rediffGURU Samkit Maniar answers readers' personal income tax queries
From Sensex shares, Larsen & Toubro, Tata Motors, Hindustan Unilever, Asian Paints, ITC, Power Grid, NTPC and Reliance Industries were the major laggards. Among the gainers, Bajaj Finance jumped over 5 per cent. Mahindra & Mahindra, Bajaj Finserv, Bharti Airtel and Maruti also ended higher.
National Stock Exchange (NSE) chief Ashishkumar Chauhan on Friday cautioned retail investors against trading in derivatives and suggested them to invest in equities through mutual fund route. He emphasized that trading in Futures & Options (F&O) derivatives should be limited to informed investors who can manage risk and comprehend the market. Recently, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and chief economic advisor V Anantha Nageswaran flagged the growing risk of F&O trading for retail investors.
The funding environment in India for startups is improving this year if one were to go by Bain & Company estimates. Five private equity (PE) investors that come on top on the criterion of deal size collectively put in $9 billion in the first half of 2024, surpassing their outlay for last calendar year, when it was $8 billion. At the top of the list is Swedish firm EQT, which acquired US-based and listed Perficient at an enterprise value of $3 billion, the deal being done by the Indian wing of the company. It has also added to its list by putting in $500 million in WSO2, a "software as a service" company, increasing its tally to $3.5 billion.
Among Sensex shares, Tech Mahindra fell by over 6 per cent after the company reported a 60 per cent decline in net profit to Rs 510.4 crore in the December quarter. Bharti Airtel, ITC, HCL Technologies, Asian Paints, Wipro, HDFC Bank, Nestle, Tata Steel, Tata Consultancy Services and Maruti were among the other major laggards. NTPC, ICICI Bank, IndusInd Bank, Reliance Industries, JSW Steel, Bajaj Finance, Bajaj Finserv and Mahindra & Mahindra were among the gainers.
The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a plea filed by Sebi against a Securities Appellate Tribunal order which set aside the penalty imposed by the market regulator on RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani and two other entities in a case related to alleged manipulative trading in shares of the erstwhile Reliance Petroleum Ltd (RPL) in November 2007. A bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan said it was not inclined to interfere with the order passed by SAT.
After lagging behind benchmarks and broader indices over the past five years, real estate investment trusts (Reits) have outperformed them since the start of 2024. The four listed Reits have posted an average return of 16 per cent year-to-date, compared to 9.9 per cent for the S&P BSE Sensex and 11 per cent for the National Stock Exchange Nifty.
From the 30-share blue-chip pack, Adani Ports, UltraTech Cement, Larsen & Toubro, Sun Pharma, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, NTPC and State Bank of India were the major laggards. Tata Consultancy Services, Reliance Industries, ITC, Asian Paints, HCL Tech and Maruti were among the gainers.
India's flexible (flex) office segment, having breached pre-pandemic levels, is thriving as corporates, startups, multinational corporations, and global capability centres (GCCs) expand in India, seeking low-capital yet Grade A plug-and-play facilities. In the first quarter (Q1) of 2025, the flex office segment continued to grow, with flex space leasing rising by 22 per cent to 2.2 million square feet (msf), according to Colliers.
Trading would be conducted during normal hours.
Among the Sensex shares, Infosys rose the most by 1.37 per cent, followed by Larsen & Toubro (0.90 per cent), and Wipro (0.83 per cent). HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Reliance Industries, ITC, TCS, Kotak Bank, Asian Paints and Titan were among the lead gainers.
The deal amounts to $33.12 per share and once closed, NYSE shareholders would own approximately 36 per cent of ICE shares.
Propelled by strong demand and lower costs, the country's largest airline, InterGlobe Aviation (IndiGo), reported solid operational performance in the 2024-25 (FY25) October-December quarter (Q3). While demand was driven by the festival season, year-end increase, and higher consumer spending, lower fuel and rental costs helped deliver a beat at the operating profit level.
The government on Tuesday ruled out any surreptitious entry of terrorist outfits into the stock market and said that sufficient caution has been administered to the stock exchanges to look out for any suspicious entry into their activity.
Investors' sentiments will be guided by a host of domestic and global macroeconomic data announcements this week, along with the trading activity of foreign investors and trends in world stocks, analysts said. Besides, the rupee-dollar trend and movement of global oil benchmark Brent crude will also be crucial in dictating terms in the market, experts added.
Indications are that the Tata Sons stand on listing of the company may come up for a discussion even if it's not part of the agenda
BSE (formerly Bombay Stock Exchange) has seen its market share go past the critical 20 per cent mark in the derivatives segment, intensifying its battle with bigger rival - the National Stock Exchange (NSE) - which, less than a year ago, had a monopoly in this space. In April, the average daily trading volume (ADTV) for BSE stood at Rs 89 trillion, accounting for 20.6 per cent of the overall ADTV of Rs 432 trillion (based on notional volumes for options).
