Growth of Listed Firms Vis-À-Vis Growth of Economy in India

Time and again we observe the stock market movements being divorced from developments of underlying economy (real sector firms). This is similar to the dynamics in the superstructure being independent of what is happening in the underlying structure. This disparity is strong with respect to the implied growth projections made while valuing listed firms by capital market participant's vis-à-vis the implied growth projections of the whole economy. The popular media captures this perceived growth disparity using measures such as PE multiples of popular Stock Market Indices (say, BSE Sensex or NSE Nifty) vis-à-vis the projected Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rates. This paper attempts encapsulating the areas and reasons for differences. In the Indian context, some of the factors which impinge on the growth of publicly listed firms are – listed firms growth being driven by exports and activities outside the country; shift of business from unorganized to organized sector; and shift of business from unlisted (private) companies to listed companies. The question that remains unanswered is – how long can a segment in a system grow independent of the whole system – OR, can it for long? Definitely this growth can happen as long as the compositional shifts continue to happen. But, there would be strict limits (say, in terms of size or time span). So, long-run growth rates of GDP and industry might matter for the listed players as well. However, if the abstraction of the firm as a scrip (or counter or stock quote on the ticker tape) is where our interest lies – we can actually think of dynamics in the superstructure being independent of what is happening in the underlying structure (say, due to liquidity or herd behavior) – at least in what economists fashionably call the ‘short-term bubbles'