Macquarie Bank pared its stake in five companies on Thursday. According to NSE bulk deal data, Macquarie Bank sold shares worth Rs 74.07 crore.

The global investment and advisory firm sold shares of beaten down stocks such as Aurobindo Pharma, Century Textiles, Jain Irrigation, Punj Lloyd and Raymond.

According to exchanges data, foreign institutional investors remained net sellers to the tune of Rs 248.18 crore on Thursday.

Macquarie in July downgraded India to underweight from overweight.

“The possible tapering of QE in the US and repricing of risk has resulted in significant capital outflows from India and brought external stability risks to the fore. This, in an environment of already weak growth and slow progress in undertaking much-needed policy reforms, is weighing down potential growth. We are downgrading our FY14 GDP growth forecast to 5.3 per cent y-o-y from 6.2 per cent y-o-y estimated earlier,” said Macquarie Securities in a report recently.

India’s macro environment is at crossroads, facing headwinds from sharp capital outflows, rupee depreciation and high cost of capital, which can possibly reverse the gains realised on macro stability indicators (inflation, current account deficit and fiscal deficit) from lower commodity prices.

This will, in turn, lead to delays in policy rate cuts by the RBI, thus weighing on consumption, investment and hence growth, it added. It may be recalled that in January, Macquarie had said the Indian ‘elephant’ will turn ‘tiger’ in 2013 and had raised the BSE Sensex target to 22,200 from its earlier projection of 21,600 and the Nifty target to 6,900 from 6,600. The investment banker had expected reforms push to take India to eight per cent a year growth over the next three years.

>badrinarayanan.ks@thehindu.co.in

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