Opening Bell:
Gift Nifty is up by 54 points in the early morning trade, indicating a positive opening for Indian stock market.
Asia-Pacific markets inched higher Friday, with investors awaiting data on China’s property prices to assess any signs of improvement in the debt-laden real estate sector.
The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average both surged to record closing highs on Thursday, powered by investors piling into growth and technology stocks the day after artificial intelligence poster child Nvidia’s bumper earnings and outlook. The S&P 500 ended at a record high, gaining 105.23 points, or 2.11 percent, to 5,087.03, as did the Dow Jones Industrials, which closed at 39,069.11 after rising 456.87 points, or 1.18 percent. It was the first time the Dow has ever finished above 39,000 points.
Stocks News:
👉 Vodafone Idea said its board of directors will meet on February 27 to consider all proposals for raising funds in one or more tranches by way of a rights issue, further public offer, private placement, including preferential allotment, qualified institution placement, or through any other permissible mode. The trading window for dealing in securities of the company will be closed on February 23–29.
👉 TATA Elxsi through its NEURON product suite, announced a strategic partnership with Accuknox, the developer of NIMBUS. This strategic partnership helps operators roll out secure 5G networks with inline mitigation and makes the network future-ready for 6G.
👉 Oil India has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Fertilisers and Chemicals Travancore (FACT), a public sector company, to explore opportunities in the domain of green hydrogen, including green ammonia, green methanol, and other derivatives.
👉 Angel One will raise up to Rs 2000 crore through preferential issue, QIP or other modes, said the company on February 22. The purpose of this fund raise is to augment and build financial flexibility to grow the business and harness various emerging opportunities both within the existing and expanding broking business and across the inorganic universe within the fintech space.
👉 Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) net sold shares worth Rs 1,410.05 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought Rs 1,823.68 crore worth of stocks on February 22, provisional data from the NSE showed.
Domestic and International Events
• The members of the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) monetary policy committee (MPC) remained cautious on inflation prints due to uncertainty in food prices, according to the minutes of the MPC meeting released on February 22.
• India’s GDP is expected to grow by 6.5 percent in 2024-25, according to India Ratings and Research. While this would represent a decline from the statistics ministry’s first advance estimate of 7.3 percent for the current financial year, the prospect of the private investment cycle bodes well for the economy.
• Gold Prices continued their run higher on Thursday, buoyed up by a little slide in the United States Dollar and the usual range of broad geopolitical risks that have tended to support the market. With conflict ongoing in Ukraine and Gaza, the oldest haven asset looks underpinned, even as the investment world comes to terms with the likelihood that borrowing costs will remain high for longer than they had thought at the start of this year.
• West Texas Intermediate (WTI) US Crude Oil rallied on Thursday as energy markets find relief from Energy Information Administration (EIA) barrel counts came in just below forecasts, and eased back from a previous 12 million-plus barrel supply count.
| EMERGING | LATEST | % 1D |
| Hang Seng | 16,742 | 1.5 % |
| Shanghai Composite | 2,988 | 1.3 % |
| DEVELOPED | LATEST | % 1D |
| Dow Jones | 38,069 | 1.2 % |
| DAX | 17,370 | 1.5 % |
| FTSE 100 | 7,684 | 0.3 % |
| Nikkei | 39,098 | 2.2 % |
| Straits Times | 3,223 | 0.2 % |
