Opening Bell:
Gift Nifty is down by 41.0 points in the early morning trade, indicating a negative opening for Indian stock market.
Asian markets traded lower on Friday tracking overnight losses on Wall Street as investors weighed the latest comments from Fed Chai Powell. Japan’s Nikkei 225 declined 0.87%, while the Topix fell 0.61%. South Korea’s Kospi plunged 1.23% and the Kosdaq dropped 1.59%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index futures were at 17,294, compared with the HSI’s close of 17,295.89. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.96% in early trade.
US stock market indices ended lower on Thursday as treasury yields surged after Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell’s comments over interest rate hike increased risk aversion among traders. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.75%, while the S&P 500 declined 0.85%, The Nasdaq Composite ended 0.96%, lower. Treasury yields rose further and the benchmark 10-year note yield hit a 16-year high of 5.001%.
Stocks News:
👉 ITC: The fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) giant standalone net profit rose 10.3% to ₹4,927 crore, compared to ₹4,466 crore in the year’s corresponding period. Revenue from operations also ticked 2.6% higher to ₹16,550 crore. The cigarette-to-hotel conglomerate’s EBITDA came in at ₹6,041.5 crore, reporting a 3% growth. This is the first quarterly earnings results after the board approved the demerger of ITC Hotels in August.
👉 Tata Motors: The Tata Group company has entered into share purchase agreements and other agreements to acquire a 26.79% stake in logistics solutions company Freight Commerce Solutions (Freight Tiger) for Rs 150 crore. The agreement also includes a provision enabling Tata Motors to further invest Rs 100 crore over the next two years.
👉 Jindal Stainless: The stainless steel company has recorded a 74% on-year growth in standalone profit at Rs 609 crore for the quarter ended September FY24, with revenue growing 14% to Rs 9,720 crore and EBITDA increasing 54% to Rs 1,070 crore during the same period. The standalone sales volume for the second quarter of FY24 stood at 5,43,619 metric tonnes (MT), up by nearly 26% YoY due to robust domestic demand.
👉 Zomato: Masayoshi Son-led SoftBank’s fund-SVF Growth (Singapore) Pte. Ltd will sell at least a 1.1% stake in food-delivery and restaurant-discovery firm Zomato Ltd for around ₹1,020 crore on 20 October, as the Japanese fund plans a full exit from the food delivery business. SoftBank’s stake sale decision in Zomato follows the latter’s dramatic rise in market price over the past year.
👉 Foreign institutional investors (FII) sold shares worth Rs 1,093.47 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DII) purchased Rs 736.15 crore worth of stocks on October 19, provisional data from the National Stock Exchange (NSE) showed.
Domestic and International Events
- The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has stated in its October bulletin that India is gaining momentum despite global uncertainty. Inflation has eased and the rupee has become less volatile. The article highlights India’s positive performance in high-frequency indicators, particularly in capital-heavy industries. The Indian rupee is currently displaying low volatility, and the moderation in inflation is reinforcing the country’s macroeconomic fundamentals. The global economic scenario is also discussed, with a slowdown in global growth noted.
- The decline in India’s retail inflation from its peak in July continues to boost macroeconomic fundamentals of the economy. The upbeat strengthening of the Indian economy’s fundamentals has come at the backdrop of losing pace of the global economy from the third quarter, said RBI article on Thursday. In India, consumer confidence in the fight against inflation is upbeat, with a positive outlook for domestic activity, according to the article on ‘State of the Economy’ published in the latest RBI Bulletin on Thursday.
- The Indian government has announced that it will allow unrestricted imports of laptops and tablets, as part of a new “import management system” to be implemented from November 1. This decision comes after the government faced criticism for introducing a licensing regime for these products in August. The move is expected to benefit global laptop manufacturers and create a more open and industry-friendly approach. The government aims to ensure the integrity of India’s digital infrastructure by collecting data on imports. Further measures may be introduced based on the data collected.
- Oil prices extended gains on Friday, rising about 1% on fears that the Israel-Gaza conflict may spread in the Middle East and disrupt supplies from one of the world’s top-producing regions.
Key Equity Indices
| EMERGING | LATEST | % 1D |
| Hang Seng | 17,296 | (2.5) % |
| Shanghai Composite | 3,005 | (1.7) % |
| DEVELOPED | LATEST | % 1D |
| Dow Jones | 33,414 | (0.8) % |
| DAX | 15,045 | (0.3) % |
| FTSE 100 | 7,500 | (1.2) % |
| Nikkei | 31,431 | (1.9) % |
| Straits Times | 3,100 | (1.2) % |
