Sensex crosses 35K as govt move to contain fiscal defecit

Early on Wednesday, the government pared its additional borrowing programme in the year to 31 March to Rs20,000 crore from the Rs50,000 crore it announced last month, giving investors hope that the fiscal slippage will be contained. The fiscal deficit reached 112% of the full-year budget in November. Investors have also been fretful that the government may stray off the fiscal consolidation path in the 1 February budget, its last before the 2019 general elections.

The abatement of some of these worries, along with optimism of an earnings recovery, continued to pull in money. Analysts are expecting the first signs of a rebound in corporate earnings growth in the December quarter owing to the favourable effect of a low base a year ago and higher consumer spending in the festive season.

Those expectations have overriden concerns over high valuations. Currently, the Sensex is trading at 20.39 times expected earnings for the next 12 months.

“High valuations will be justified once economic revival and earnings growth start catching up,” said Dhiraj Sachdev, who helps manage Rs11,252 crore at HSBC Asset Management.

The optimism about an earnings recovery hasn’t translated into a significant change in earnings estimates yet. For fiscal 2018, the earnings estimate for Sensex firms has been cut by 11.29% since April. For fiscal 2019, it is down 4.75%.