Opening Bell:
Gift Nifty is up by 12.0 points in the early morning trade, indicating a positive opening for Indian stock market.
Hong Kong stocks jumped nearly 2% in the last hour of trading, leading wider gains in the Asia-Pacific region as shares of big Chinese banks surged. Investors looked ahead to key US consumer inflation data for clues on the trajectory of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index climbed 1.86%, while China’s benchmark CSI 300 ended 0.95% higher at 3,702.38. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 added 0.21% to close at 7103.1. In Japan, the Nikkei 225 ended 1.75% higher at 32,494.66, while South Korea’s Kospi finished up 1.21% at 2,479.82. Both benchmarks were at their respective highest closing levels since September 25.
Overnight in the US, all three major indexes closed in the green. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.19%, The S&P 500 gained 0.43%, The Nasdaq Composite added 0.71% to. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones are forecasting a 0.3% month-over-month increase for the upcoming US inflation data, and a 3.6% rise from the prior year.
European stock markets closed higher Thursday as they built on positive global momentum this week. The regional Stoxx 600 index ended 0.1% higher, with sectors spread across positive and negative territory.
Stocks News:
👉 Infosys: Information Technology (IT) services major, Infosys Ltd on Thursday reported a mere 3.2% year-on-year rise in its consolidated net profit for the fiscal’s second quarter ended September (Q2FY24) to ₹6,212 crore compared to ₹6,021 crore in the year-ago period. Sequentially, the consolidated net profit was up 4.5%. Infosys revenue growth guidance has been trimmed to 1%-2.5% from 1%-3.5%, as per the company’s filing.
👉 HCL Tech: HCL Technologies reported a rise of 9.8% in its consolidated net profit at ₹3,832 crore, compared to ₹3,489 crore in the corresponding period last year. The growth in profit was supported by a robust deal momentum even as larger macroeconomic weakness persisted in the IT sector. The company’s revenue from operations in the second quarter of the current fiscal stood at ₹26,672 crore, registering a growth of 8.04%, compared to ₹24,686 crore in the year-ago period.
👉 Maruti Suzuki: Maruti Suzuki will consider the issuance of preferential shares to its parent firm at its Board of Directors Meeting, scheduled on October 17. The issue of equity shares will be considered for acquiring Suzuki Motor Gujarat Private Limited, said the automaker in a stock exchange filing on Thursday. Months ago, the Maruti Suzuki board had approved the termination of the contract manufacturing agreement CMA with Suzuki Motor Gujarat Private Ltd.
👉One97 Communications: The Reserve Bank of India imposed a fine of ₹5.39 crore on Paytm Payments Bank on Thursday. The fine was imposed on non-compliance with certain provisions of RBI guidelines related to Know Your Customer (KYC), cybersecurity, etc. According to RBI, Paytm failed to comply with the provisions of RBI guidelines. Failure to report a cybersecurity incident on time is one of multiple incidents where RBI guidelines were not followed.
👉 Foreign institutional investors (FII) sold shares worth Rs 1,862.57 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DII) bought Rs 1,532.08 crore worth of stocks on October 12, provisional data from the National Stock Exchange (NSE) showed.
Domestic and International Events
- India’s industrial output grew by 10.3% in August, according to data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation on October 12. At 10.3%, the latest industrial growth figure as per the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) is the highest in 14 months. It is also well above the consensus estimate of 9.1%. Industrial growth had come in at 5.7% in July – now revised to 6.0% – and was -0.7% in August 2022. For the first five months of 2023-24, India’s industrial output is up 6.1% year-on-year, down from 7.7% in April-August 2022 when the data was boosted by a favorable base effect.
- India’s retail inflation dropped to 5.02% in September compared to 6.83% in August, according to data from the ministry of statistics. The food price inflation for September stood at 6.56% compared to 9.94% in August. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had anticipated inflation to moderate from September onwards. The RBI’s Monetary Policy Committee maintained its inflation forecast for the fiscal year at 5.4%, with projections of 6.4%, 5.6%, and 5.2% for Q2, Q3, and Q4, respectively. The committee.
- Oil prices rose on Thursday, reversing earlier falls, on expectations that U.S. interest rates had peaked, but a lower demand growth forecast for next year from the International Energy Agency and higher U.S. inventories limited further gains. Brent futures rose by 57 cents, or 0.66%, to $86.32 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude gained 21 cents, or 0.25%, to $83.68 a barrel.
- Gold prices pared gains on Thursday as dollar and Treasury yields ticked higher after U.S. consumer prices rose more than expected in September and raised worries that the Federal Reserve could keep rates higher for some time. Spot gold fell slightly by 0.1% to $1,872.29 per ounce, after hitting its highest level since Sept. 27 earlier in the session. US gold futures dipped 0.1% at $1,885.50.
Key Equity Indices
| EMERGING | LATEST | % 1D |
| Hang Seng | 18,238 | 1.9 % |
| Shanghai Composite | 3,108 | 0.9 % |
| DEVELOPED | LATEST | % 1D |
| Dow Jones | 33,631 | (0.5) % |
| DAX | 15,425 | (0.2) % |
| FTSE 100 | 7,645 | 0.3 % |
| Nikkei | 32,495 | 1.8 % |
| Straits Times | 3,219 | 0.8 % |
