Opening Bell:
Gift Nifty is down by 2.5 points in the early morning trade, indicating a negative opening for Indian stock market.
Asian markets traded higher following overnight gains on Wall Street. Japan’s Nikkei 225 rallied 1.32% at open and the Topix surged 0.91%. South Korea’s Kospi gained 0.73%, while the Kosdaq rose 0.65%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index pointed to a higher open. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.63%.
US stock market indices extended its rally on Tuesday as optimism over the dovish pivot from the US Federal Reserve continued, while investors looked ahead to crucial inflation data. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied 0.68%, the S&P 500 rose 0.59%, The Nasdaq Composite ended 0.66%, higher. In US Treasuries, benchmark 10-year notes were down 2.3 basis points to 3.933%, from 3.956% late on Monday. The 30-year bond was last down 2.6 basis points to yield 4.0428% while the 2-year note was last was down 1.8 basis points to yield 4.4394%.
Stocks News:
👉 Bharat Petroleum Corporation: The oil marketing company has received board approval for setting up a polypropylene (PP) unit for the production of polypropylene at Kochi Refinery at a gross project cost of Rs 5,044 crore.
👉 IndusInd Bank: The private sector lender, is likely to sell up to 1.79 crore shares, or 2.86 percent equity, in Nippon AMC via block deals, CNBC-TV18 reported, quoting sources. The floor price has been set at Rs 426.60 per share, which is a 5 percent discount to Tuesday’s closing price. The total offer size for the Nippon AMC stake stands at a substantial Rs 762 crore.
👉 Varun Beverages: The company’s board has approved to acquire Beverage Company, South Africa (Bevco), for Rs 1320 crore with an option to accept minority co-investment from a large equity fund. Bevco manufactures and distributes PepsiCo’s own-branded non-alcoholic beverages in South Africa. Additionally, the company also signed a MoU with the Jharkhand government to manufacture a plant in Pataru with an outlay of Rs 450 crore.
👉 RVNL: Rail Vikas Nigam and Kerala Rail Development Corporation JV emerged as the lowest bidders to upgrade and redevelop the Varkala Sivagiri Railway station in Kerala. The project costs Rs 123.26 crore, and the time period for the project is 30 months.
👉 Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) net sold shares worth Rs 601.52 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought Rs 294.35 crore worth of stocks on December 19, provisional data from the National Stock Exchange (NSE) showed.
Domestic and International Events
- There has been a 28 per cent annual increase in unclaimed deposits with the banks to Rs 42,270 crore as on March 2023, Parliament was informed on Tuesday. As compared to Rs 32,934 crore unclaimed deposits with public and private sector banks in FY22, the amount increased to Rs 42,272 crore at the end of March 2023, an increase of 28 per cent. As much as Rs 36,185 crore unclaimed deposits were with public sector banks while Rs 6,087 crore were with private sector banks at the end of March.
- Japan’s exports in November fell for the first time in three months dragged down by China-bound chip shipments, Reuters reported. November exports fell 0.2% from the same month a year earlier, data showed. It was the first year-on-year decline in three months. That compared with a 1.5% rise expected by economists in a Reuters poll. It followed a 1.6% rise in October.
- Crude oil prices rose for the third day, with Brent approaching $80 a barrel, amid concerns over the prospect of more disruption in the Red Sea. Brent crude oil rose 1.64% to $79.23 a barrel, while the US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures gained 1.34% to $73.44.
- Gold prices were subdued on Tuesday as a slightly firmer dollar countered support from falling Treasury yields while investors await U.S. economic data that could provide further indications on the outlook for US interest rates. Spot gold was steady at $2,027.22 an ounce at 1205 GMT. US gold futures were also flat at $2,041.30.
Key Equity Indices
| EMERGING | LATEST | % 1D |
| Hang Seng | 16,505 | (0.8) % |
| Shanghai Composite | 2,932 | 0.1 % |
| DEVELOPED | LATEST | % 1D |
| Dow Jones | 37,558 | 0.7 % |
| DAX | 16,744 | 0.6 % |
| FTSE 100 | 7,638 | 0.3 % |
| Nikkei | 33,219 | 1.4 % |
| Straits Times | 3,117 | 0.1 % |
