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[ad_1] Capacity utilisation in India is expected to dip in the first quarter of current fiscal and is expected to gradually rise by the third quarter, according to rating agency ICRA, indicating that the economic recovery will be hurt by the Russia Ukraine tensions, however it will see recovery by the end of the year. “ICRA expects capacity utilisation (CU) to reach the critical threshold of 75% required to trigger broad-based capacity expansion, only by the end of CY2022,” the rating agency said Thursday. “While the green shoots in private investments are positive, protracted geopolitical tensions and elevated commodity prices could constrain the profitability of the corporate sector, thereby imparting some caution to private sector capex in the immediate term. In such a scenario, Government capex remains critical to support investment demand,” Aditi Nayar, Chief Economist, ICRA Ltd said in a statement. ICRA expects CU to remain steady at 72-73% in Q4 FY 2022, before dipping in Q1 FY 2023. It, however, expects CU to rise gradually to 74-75% in Q3 FY 2023, reaching the threshold for broad-based capacity expansion to be undertaken by the private sector. ICRA said at present, expansion is being announced, but in a narrower set of sectors such as power and metals, and in sectors related to the PLI schemes. State governments should improve capex The rating agency said in FY 2022, the private sector showed an encouraging sign as private sector project announcements touched a 11-year high, suggesting early signs of a pick-up in investment activity, following the COVID-19 pandemic. But, with the war in the Black Sea region being a protracted one, ICRA expects some caution from private companies in terms of their capital expenditure. This is because higher commodity prices have already been putting pressure on companies’ bottom line, which would dissuade them from spending on capex. “In such a scenario, Government capex, especially by the states, will be critical to support investment demand and boost economic activity over the next two-three quarters,” ICRA said. “Given that the Rs 1 trillion special assistance loan for capital investment to the state governments accounts for the bulk of the increase in the GoI’s budgeted capex in FY2023, the onus to boost capex aggressively lies with the states,” ICRA’s Nayar said. “Moreover, following the higher-than-estimated tax devolution in Q4 FY2022, we estimate the amount of devolution in FY2023 to exceed the level budgeted by the GoI by nearly Rs 1.1 trillion. An early release of this upside could encourage the states to boost capex, which is urgently required to support economic growth amidst the geopolitical uncertainties,” she added. What is capacity utilisation? Capacity utilisation rate is used to measure how an economy or a company is performing. It weighs the percentage of a company’s potential output that is actually being realized, according to Investopedia, and economists use it to track how its industries in an economy are performing given the economic environment.  According to the RBI’s quarterly Order Books, Inventories and Capacity Survey (OBICUS) released earlier this month, the capacity utilisation for the manufacturing sector at the aggregate level picked-up further to 72.4 per cent in Q3 of FY 2022 from 68.3 per cent recorded in the previous quarter, reflecting improved manufacturing activities. [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] builder confidence, housing starts, homebuilder, builder, lumber, construction costs D.R. Horton, the nation’s largest homebuilder by gross revenue and total closings, this week released its second quarter earnings for the fiscal year, which executives deemed “outstanding,” despite ongoing supply chain challenges, “a very tight labor market,” and the massive uptick in mortgage rates.  D.R. Horton president and CEO David Auld kicked off the Tuesday earnings call with prepared remarks in which he pointed to solid growth despite ongoing pandemic-related concerns such as “extended” construction times, “highlighted by a 59% increase in earnings to $4.03 per diluted share.” That’s up from $2.53 per share in the prior-year quarter, according to Mike Murray, executive vice president and co-chief operating officer.  Auld said the homebuilder started construction on 24,800 homes this quarter and homes and inventory “increased 30% from a year ago with only 600 unsold completed homes across the nation. With 33,900 homes in backlog, 59,800 homes in inventory, a robust loss supply and strong trade and supplier relationships, we are well-positioned for consolidated revenue growth of greater than 25% this year.”  He continued: “We believe our strong balance sheet, liquidity, and low leverage position us to operate effectively through changing economic conditions. We plan to maintain our flexible operational, and financial position by generating strong cash flows from our homebuilding operations while managing our product offerings, incentives, home pricing, sales pace, and inventory levels to optimize returns.” The company says the market for new homes remains strong, although the net sales orders in the second quarter saw a decline of 10% to 24,340 homes. The value of those homes, however, increased by 10% from the previous year to $9.7 billion, with an average sales price of net sales orders in the second quarter of $400,600, according to Paul Romanowski, executive vice president and co-chief operating officer.  But while Romanowski noted the demand remains despite the increase in mortgage rates, D.R. Horton is “continuing to sell homes later in the construction cycle to better ensure the certainty of the home close date for our homebuyers with virtually no sales occurring prior to the start of home construction. We expect to continue managing our sales pace in the same manner for the rest of the year.” D.R. Horton ended the quarter with 59,800 homes in inventory, an increase of 30% from a year ago, and as of March 31, 26,000 of those homes were not sold, though only 600 were complete, Romanowski said.  “Our average construction cycle times for homes closed in the second quarter increased by almost two weeks since our first quarter and over two months from a year ago,” he said. “Although we have not seen improvement in the supply chain yet, we continue working to stabilize and then reduce our construction cycle times to historical norms.” Murray elaborated on that, saying there was a joint decision to extend construction cycle times. “We made the decision in several of our geographies to delay the release of homes until we could give a better delivery date to those customers and provide a better experience for them in the backlog process. So we saw a very strong demand in the quarter, but we did see the cycle times elongate,” Murray said. “I think we added two weeks this quarter, unfortunately, and we wanted to make sure we did not create more buyers in backlog with an unhappy experience.” Bill Wheat, chief financial officer, said the limited supply of homes on the market has allowed the company to raise prices while also maintaining “a very low level of sales incentives” in most of D.R. Horton’s markets. Although material costs increased 2.5% per square foot and lot costs increased 2.8% – and Wheat said the company anticipates costs will continue to increase – the company expects the strength of the market to counteract the additional expense.  “However, with the strength of today’s market conditions, we expect most cost pressures to be offset by price increases in the near term. We currently expect our home sales gross margin in the third quarter to be slightly better than the second quarter,” he said.  Looking forward, Jessica Hansen, vice president of investor relations, said the homebuilder expects market conditions to “continue to reflect strong demand from homebuyers with continuing supply chain challenges.” For the full fiscal year, the company expects consolidated revenues of $35.3 billion to $36.1 billion, with “homes closed” in the range of 88,000 to 90,000 homes, Hansen said.  “We still expect to generate positive cash flow from our homebuilding operations this year, and we will continue to balance our cash flow utilization priorities among our core homebuilding operations, increasing our rental inventories, maintaining conservative homebuilding leverage, and strong liquidity, paying an increased dividend, and consistently repurchasing shares,” she said.  The post D.R. Horton sees ‘outstanding’ profits despite increased costs, build time appeared first on HousingWire. [ad_2] Source link

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[ad_1] Japan Tobacco considers sale of Russia operations [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] Nepal banned imports of cars, alcohol, tobacco and other luxury items Wednesday and shortened its workweek to help conserve its dwindling supply of foreign exchange. A notice published in the government gazette said only emergency vehicles can be imported. No imports of any type of alcohol or tobacco products, large-engine motorcycles and mobile phones costing over $600 dollars will be allowed. The ban, in effect until the end of the fiscal year in mid-July, also forbids imports of toys, playing cards and diamonds. Without such drastic measures, the foreign currency reserves needed to import almost everything will last only a few more months, officials said. Nepal’s main sources of foreign currency are tourism, remittances from overseas workers and foreign aid. Hundreds of thousands of foreign tourists usually visit the Himalayan country every year, but the number of visitors plunged during the coronavirus pandemic. Rising prices for oil have added to pressure on Nepal’s foreign reserves. So to conserve fuel, Information Minister Gyanendra Karki announced Wednesday that the government would reduce the work week from five and a half days to five. However the crisis is already easing, he said, as tourists resume visits and more Nepalese go overseas to work, sending their earnings home. [ad_2] Source link

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[ad_1] Meta’s Reality Labs posts $2.9B loss: 'I recognize it’s expensive' says Zuck [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] Share Market News Today | Sensex, Nifty, Share Prices LIVE: Domestic equity market benchmarks BSE Sensex and Nifty 50 were likely to witness a tepid start on Thursday, a day of weekly and monthly F&O expiry of April contracts. Nifty futures were trading just 3.50 points up at 17,053 on Singaporean Exchange. In the previous session, bears clutched the Dalal Street, forcing the indices lower. BSE Sensex tanked 537.22 points or 0.94 per cent to settle at 56819.39, while NSE Nifty 50 lost 162 points or 0.94 per cent to finish trade at 17,038. Asian stock markets were trading mixed in early trade on Thursday. Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.16% while the Topix index climbed 0.49%. In overnight trade on Wall Street, the S&P 500 gained 0.21%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 61.75 points, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite remained little changed at 12,488.93. Today is the last day to subscribe to Rs 1,400-cr Campus Activewear IPO. The IPO is a complete offer for sale (OFS) of 4.79 crore shares by promoters and shareholders of the company. On the second day of the IPO bidding process, the issue was subscribed was subscribed 3.21 times. [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] Homeownership in America was a dream that became a nightmare for some during the financial crisis, and then became a hot topic of conservation for the last several years. We’ve got fresh data on homeownership — how does it look today? It seems perfectly right to me if you believe in demographics, affordability and credit profiles. In the previous expansion, I always stressed that housing would have its weakest recovery from 2008 to 2019. Part of the reason homeownership rate fell during that time was that when people lose their homes legally, they are taken off the homeownership percentage. We had a lot of deleveraging that needed to occur in those years, and it took time. However, it’s 2022, so let’s look at the state of homeownership in America today and why it still looks right to me. In 2019 I wrote: “Early in this economic cycle, one of the more controversial calls I made was that the homeownership rate would bottom at 62.2% – 62.7% in this cycle (2008–2019). This prediction was based on three facts: First, demographics during this period supported renting, not home buying. Our demographics were either too young or too old to be in the market to purchase homes.  “Second, over 8 million homeowners were delinquent on their mortgages, and once they lost their home, they would join the ranks of renters. Third, home-ownership and purchase applications were high and could not be sustained at that level with the weaker demographics for homeownership and no exotic loans to boost demand.” The homeownership rate never got down to the 62.2% – 62.7% range like I thought it would in the previous expansion. The lowest we got was 62.9% and we have been rising since then. The first-quarter homeownership data is now out, and after the crazy, unrealistic rise during COVID-19, that data has come down to a level that looks about right to me. From Census: The homeownership rate of 65.4 percent was not statistically different from the rate in the first quarter 2021 (65.6 percent) and the fourth quarter 2021 (65.5 percent). Part of my 2019 forecast for the next decade is that I believe the target rate goal for homeownership should be 66.21%. I don’t put any serious weight on the spike we had during COVID-19; this data line is usually very slow-moving, so like most COVID-19 economic data, put a giant asterisk on it and move on. Below is what I wrote back in 2019. As I noted in 2019: “In the last few years, some pundits have been saying that expecting ownership to stay at  62.2% was too bullish. Today, we are less than a year away from the end of this cycle, and the homeownership rate has not gone below 62.2 %. The lowest rate we have seen so far is 62.9%. Now, I am going to make another controversial forecast. I believe the homeownership rate can get back to 66.21% at some point in the years 2022-2026.” These were the reasons I gave back then: 1. The median age for first-time homebuyers is now 32, and the number of Americans in the range of 25-31 years is massive. 2. Boomers are staying in their homes longer, so they are remaining homeowners. 3. The loan profile of buyers during the post-2010 expansion is excellent, so when the next job loss recession happens, we won’t lose as many homeowners (compared to what occurred after the Great Recession). As you can see from the third point, the credit profiles of American homeowners were excellent in 2019. Who knew this would get tested so sharply in a global pandemic with forbearance programs in 2020 and 2021! Up for the challenge, I created the phrase the forbearance crash bros, knowing that the housing crash addicts in America lack a financial credit profile risk analysis background. It was an easy layup for me to state that forbearance was never going to be the collapse of the U.S. housing market like these bearish Americans and foreign citizens were screaming about in 2020 and 2021. This was a significant victory for the United States of America, our people against the American bears. As you can see below, the cash flow of U.S. households was and is still outstanding. Loans in U.S. are very dull, which is a good thing, and this won’t change anytime soon because we have made American mortgage debt great again. This is important because, without a credit risk foreclosure or short sale, the homeownership rate uptrend will be more stable because we haven’t had a mortgage credit boom from 2014 to 2022. It was always slow and steady, and that is precisely how we should be dancing with consumer debt. The market of 2002-2005 not only had an explosion in debt growth, but the debt structures themselves were also very exotic. Going back to point No. 1 above, I noted that the average age of first-time homebuyers in 2019 was 32, and that the number of Americans in the range of 25-31 years was massive. In contrast, the demographics in 2010 weren’t the best for real growth in mortgage debt and demand, as that cohort was only aged 19-24 — they were too young to be buying homes. Millions of people buy houses each year, but our substantial young demographic patch would have to rent first before they got to their home-buying age in more significant numbers. Fast forward to 2020, and currently, the most prominent housing demographic patch in America is ages 28-34. So you can see why housing demand has been stable and higher than what we saw from 2008 to 2019. This extra kick in demand, which I always refer to as replacement buyers, looks right to me. This is not a result of speculative demand, just more Americans running into the first-time homebuyers’ median age of 33. We Americans aren’t that complicated. We rent, date, mate, get married and typically 3.5 years after marriage we have kids, which is when we don’t

[ad_1] Do you remember the first time you wrote a check for $100? The first $100 check I wrote was for my cell phone waaayyy back in 1997. Whoa…that brings back memories. At that point, it hadn’t even occurred to me to invest the 100 dollars – I was just happy to have my cell phone! What about your first $100 check? Or your first $1,000 check? I bet you weren’t wondering how to invest $1,000 dollars then, were you? Even better, your first $10,000 check? The first time I wrote a check for $10,000 was to pay off my student loan debt. That was, by far, the best check I ever wrote! For me the choice was clear, but where to invest $10K isn’t always an easy decision. I’m here to help! By far the quickest and easiest way to set up a diversified portfolio of stocks with $10,000 is through Robinhood – our top investing pick. 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