Opening Bell:
Gift Nifty is up by 22.5 points in the early morning trade, indicating a positive opening for Indian stock market.
Asia-Pacific markets fell on Friday as investors assessed Japan’s July inflation data and fresh blows to China’s real estate sector. Japan’s core inflation rate fell to 3.1%, down from 3.3% in June. Headline inflation remained at 3.3%. Meanwhile, embattled Chinese real estate giant Evergrande has filed for bankruptcy protection in a US bankruptcy court. Futures for Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index stood at 18,147, pointing to a weaker open compared to the HSI’s close of 18,326.63. Japan’s Nikkei 225 slipped 0.58% and the Topix also fell by 0.59% after the inflation reading was released. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 inched down 0.2%, while South Korea’s Kospi was 0.67% lower and the Kosdaq lost 0.59%.
S&P 500 futures were little changed Thursday night after the major averages dropped for a third straight day. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures rose by 11 points, or 0.03%. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures dipped 0.02% and 0.12%. During the regular session Thursday, the Dow closed below the 50-day moving average for the first time since June 1-which is a bearish signal for investors. The 30-stock index tumbled 290.91 points, or 0.84%. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 declined 0.77%, and the Nasdaq Composite slid 1.17%. The 10-year US Treasury yield on Thursday hit its highest level since October 2022. The move came after the July meeting minutes from the Federal Reserve suggested further interest rate hikes could be ahead as central bank policymakers remain concerned about inflation.
Stocks News:
👉NTPC: The state-owned power generation company has executed the business transfer agreement (BTA) with its subsidiary NTPC Mining for hiving off the coal mining business. The BTA will become effective upon completion of the conditions precedent mentioned in the BTA. On July 29, NTPC received the board approval for spinning off the mining business, consisting of six coal mines, to NTPC Mining through BTA.
👉JSW Steel: JSW Steel Ltd is considering picking up a 75% interest in Teck Resources’ steelmaking coal business Elk Valley Resources, according to a Bloomberg report. Bloomberg had reported in July that the Mumbai-based company was interested in up to 20% of Teck’s coal business. The potential deal could value the business at $8 billion, said Bloomberg, rivalling an earlier bid by Swiss commodities giant Glencore. According to Bloomberg, Teck said it had received a number of indications of interest in its coal operations, without naming the parties.
👉LTIMindtree: US-based supplemental insurance provider Aflac Incorporated has selected LTIMindtree as its digital transformation partner for application modernisation and cloud transformation. The partnership will rearchitect Aflac’s legacy applications with a cloud-first approach in collaboration with Amazon Web Services, ensuring performance efficiency, cost optimisation, and operational excellence with heightened security.
👉Reliance Industries: Jio Financial Services is being removed from several FTSE Indices for failing to commence trading after 20 business days. A notice shared by FTSE Russell said that the company had also not announced a firm trading date since its inclusion on July 20. The omission will come into effect from August 22. The announcement from FTSE also comes at a time when Reliance Industries Ltd is working to list shares of its financial services unit. Earlier reports indicated that a listing date could be shared in the wake of the company’s upcoming annual general meeting.
👉Foreign institutional investors (FII) sold shares worth Rs 1,510.86 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DII) offloaded Rs 313.97 crore worth of stocks on August 17, provisional data from the National Stock Exchange (NSE) showed.
Domestic and International Events
- The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has launched UDGAM (Unclaimed Deposits – Gateway to Access Information) Centralised Web Portal to search for unclaimed deposits, according to an RBI press release issued on August 17, 2023. The RBI created this platform for the public to utilise in order to facilitate and make it easier for consumers to look for unclaimed deposits across numerous banks in one place. Banks publish a list of unclaimed deposits on their websites. To improve and broaden depositors’ and beneficiaries’ access to such data, the RBI has decided to create an online platform that will allow them to search across various banks for probable unclaimed deposits depending on user inputs.
- Industrial packaging company Pyramid Technoplast mobilized Rs 27.55 crore from four anchor investors on August 17, ahead of the public issue opening. Carnelian Structural Shift Fund, Alchemie Ventures Fund-Scheme I, Pluris Fund, and Resonance Opportunities Fund are the anchor investors. Carnelian Structural Shift Fund, a part of Carnelian Asset Advisors founded by Vikas Khemani, bought the maximum amongst them, buying Rs 12.55 crore worth of shares. The company has finalized the allocation of 16.59 lakh equity shares to anchor investors, at a price of Rs 166 per share.
- Oil prices rose more than 1% on Thursday after China’s central bank sought to stem the rising tide of pessimism over the country’s property market and wider economy. Prices fell in the previous session on simmering worries over the impact on fuel demand from a deepening property crisis that is stifling momentum in China’s economy and from the potential for further increases to U.S. interest rates. Brent crude futures rose $1.15, or 1.38 percent, to $84.60 a barrel and US West Texas Intermediate crude was up $1.38, or 1.74 percent, at $80.76 a barrel.
- Spot gold was up 0.2 percent at $1,895.60 per ounce, after hitting its lowest level since March 15 at $1,888.30 earlier in the session. U.S. gold futures were trading slightly lower at $1,925.80. The dollar index slipped 0.3 percent against its rivals, making gold less expensive for other currency holders.
Key Equity Indices
| EMERGING | LATEST | % 1D |
| Hang Seng | 18,327 | (0.0) % |
| Shanghai Composite | 3,164 | 0.4 % |
| DEVELOPED | LATEST | % 1D |
| Dow Jones | 34,475 | (0.8) % |
| DAX | 15,677 | (0.7) % |
| FTSE 100 | 7,310 | (0.6) % |
| Nikkei | 31,626 | (0.4) % |
| Straits Times | 3,197 | (0.5) % |
