IndusInd Bank will report its earnings for the Dec. quarter on Wednesday

Opening Bell:

SGX Nifty is up by 34.0 points in the early morning trade, indicating a positive opening for Indian stock market.

Stocks in Asia were mixed Wednesday as investors assessed the path for monetary tightening and prepared for potential policy tweaks from the Bank of Japan. The Japanese Nikkei is up by 0.6 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng is up by 0.20 percent and South Korea’s Kospi is down by 0.68 percent in early morning deals.

The Dow fell more than 1 percent on Tuesday as weak earnings from Goldman Sachs dragged the index lower, but a jump in Tesla shares helped the Nasdaq stay positive as the corporate earnings season took center stage. S&P 500 lost 0.20 percent Nasdaq Composite added 0.14 percent.

Stocks News:

?IndusInd Bank will report its earnings for the December quarter on Wednesday. The bank is expected to report strong growth in income on the back of a steady rise in loan book, but analysts’ view on the margin performance remains mixed.

?ITC signed an agreement to acquire direct-to-consumer (D2C) start-up Sproutlife Foods Pvt Ltd that owns ‘Yoga Bar’ with the aim to strengthen its presence in the fast-growing nutrition health foods space. It will buyout the company in tranches over a period of 3-4 years. It will buy a 47.5% stake by March 2025.

?ICICI Prudential Life Insurance reported a 29% year-on-year (YoY) fall in net profit for the quarter ended December to Rs 220.63 crore. The net premium income for the quarter rose 4.3% on year to Rs 9,465 crore.

?Reliance Industries arm Reliance Jio Infocomm has launched 5G wireless services in 16 cities across the country. With this, the total number of cities having access to Reliance Jio’s 5G services has reached 134.

?Foreign institutional investors (FII) turned net buyers for the first time in last 18 straight sessions, to the tune of Rs 211.06 crore worth shares, while domestic institutional investors (DII) have net purchased shares worth Rs 90.81 crore on January 17, as per provisional data available on the NSE.

Domestic and International Events

• Oil prices settled higher on Tuesday in choppy trading after China posted weak but expectation-beating annual economic growth data and on hopes that a recent shift in its Covid-19 policy will boost fuel demand.
• State-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) are likely to see weak earnings in current fiscal year despite fall in oil prices mainly because of losses they incurred on holding prices in the first half, Moody’s Investors Service said on Tuesday.
• Japanese 10-year government bond yields topped the Bank of Japan’s (BOJ) policy ceiling for a third straight session on Tuesday amid swirling speculation that policymakers could tweak stimulus settings when a two-day meeting wraps up on Wednesday.
• Goldman Sachs Group Inc on Tuesday reported a bigger-than-expected 69 percent drop in fourth-quarter profit as it struggled with a slump in dealmaking and weakness in its wealth management business.

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