The government wants to impose RGST as soon as possible but given the fact that even government coalition partners are now dissenting it has created a lot of confusion. The impact of RGST issue is not that clear on stock market. Let me briefly explain you why it is like that.
If government somehow manages to impose RGST inflation will shoot up and some believe that for some time it might reach near 20%, remember it’s hovering around 15%-16% right now. Therefore, this is the negative point of RGST for the stock market. However, there is a positive point as well, we will be to able to receive our next tranche of IMF of Rs. 1.7billion after which only 1.7 billion remains which we will receive afterwards plus we will also be able to be in a better position to get grants/donations/loans from other foreign institutions. Foreign institutions want to see out tax to GDP ratio higher (which is just 8% much lower than regional countries). Secondaly, as we all know one the main problem of our economy is fiscal deficit and it is because of this reason Govt is borrorwing heavily from Private Banks and State Bank and crowding out investment, after imposition of RGST fiscal deficit could be improved. Therefore, if RGST is imposed there is a disadvantage (inflation) and advantage (increased revenue for government). Similarly if it is not imposed then there will be no inflation but we would not be able to receive further loans that easily.
As you must have noticed, the situation seems to be tricky and it is not that easy to predict the impact of RGST on market. It seems both impact can cancel out each other and there would be no impact on market but that would be the case only when two impacts are equal in importance. It is not easy to say which impact is more important. However, the only thing that I can say in this situation to investors is to remain cautious and do not over invest in market at this moment.
Let me also inform that SBP has announced its monetary policy today and decided to increase discount rate by 50bps so now the benchmark rate has reached 14%. The possible impact of this decision on market have already been explained in previous post.
Please note that if any positive news regarding leverage product enters the market then I expect that market will further go up because un like the other two issues (RGST, Discount rate) leverage product is directly related to the market.
If government somehow manages to impose RGST inflation will shoot up and some believe that for some time it might reach near 20%, remember it’s hovering around 15%-16% right now. Therefore, this is the negative point of RGST for the stock market. However, there is a positive point as well, we will be to able to receive our next tranche of IMF of Rs. 1.7billion after which only 1.7 billion remains which we will receive afterwards plus we will also be able to be in a better position to get grants/donations/loans from other foreign institutions. Foreign institutions want to see out tax to GDP ratio higher (which is just 8% much lower than regional countries). Secondaly, as we all know one the main problem of our economy is fiscal deficit and it is because of this reason Govt is borrorwing heavily from Private Banks and State Bank and crowding out investment, after imposition of RGST fiscal deficit could be improved. Therefore, if RGST is imposed there is a disadvantage (inflation) and advantage (increased revenue for government). Similarly if it is not imposed then there will be no inflation but we would not be able to receive further loans that easily.
As you must have noticed, the situation seems to be tricky and it is not that easy to predict the impact of RGST on market. It seems both impact can cancel out each other and there would be no impact on market but that would be the case only when two impacts are equal in importance. It is not easy to say which impact is more important. However, the only thing that I can say in this situation to investors is to remain cautious and do not over invest in market at this moment.
Let me also inform that SBP has announced its monetary policy today and decided to increase discount rate by 50bps so now the benchmark rate has reached 14%. The possible impact of this decision on market have already been explained in previous post.
Please note that if any positive news regarding leverage product enters the market then I expect that market will further go up because un like the other two issues (RGST, Discount rate) leverage product is directly related to the market.
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