Covid-19 impact: Earnings of Nifty50 firms slump to over 6-year low

Experts say recovery will be faster than that after the 2008 Lehman crisis

Even as the equity market recovers from the lows of March 20 on the hope of a swift earnings recovery and benign liquidity, the Covid-19 pandemic is continuing to erode the profits of India Inc. The underlying earnings per share (EPS) of the Nifty 50 index, which tracks the combined net profit of 50 companies that are part of the index, has now declined to a six-and-a-half year low of Rs360 per index unit.

This is the lowest level of earnings for the index since December 2013. There was a mild dip in corporate earnings in the second half of