By: Dr K C Gupta

CONTRARIAN INDICATORS

AAII Bull-Bear Spread -14.5% (low)
CNN Fear & Greed Index 20 (extreme fear)
NYSE %Above 50-dMA % 30.40% (negative; barely clearing oversold)
SP500 %Above 50-dMA 32.40% (negative)

ICI Fund Allocations (Cumulative), 1/31/26
OEFs & ETFs: Stocks 61.83%, Hybrids 4.01%, Bonds 17.25%, M-Mkt 16.92%

INTEREST RATES

CME FedWatch
Current 3.50-3.75%
FOMC 3/18/26+ hold
FOMC 4/29/26+ hold

Treasury

T-Bills 3-mo yield 3.72%, 1-yr 3.66%; T-Notes 2-yr 3.73%, 5-yr 3.87%, 10-yr 4.28%; T-Bonds 30-yr 4.90%;
TIPS/Real yields 5-yr 1.26%, 10-yr 1.92%, 30-yr 2.66%
FRNs Index 3.638%

Bank Rates 
www.depositaccounts.com/


Stable-Value (SV) Rates, 3/1/26
TIAA Traditional Annuity (Accumulation) Rates
Restricted RC 5.00%, RA 4.75%
Flexible RCP 4.25%, SRA 4.00%, IRA-101110+ 3.30%
TSP G Fund 4.00% (previous 4.250%)

India Fear & Greed MMI 24.34 (extreme fear)
Weekly ETFs: INDA -3.86%, INDY -4.37%, EPI -3.33%, INDH -2.72%, SPY -1.50%

The data above are as of Sunday preceding the publication date.

ECONOMY

India has 1,800+ GCCs (Global Capability Centers) now including those from 33% of Fortune 500 (global) companies. They are commonly established as wholly-owned subsidiaries (WOS), joint-ventures (JVs), build-operate-transfer (BOT) arrangements, or through entities at GIFT City, Gandhinagar IFSC special economic zone. Most of the GCCs are in Bengaluru & Hyderabad & leading sectors include financials (21%), retail (14%), healthcare (12%) & automotive (11%).

PHARMA

French pharma Sanofi is expanding its GCC in Hyderabad, India. Sanofi-India will hire specialists in R&D, AI, data innovation & analytics, medical affairs, commercial capabilities & corporate functions.

French pharma Servier, operated by a French nonprofit foundation, will start production of single pill combinations (SPCs) in India as an entity called GATINN (“gati” = speed, “inn” = innovation in India) under Servier-India. Active pharma ingredients (APIs) will be imported from France, pills will be manufactured by contract manufacturers in India & will be exported to Asia, Latin America, Africa & the Middle East.

Swiss pharma Novartis/NVS is exiting its Indian pharma distribution operations by selling its 70.68% stake in Novartis-India (listed) to private-equity (P-E) firms ChrysCapital (56.45%), WaveRise Investments & Two Infinity Partners. As per regulations, an open market offer from P-E firms will follow for 26%. Novartis cited restructuring of its global businesses. Novartis-Healthcare-India will continue operations that include drug R&D & clinal testing.

AUTOS. French auto-parts supplier Valeo is expanding its footprint significantly (3x) in India for ICE cars & EVs. It will also supply cooling systems (including water-free, 2-phase liquid cooling) for datacenters & other industrial applications. Valeo spends 11.8% of sales for R&D – much higher than typical for auto-parts companies.

ENERGY

First US refinery in 50 years in Brownsville, Texas with a processing capacity of 168K barrels/day of light/sweet US shale oil will be financed by Ambani’s Reliance under a 20-year, $300 billion, 1.2 billion barrels oil deal. Brownsville lacks pipelines for domestic supplies, so much of the refined products may be exported (including to India). The existing US refineries can process middle-grade heavy/sour crude blend, so most of US shale oil is exported & US has to import heavier crude from elsewhere (Canada, Venezuela, Middle East).

US/Israel-Iran/Lebanon War & related disruptions in the flow of crude oil & LNG are bad for India. There is a small Indian SPR for crude & refined oil, but there is almost none for natural gas. Most of the natural gas storage is imported LNG held only at LNG terminals. Government has ordered refineries to boost natural gas production – normally a byproduct of petroleum refining.
Supplies of natural gas to companies, hotels, restaurants have been cut; some have closed temporarily. Despite 30-day waiver by US to purchase Russian container oil, some Indian banks such as SBI are not processing related payments due to potential future risks. If the War is prolonged & oil & gas prices remain high, Indian rupee may weaken to Rs 95 for $1.

Indian strategic petroleum reserve (SPR) capacity for crude & refined oil is only about 74 days – 9.5 days government capacity (5.33 MMT), 64.5 days corporate capacity. This is quite low! Government is expanding its reserve capacity by another 6.5 MMT. India counts on aggressively buying of oil in multiple markets (OPEC, non-OPEC) but that’s risky if there are global disruptions or if oil prices jump a lot. India’s proven estimated ultimate recovery (EUR) reserves are 1,948.1 MMT for crude oil & 1,844.3 BCM for natural gas; easily recoverable reserves are 423.1 MMT for crude oil & 595.4 BCM for natural gas. BCM = billion cubic meters, MMT = million metric tonnes, 1 MMT = 7.33 barrels (range 6.8-7.6 depending on crude density).

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