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Dawn February 24, 2020       Stocks began the new week on a free fall, with the benchmark KSE-100 index losing over 1,105 points – down 2.82 per cent – to close at 39, 143, well below the 40,000 barrier. Today’s losses followed a lacklustre last week during which the market remained largely flat as bulls and bears managed to secure an upper hand in turns. The index had closed Friday almost flat with a minor uptick of just six points (0.01 per cent) at 40,249 from Monday (Feb 17). Ali Asghar Poonawala, Deputy Head of Research at AKD Securities, told  Dawn.com  the predominant reason for the downslide was the "FATF statement maintaining Pakistan on the grey list". He said significant headwinds, partially flowing through from last week (macro weakness as government manages inflationary pressures while aiming to meet IMF's performance criteria), were brought to light by the "relatively harshly worded FATF statement". Poonawala said even...

Money Control Abhishek Goenka February  24, 2020 While coronavirus may not have impacted the country directly as much, but the Indian economy, which is just about showing some signs of recovery, may not escape unscathed. The green shoots could get nipped in the bud. India's annual trade with China is ~$90 billion--India imports goods worth $75 billion and exports goods worth $15 billion. On account of factory closures in China, supply chains would get disrupted and this could result in shortages, especially of electronic goods and medicines. A lot of pharma companies rely on APIs (active pharmaceutical ingredients) sourced from parts of China that are worst affected by the virus outbreak. We may see a temporary contraction in imports till the time some semblance of normalcy is restored in China. Trade deficit prints may be lower for the next couple of months. We may see the price of consumer durables inch higher. This would drive core inflation higher, which is showi...

Economics Times February 24,2020 US satellite broadband provider Hughes Network Systems may have to shut its Indian operations due to unpaid levies owed to the government, which could put thousands of banking services at risk, a company letter seen by Reuters showed.  The Supreme Court late last year ordered a  number of telecom companies, including Hughes and larger firms like Vodafone, to pay billions of dollars owed to the government. Hughes' India unit provides services to defence, education and banking sectors in the country and told the telecom ministry in a letter dated February 20 that it faces bankruptcy as it can't pay the Rs 600 crore ($84 million) it owes. The closure of the company could disrupt connectivity at more than 70,000 banking locations and many critical satellite networks in the Indian navy, army and railways, Hughes' India President Partho Banerjee said in the letter, which was seen by Reuters. "We are facing a huge demand...

Dawn February 23,2020 IT seems that, despite the seriousness with which Pakistan had committed itself to complying with FATF standards, the global financial watchdog is still not convinced of its progress and requires more action on some of the targets that it says have not been achieved. For now, then, Pakistan remains on the grey list. The taskforce has indicated that Pakistan will have to satisfactorily address all 27 points of the action plan by June, otherwise stricter action could be taken. For a while, there were government officials who were hopeful that Pakistan would be removed from the grey list, although some ministers did strike a cautious note, reminding people that the outcome of the February talks was not a foregone conclusion. It turns out that the optimists did not win the day. Certainly, the task before Pakistan has been gargantuan, and the fact that it has still met several FATF conditions should be appreciated. But the difficult part is clearly ...

The Wire Dated February 22,2020 New Delhi:  The Geological Survey of India (GSI) has laid to rest rumours about the quantity of gold discovered in Sonbhadra. It said that the new deposits of gold found in the eastern Uttar Pradesh district total approximately 160 kilograms – and not 3,500 tonnes as had been  reported  earlier. Union housing and urban affairs minister Hardeep Singh Puri had celebrated the initial reports, saying the discovery will “catalyze growth of this beautiful aspirational district”. Hardeep Singh Puri ✔ @HardeepSPuri India will now have the world's 2nd largest gold reserves. The massive Gold discovery in Sonebhadra will further catalyze growth of this beautiful aspirational district, bring positive change in the lives of the people & usher an era of transformation. http:// toi.in/Na82fZ/a24gj   3k-tonne gold reserve in UP’s Sonbhadra: GSI | India News - Times of India India News: Sonbha...

Finshots Dated: February 24,2020 The Story On Friday, a district mining officer from Sonbhadra claimed that state officials had discovered close to 3000 tonnes of gold reserves close by. A day later, however, the Geological Survey of India denied the claim made by the district mining officer and said there was only about 160 kgs worth of recoverable gold on the site. Now before we dig into this story, a confession. When I first heard the news of this discovery, I was extremely sceptical. Not because I happened to have deep insights on Sonbhadra’s mining reserves. But because 3,300 tonnes is a lot of gold. So with my spidey sense tingling, I wanted to see if there was any merit to the claim. The first order of business was to figure out the likelihood of such a fortuitous event ever materializing. And within seconds, I struck “ gold ”. A key piece of evidence came from a Mckinsey report on the gold mining industry. Here’s a snippet to drive home the point. The 1...