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India's palm oil imports in February plunged to their lowest levels in nine months, as higher prices prompted buyers to reduce purchases of the tropical oil and increase buying of sunflower oil, five dealers told Reuters on Tuesday. Lower purchases by India, the world's biggest importer of vegetable oils, could weigh on benchmark Malaysian palm oil futures, but will help to reduce sunflower oil inventories in the Black Sea region. February palm oil imports fell 35.6% month-on-month to 504,000 metric tons, the lowest since May 2023, according to estimates from dealers. "Palm oil imports have declined significantly due to persistently negative margins and competitive pricing of soybean and sunflower oil," said Rajesh Patel, managing partner at edible oil trader and broker GGN Research. Palm oil usually trades at a discount to rival soyoil and sunflower oil, but falling stocks have lifted its prices above rival oils, whose supplies are abundant. Crude palm oil (CPO) imports are being offered at about $965 a metric ton, including cost, insurance and freight (CIF), in India for April delivery, while soyoil and sunflower oil are offered around $950 and $928 a ton, respectively, dealers said. Sunflower oil imports surged 34% last month to 295,000 tons on lower prices, and as shipments originally expected in January arrived in February due to delays caused by Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes, they said. Soyoil imports in February fell 7.9% to 174,000 tons from a month earlier, and were far below the monthly average imports of 306,000 tons seen in the last marketing year ended Oct. 31, dealers estimated. Industry body Solvent Extractors' Association of India (SEA) is likely to publish its data on February imports by mid-March. The lower palm oil and soyoil imports pulled down India's total edible oil imports in February to the lowest level in nearly two years at 973,000 tons, down 18.4% from a month earlier, dealers said. India buys palm oil mainly from Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, while it imports soyoil and sunflower oil from Argentina, Brazil, Russia and Ukraine.

As the India stock rally remains unstoppable with Mr Retail behaving like the biggest bull of Dalal Street, investors have been left richer by nearly Rs 100 lakh crore in 8 months. The market capitalisation of all BSE-listed stocks, as a result, is now within kissing distance of touching the milestone of Rs 400 lakh crore for the first time.After hitting the Rs 300 lakh crore mark on 5 July 2023, India's m-cap ended Monday's session at Rs 394 lakh crore and is now just one lucky trading day away from hitting the magical figure. The fast-paced rally is driven by a handsome 15% surge in Nifty and hundreds of small and midcap stocks giving multibagger returns.The nearly Rs 100 lakh crore gain in the last 8 months also includes the impact of any new listings like IPO, FPO or any other form of equity fundraising but most of the gains have been led by the sheer rise in share prices. On the other hand, delistings reduce the market cap.India's market cap crossed the Rs 50 lakh crore mark in 2007, Rs 100 lakh crore milestone in 2014, and the Rs 200 lakh crore-mark in February 2021.In terms of wealth creation, the ongoing bull run is unprecedented in India's history.In USD terms, India's m-cap is inching closer towards the $5 trillion mark and was last at $4.8 trillion level.Also read | How India's market capitalisation skyrocketed 30 times in 20 yearsWhat's next for India stock market?In the near term, there may be little juice left as bear calls warning of overvaluations have been rising with each passing day. But if you stretch the time horizon, the stock rally is seen as doubling by 2030."Assuming market returns in line with the last 15-20 year history and new listings, India will become nearly a U$10 trillion market by 2030 - impossible for large global investors to ignore," said Mahesh Nandurkar of Jefferies.Three major factors are expected to drive equity inflows:1) Household savings - Even after the surge in retail investor interest in equities, India's household savings in stock market is just about 5%. With growing awareness around investment through mutual funds by regulators and the Finance Ministry, Jefferies expects to see much more savings flowing into India’s equity markets.2) FII flow - Analysts point out that even though India is 4th largest in terms of market cap, its ranking in the Bloomberg World Index is 8th with a weight of just 2%. There is tremendous scope for foreign investors to increase investment into the fastest growing country in the world, Jefferies said.India's weightage in MSCI EM index has doubled in the last four years.3) New listings - India is home to 111 unicorns which together command a valuation of around $350 billion. Some large unicorns like Flipkart, Swiggy, Ola Electric and PhonePe can be listed in the near term, adding to India's market cap.NSE MD and CEO Ashish Chauhan has even gone on to predict that the non-stop market rally will give India a market cap of $50 trillion by 2047 led by tech startups.Also read | India vs China battle in MSCI EM intensifies as elephant’s weight doubles in 4 years, dragon weakens(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)

Shares of Tata Motors on Tuesday rallied 7.9% as investors pinned hopes on better value discovery from the proposed demerger of its passenger vehicle and commercial vehicle businesses. Both Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan gave overweight ratings on the Tata stock which hit a fresh 52-week high of Rs 1,065.60.The stock is, however, already trading above the target prices of both the global brokerages (Morgan Stanley's Rs 1,013 and JP Morgan's Rs 1,000).While JP Morgan said the demerger might lead to better value discovery, Morgan Stanley said the move reflects confidence in PV business being self-sustaining and could help in better value discovery.The demerger could take another 12-15 months to complete after which all shareholders of the company shall continue to have identical shareholding in both the listed entities."We believe this development signifies management’s confidence that the two businesses (CVs and PVs) will continue to operate independently with greater agility and self-sustaining cash flows (particularly the PV business). Historically, while the CV business has been generating healthy cash flows, the PV business has witnessed challenges in consistent cash flow generation due to its high spending on product development and the re-building phase in its market positioning," Emkay Global's Chirag Jain said.The brokerage has increased its target price to Rs 950 downgrade to reduce its rating after the recent run-up.Explaining the rationale behind the demerger, Tata Motors said while there are limited synergies between Commercial Vehicles (CV) and Passenger Vehicles (PV) businesses, there are considerable synergies to be harnessed across PV, EV and JLR particularly in the areas of EVs, autonomous vehicles, and vehicle software which the demerger will help secure.Since 2021, three businesses - Commercial Vehicles (CV), Passenger Vehicles (PV+EV), and Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) businesses of Tata Motors - these businesses have been operating independently under their respective CEOs.Nomura said TaMo's PV business has more potential to create value over the next few years as it has seen a remarkable turnaround after 2020 with market share ramping up from mid-single digits to 13.5% currently."While currently TTMT’s PV business EBITDA margins are ~6.5%, the ICE margins have already improved to ~9.4% in Q3FY24 but the negative EV margins (-8.2% in Q3) pull them down. We expect that EV margins will improve over time as most of the losses come from product development costs," Nomura said.The brokerage has an unchanged target price of Rs 1,057 on the Nifty stock.Motilal Oswal downgraded the stock to neutral with an unchanged target price of Rs 1,000 saying that all the positives are already factored in."While the demerger seems to be a step in the right direction, we do not foresee any need to revisit our target price, which is already based on SoTP valuation. Moreover, despite factoring in most of the positive triggers in our estimates, we get limited upside given the recent sharp run-up in the stock," it said.Once the demerger process is complete, Tata Motors PV will be pitched directly against market leader Maruti, with the global ammunition in the form of JLR and bridge the gap on valuation front."With Hyundai's listing on the cards and M&M as the fourth rival, the tussle in the PV space will be interesting to watch and can give an investor a fair choice to select between four of them. On the CV front, TaMo will compete straightaway with the pure play domestic player Ashok Leyland," said Ashwin Patil, Senior Research Analyst at LKP Securities.(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of Economic Times)