Moneycontrol Pro Panorama | Sticking the landing

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The Panorama newsletter is sent to Moneycontrol Pro subscribers on market days. It offers easy access to stories published on Moneycontrol Pro and gives a little extra by setting out a context or an event or trend that investors should keep track of. 
India’s moon mission Chandrayaan-3 has begun its countdown for take-off. Given that it has to cover a distance of 3.84 lakh kilometers, we would know only by August if the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will be third-time lucky in getting its explorer to stick the landing on the moon. The previous two missions Chandrayaan-1 and Chandrayaan-2 ended in failure—the first one crash landed and the second met the same fate owing to a software glitch.

If Chandrayaan-3 sticks its landing, it will likely evoke an exuberant response. Accolades and social media congratulatory posts would follow. While Indian investors too would share in the joy, for them a different form of landing is making them nervous—that of the US economy.

Indian and US equities are in good spirits after the latest round of inflation data and slowly receding concerns over a US Federal Reserve-engineered hard landing. Indeed, investors are now asking “Where is the recession?” as market veteran Ajay Bagga captures in this piece with the same title. Bagga says that analysts have turned the most anticipated recession in to the most postponed one. This also means that Fed rate cuts won’t be easy to come. The investment chief of one of the world’s top hedge funds, American investment firm Bridgewater Associates, Bob Prince has warned that the battle with inflation is far from over and that the Fed won’t be cutting rates as many still expect. In fact, rate hikes are not over yet as analysts at UBS point out. UBS is pricing in a rate hike at the Fed meet towards the end of this month and perhaps even more in later meetings.