Opening Bell:
Gift Nifty is up by 75.5 points in the early morning trade, indicating a positive opening for Indian stock market.
Asian markets rebounded to trade higher on Friday as investors weighed on key economic data in the region. Japan’s Nikkei 225 traded 0.56% higher and the Topix gained 0.6%. South Korea’s Kospi added 0.19%, while the Kosdaq fell marginally. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index futures were higher at 17,136, compared to the HSI’s close of 17,044.61. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.29%, bouncing from a one-year low in the previous session.
U.S. stocks tumbled on Thursday, dragged by tech and tech-adjacent megacap shares as investors digested mixed quarterly earnings and signs of economic resiliency that could encourage the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates at a restrictive level longer than expected. All three major U.S. stock indexes ended in the red, and all remain on track for weekly declines. The tech-heavy Nasdaq suffered the biggest%age drop, weighed down by the “magnificent seven” group of megacap stocks in the face of cloudy earnings guidance and the “higher for longer” interest rate scenario. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.76%, the S&P 500 lost 1.18% and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.76%.
Stocks News:
👉 Colgate Palmolive: The oral care company has registered 22.3% on-year growth in profit at Rs 340 crore for the quarter ended September FY24, driven by strong and better-than-expected EBITDA margins driven by pricing and efficiencies. Revenue from operations grew by 6% year-on-year to Rs 1,471 crore for the quarter. The board has declared the first interim dividend of Rs 22 per share for the current fiscal.
👉 Canara Bank: Canara Bank reported a growth of 43% in net profit to ₹3,606 crore, compared to ₹2,525 crore in the corresponding period last year. The public sector lender’s net interest income (NIIs) – the difference between interest earned and interest expended- in the second quarter of the current fiscal rose 19.8% to ₹8,903 crore, compared to ₹7,433.8 crore in the year-ago period.
👉 Vodafone Idea: The telecom operator has posted a net loss of Rs 8,738 crore for the July–September period of FY24, a widening from the loss of Rs 7,596 crore in the corresponding period last fiscal. Revenue from operations increased by nearly 1% YoY to Rs 10,716 crore, while EBITDA grew by 4.5% on-year to Rs 4,283 crore with a margin expansion of 140 bps at 40% for the quarter. Average revenue per user jumped to Rs 140 in Q2 FY24, up from Rs 131 in Q2 FY23 and Rs 139 in Q1 FY24.
👉 Shriram Finance: The NBFC on Thursday reported a 19.7% yoy increase in AUM to ₹2.03 trillion. Among loan segments, farm equipment grew the slowest at 5.6%. The fastest growth was seen in personal loans (73.3%), albeit on a smaller base than most other segments. Shriram Finance slowed down its lending for farm equipment in the September quarter on the back of uncertain rainfall, but the company expects rural demand to strengthen, executive vice-chairman Umesh Revankar said.
👉 Foreign institutional investors sold shares worth Rs 7,702.53 crore, while domestic institutional investors bought Rs 6,558.45 crore worth of stocks on October 26, provisional data from the National Stock Exchange showed.
Domestic and International Events
- The income tax department reported that individual taxpayer I-T returns increased by 90% in 9 years to 6.37 crore in the 2021–2022 fiscal year, suggesting a larger taxpayer base. As many as 7.41 crore returns for AY 2023–24 have been filed thus far during the current fiscal year, including 53 lakh first-time filers.
- The gross domestic product (GDP) of the US accelerated at the fastest pace in nearly two years at an annualized rate of 4.9% in the third quarter, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis’ (BEA) first estimate showed. The US GDP reading followed the 2.1% growth recorded in the second quarter and surpassed Wall Street expectations of 4.2%.
- The European Central Bank left interest rates unchanged as expected on Thursday, ending a streak of 10 consecutive rate hikes. The ECB has lifted rates by a combined 4.5 percentage points since July 2022 to combat runaway inflation but promised a pause last month.
- Gold was slightly higher on Thursday as steady safe-haven demand fueled by the Middle East conflict helped bullion weather pressure from strong U.S. data that quelled recession fears. Spot gold was higher by 0.3% at $1,986.29 per ounce. Earlier in the session, prices were just shy of the five-month high hit on Friday. U.S. gold futures rose 0.1% to $1,996.40.
- Oil prices rose on Friday, regaining ground after tumbling more than $2 a barrel in the previous session as concerns of a wider Middle East conflict eased while the United States, the world’s biggest oil consumer, showed signs of weakening demand. Brent crude futures climbed 45 cents, or 0.5%, to $88.38 a barrel by 0019 GMT while U.S. West Texas Intermediate was at $83.63 a barrel, up 42 cents, or 0.5%.
Key Equity Indices
| EMERGING | LATEST | % 1D |
| Hang Seng | 17,045 | (0.2) % |
| Shanghai Composite | 2,988 | 0.5 % |
| DEVELOPED | LATEST | % 1D |
| Dow Jones | 32,784 | (0.8) % |
| DAX | 14,731 | (1.1) % |
| FTSE 100 | 7,355 | (0.8) % |
| Nikkei | 30,602 | (2.1) % |
| Straits Times | 3,071 | (0.2) % |
