of the total workforce in India, which grew 4.3% year-on-year
44%: Share of trading services in services sector jobs, followed by personal non-professional services (18%) and tourism (13%)

Electric buses being flagged off in New Delhi in September 2023 (Photo by Manish Rajput)

RACING AHEAD

COMMERCIAL VEHICLE SALES (EX-SHOWROOM) WENT UP BY 26.7% IN FY24 AFTER GROWING 55.7% IN FY23, WITH REGISTRATIONS SETTING A NEW ALL-TIME HIGH OF 2.5 MILLION. WITH PREDICTION OF AN ABOVE NORMAL MONSOON, SALES ARE EXPECTED TO ZOOM AHEAD

1.4 Million: Number of passenger transport vehicles registered in 2023-24, higher than the pre-pandemic peak of 1 million in 2018-19
22.7%: YoY increase in registrations of construction vehicles to 22,040 in 2023-24, well above the pre-pandemic high of 17,963 in 2018-19
55.4%: Share of passenger transport vehicles in FY24 of the total commercial vehicle registration, a jump from 45.6% last year

Crude oil tankers off Jurong Island, Singapore

A CRUDE AWAKENING

BRENT CRUDE, WHICH SURPASSED $90/BBL IN APRIL FOR THE FIRST TIME IN SIX MONTHS, MAY RALLY FURTHER DUE TO IRAN-ISRAEL TENSIONS. THIS COULD LEAD TO HIGHER INFLATION IN INDIA AND WIDEN THE TRADE DEFICIT. A LOOK AT THE NUMBERS

$16.9 BILLION: Value of India’s Brent crude oil imports in February, up 9% from $15.5 billion in January
26%: Share of crude oil imports in India’s total import bill of $620.3 billion in FY24 till February
$225.3 BILLION: India’s trade deficit in FY24 till February, of which 37% or $84.3 billion is only on account of crude oil

A view of Mundra Port, India’s largest container dock

PORT OF GAIN

A MAJOR IMPROVEMENT IN AVERAGE TURNAROUND TIME AND A GROWING ECONOMY HAVE PROPELLED CARGO TRAFFIC AT INDIAN PORTS TO AN ALL-TIME HIGH OF 744.7 MILLION TONNES IN FY24 (TILL FEBRUARY). HERE’S THE STORY THROUGH NUMBERS

140 MILLION TONNES: Rise in cargo traffic in the past three years. In FY24, till February, cargo traffic rose to 744.7 million tonnes
16 SPOTS: Improvement in India’s ranking (38) on the World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index, among 139 countries
67.1 MILLION TONNES: Of cargo was moved via major ports in the country in February 2024, compared to 65.5 million tonnes a year ago

IRDAI is targeting 100% cashless hospital treatment by July 2024, but is it viable?

Irdai aims for 100% cashless treatment in hospitals. It has notified insurers to put the necessary systems in place by July 31, 2024. But its 2023 annual report casts a doubt on the viability of this goal

The Buzz

Modi Government’s Budget 2024-25: Infrastructure, Jobs, and Welfare Take Centre Stage

The recently released Economic Survey and Union Budget 2024-25 reveal that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA government is committed to continuing ongoing infrastructure development, with a renewed focus on job creation and welfare for the marginalised. Because of surging tax revenues and a controlled fiscal deficit, the government can now prioritise its development objectives. Let’s find out what the documents say about the government’s strategies and their outcomes.