discretionary ones like travel. Each of these sectors is currently sending mixed messages—enough good news to justify hope, but with caveats that counsel caution. One industry, though, is sending an unequivocal signal. And a loud one. Since April the share price of Premier Explosives has more than doubled. That of a larger maker of things that go boom, Solar Industries, has quadrupled since 2021. Other dynamite producers are enjoying a similar streak.
This has been supplemented by a boom in the domestic construction industry. Explosives are used in the mining of limestone, which is needed to make cement and to produce steel. They are also indispensable in the vast land clearance for new roads and tunnels that is happening as part of the central government’s infrastructure ambitions. Lastly, explosives-makers are benefiting from increased defence spending, in India and elsewhere.