Opening Bell:
Gift Nifty is down by 21.5 points in the early morning trade, indicating a negative opening for Indian stock market.
Asian markets traded lower on Thursday following overnight losses on Wall Street as the US Treasury yields jumped to multiyear high. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 traded 1.33% lower. Japan’s Nikkei 225 declined 1.42%, while the Topix fell 1.18%. South Korea’s Kospi plunged 1.62% and the Kosdaq dropped 2.22%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index futures were lower at 17,569, compared with the HSI’s close of 17,732.52.
US stocks ended sharply lower on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq falling more than 1% each, as Treasury yields rose again and investors assessed the latest batch of quarterly corporate results and forecasts. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.98%, the S&P 500 lost 1.34% and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.62%.
Stocks News:
👉 LTIMindtree: The IT services company has registered slightly better than expected earnings for the July-September period of FY24, with profit rising 0.9% QoQ to Rs 1,161.8 crore and revenue increasing 2.3% to Rs 8,905.4 crore. Revenue in dollar terms grew by 1.6% QoQ to $1,075.5 million, and the same in constant currency increased by 1.7% during the same period. The EBIT margin dropped 70 bps sequentially to 16% for Q2 FY24. The company has declared an interim dividend of Rs. 20 per share.
👉 IndusInd Bank: The private sector lender has recorded standalone profit at Rs 2,181.5 crore for the quarter ended September FY24, growing 22.09% YoY, with a fall in provisions and stable asset quality. Net interest income grew by 18% YoY to Rs 5,076.7 crore during the same period, while net interest margin remained flat at 4.29% QoQ but grew 5 bps YoY.
👉 Bajaj Auto: Bajaj Auto on Wednesday reported a 5.6% rise in second-quarter revenue as price hikes offset weak demand for its motorcycles. The company’s total revenue from operations rose to 107.77 billion rupees ($1.29 billion) for the three months to Sept. 30 from 102.03 billion rupees a year earlier. Buoyant domestic business registers a new peak, on the back of six successive quarters of double-digit YoY growth.
👉 ICICI Lombard: ICICI Lombard General Insurance released their July-September quarter results on Wednesday and reported a 2.2% year-on-year dip in net profits which declined from ₹590.5 crore during Q2FY23 to ₹577.3 crore during the quarter under review. The company also declared an interim dividend of ₹5 per equity share. ICICI Lombard had a good quarter when it comes to GDPI which rose by 17.4% YoY to ₹6,086 crore in Q2FY24 from ₹5,185 crore during the same quarter a year ago.
👉 Foreign institutional investors (FII) sold shares worth Rs 1,831.84 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DII) purchased Rs 1,469.50 crore worth of stocks on October 18, provisional data from the National Stock Exchange (NSE) showed.
Domestic and International Events
- The government today said it has permitted exports of 10.35 lakh tonnes of non-basmati white rice to seven countries, including Nepal, Cameroon and Malaysia. The export is permitted through National Cooperative Exports Limited (NCEL), the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) said in a notification.
- Japan’s exports rose 4.3% in September from a year earlier, Ministry of Finance (MOF) data showed on Thursday, up for the first time in three months. The figure beat a 3.1% increase expected by economists in a Reuters poll. It rebounded from a 0.8% fall in August. Imports fell 16.3% in the year to September. The trade balance came to a surplus of 62.4 billion yen ($416.78 million), versus the median estimate for a 42.5-billion-yen deficit.
- The Indian government has revised downward its wheat production estimate for the 2022-23 crop year to 110.55 million tonnes, down by 2.19 million tonnes from the previous estimate. Unseasonal rains during harvesting led to some loss, resulting in the downward revision. However, rice production is estimated to reach a record 135.75 million tonnes, coarse cereals production is higher at 57.31 million tonnes, and oilseeds production has reached a record 41.35 million tonnes. Cash crops like sugarcane and cotton also saw increases in production.
- Oil prices fell on Thursday, reversing gains in the previous session, after OPEC showed no signs of supporting Iran’s call for an oil embargo on Israel and as the United States plans to ease Venezuela sanctions to allow more oil to flow globally. Brent futures for December fell 74 cents to $90.76 a barrel. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures for November, which expires on Friday, dropped 57 cents to trade at $87.75 per barrel. The more active December WTI was down 51 cents to $86.76 a barrel at 0047 GMT.
Key Equity Indices
| EMERGING | LATEST | % 1D |
| Hang Seng | 17,733 | (0.2) % |
| Shanghai Composite | 3,059 | (0.8) % |
| DEVELOPED | LATEST | % 1D |
| Dow Jones | 33,665 | (1.0) % |
| DAX | 15,095 | (1.0) % |
| FTSE 100 | 7,588 | (1.1) % |
| Nikkei | 32,042 | 0.0 % |
| Straits Times | 3,137 | (1.1) % |
