Opening Bell:
Gift Nifty is up by 30.0 points in the early morning trade, indicating a positive opening for Indian stock market.
Asia-Pacific markets extended their losses on Thursday, tracking Wall Street’s sell-off after ratings agency Fitch downgraded the United States’ long-term credit rating from AAA to AA+. In Asia, investors will be watching the Caixin private survey for China’s service sector activity in July. Futures for Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index stood at 19,403, pointing to a weaker open compared to the HSI’s close of 19,517,38. Hong Kong will also see private surveys for its July business activity. Japan’s Nikkei 225 tumbled 0.95% on its open, while the Topix also fell 0.9%. South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.11% and the Kosdaq was also down 0.88%. South Korean internet giant Kakao saw its second quarter net profit fall by 44%, prompting a slide in its shares. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 slid 0.57%, and it will release its trade balance for June.
Stocks hit selloff mode Wednesday, and the Nasdaq Composite registered its worst day since February, after Fitch downgraded the long-term rating for the US and risk-off sentiment resurfaced. The tech-heavy index shed 2.17%, while the S&P 500 pulled back 1.38%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 0.98%. Fitch Ratings cut the long-term foreign currency issuer default rating for the US to AA+ from AAA Tuesday night, citing “expected fiscal deterioration over the next three years.” The last time the US got a downgrade from a major ratings agency was in 2011 when Standard & Poor’s cut the rating to AA+ from AAA.
Stocks News:
👉Titan Company Ltd. on August 2 reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 756 crore for the June quarter of FY24, registering a decline of 4.3% from Rs 790 crore in the same quarter of the previous financial year. The company reported a 2.7% rise in profit from Rs 736 crore in the previous quarter. The total consolidated revenue is Rs 11,897 crore, rising 25.97% from Rs 9,443 crore in the year-ago quarter, the company said in a regulatory filing. The revenue increased 14.83% from Rs 10,360 crore in the previous quarter.
👉Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) on August 2 reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 6,765.5 crore in the first quarter of the financial year 2023-24 on account of healthy marketing margins. The state-run oil marketing company had posted a net loss of Rs 8,557 crore in the same period last year as crude oil prices skyrocketed. Sequentially, the net profit of the company increased by 87.5% from Rs 3,608 crore in the quarter ending March 31. Revenue from the sale of products marginally declined to Rs 1.18 lakh crore in Q1FY24, as against 1.21 lakh crore in the same period last year. The company’s EBITDA in the June quarter stood at Rs 10,945 crore.
👉InterGlobe Aviation, the operator of low-cost airline IndiGo, on August 2 posted a profit of Rs 3,090.6 crore for the quarter ended June 2023, as compared to a net loss of Rs 1,064 crore in the same period a year ago. Revenue from operations for IndiGo, the largest airline in the country, rose 29.8% to Rs 16,683.1 crore, from the year-ago period when the airline had reported a topline of Rs 12,855 crore.
👉Mankind Pharma Ltd on Wednesday reported a 66% growth in profit for the first quarter of fiscal year 2024 on strong domestic sales. Its net profit rose to Rs 494 crore as compared to net profit of Rs 298 crore in the corresponding quarter of 2022-23. The company’s total income rose to Rs 2,637 crore in June quarter of the current fiscal from Rs 2,196 crore in the year-ago period, Mankind Pharma said in an exchange filing.
👉Foreign institutional investors (FII) offloaded shares worth Rs 1,877.84 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DII) sold Rs 2.23 crore worth of stocks on August 2, provisional data from the National Stock Exchange (NSE) shows.
Domestic and International Events
- Goods and services tax (GST) collections rose 11% to Rs 1.65 lakh crore in July on the back of stable economic recovery and improved compliance. The collections crossed the Rs 1.6 lakh crore mark for the fifth time since the roll out of the new indirect tax regime in July 2017.
- Instant payment system Unified Payments Interface (UPI) registered 9.96 billion transactions in July, with the total value for the month hitting Rs 15.34 lakh crore, according to data from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). This shows a 6.6% jump in the number of transactions via UPI from 9.34 billion in June. The value of transactions in the same period rose 4% from Rs 14.75 lakh crore.
- Oil prices eased on August 2 after sharp gains, but remained near their highest levels since April, as crude and fuel product inventory data showed robust US demand and offset concerns about the Chinese economy. Brent crude futures for October last slipped 79 cents, or 0.93%, to $84.12 a barrel. US West Texas Intermediate crude for September fell 91 cents, or 1.12%, to $80.46 a barrel.
- Gold prices pared gains on August 2, hurt by a stronger dollar and a rebound in bond yields as investors digested Fitch’s US credit rating downgrade and focused on nonfarm payrolls data later this week. Spot gold was last down 0.35% at $1,937.20 per ounce, after rising as much as 0.6% earlier on some safe-haven bids after ratings agency Fitch downgraded the US government to AA+ from AAA. U.S. gold futures slid 0.25% to $1,973.90.
Key Equity Indices
| EMERGING | LATEST | % 1D |
| Hang Seng | 19,517 | (2.5) % |
| Shanghai Composite | 3,262 | (0.9) % |
| DEVELOPED | LATEST | % 1D |
| Dow Jones | 35,283 | (1.0) % |
| DAX | 16,020 | (1.4) % |
| FTSE 100 | 7,562 | (1.4) % |
| Nikkei | 32,708 | (2.3) % |
| Straits Times | 3,325 | (1.5) % |