Among Sensex shares, Maruti, Mahindra & Mahindra, Larsen & Toubro, Bajaj Finance, Tata Motors, IndusInd Bank, Asian Paints, Power Grid, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank advanced. Tata Steel, Adani Ports, Zomato, HCL Tech, State Bank of India, Hindustan Unilever and Tech Mahindra were among the laggards.
The National Stock Exchange (NSE) on Monday cautioned investors against some fraudsters running illegal dabba trading with guaranteed returns to investors. Dabba trading is an illegal form of trading in shares, where operators of such trading rings allow people to trade in equities outside the stock exchange platform. The cautionary statements came after NSE found that the entities -- Shri Parasnath Commodity Private Limited, Shri Parasnath Bullion Private Limited, Faary Tale Trading Private Limited and Bharat Kumar (associated with Trade with Trust) --were providing dabba or illegal trading platform with assured returns.
Morgan Stanley has increased the target prices of certain information technology (IT) stocks by as much as 29 per cent, anticipating an improvement in earnings in the near future. Within the IT and engineering research and development (ER&D) services sector, it is now more optimistic about growth and margin estimates for 2024-25 (FY25).
The listed information technology (IT) subsidiaries of engineering giant Larsen & Toubro (L&T), LTIMindtree (LTIM) and L&T Technology Services, have seen sharp upmoves over the past fortnight, with returns ranging from 14 to 18 per cent. Both have outperformed the peer index, the National Stock Exchange Nifty IT, which has gained about 8 per cent, while the benchmark Nifty 50 is up 4 per cent during this period.
Stock markets snapped their five-day losing run on Friday with the benchmark BSE Sensex closing higher by 75 points on value-buying in banking and oil shares after recent losses. The 30-share BSE Sensex rose by 75.71 points or 0.10 per cent to settle at 73,961.31. During the session, it hit a high of 74,478.89 points and a low of 73,765.15 points.
Leading stock exchange BSE on Tuesday said it has added 1 crore registered investor accounts to its platform in a span of 148 days, taking the total count to 12 crore. The exchange added one crore investors' accounts between July 18 and December 13, BSE said in a statement. In comparison, the exchange took 124, 91, 85 and 107 days for the previous milestones of 11 crore, 10 crore, 9 crore and 8 crore, respectively.
From the 30 blue-chip stocks, Power Grid, State Bank of India, Titan, Tata Steel, IndusInd Bank, UltraTech Cement, Adani Ports and Infosys were among the laggards. In contrast, Tata Motors, ITC, Nestle, Tata Consultancy Services, NTPC and Zomato were among the gainers.
Bajaj Finance, Bajaj Finserv, NTPC, State Bank of India, Power Grid, HDFC Bank, Tech Mahindra and Asian Paints were the other gainers. However, Zomato, Adani Ports, Tata Consultancy Services, Mahindra & Mahindra, Maruti and Tata Motors were among the laggards.
MNC funds invest in companies where foreign promoters have more than 50 per cent shareholding.
As the Indian equity markets scale a new high, the gap between stock prices and the underlying corporate earnings has widened to its highest level in more than 30 years. At its current level, the benchmark BSE Sensex has run up nearly 31 per cent more than the growth in its underlying earnings per share (EPS) in the past 20 years. Most of the divergence between share prices and underlying earnings growth occurred in the past 10 years.
Amid a massive global outage that hit operations of airlines, banks and businesses across the globe, Microsoft on Friday said that it is aware of the issue affecting Windows devices due to an update from a third-party software platform.
Among the Sensex firms, Power Grid, IndusInd Bank, Maruti, Wipro, Tata Steel, JSW Steel, Asian Paints, Mahindra & Mahindra, Reliance Industries and UltraTech Cement were the biggest laggards. Hindustan Unilever, Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services and Bharti Airtel were the gainers.
List of disappearing entities could see additions, for first time in 20 years.
Exchange-traded currency derivatives volumes are likely to drop in view of new Reserve Bank of India (RBI) rules, casting a cloud over further participation of retail investors and proprietary traders. There are concerns that existing positions without any underlying exposure will need to be liquidated. Also, weighed down by dollar demand from local oil companies and weakness in its Asian peers, the rupee on Wednesday (April 3) ended at a new closing low of 83.44 versus the US currency.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) is reviewing the current stock categorisation framework followed by actively managed equity mutual funds (MFs) to ensure they are true-to-label. Individuals familiar with the matter said the universe of largecap and midcap stocks could be expanded by 25-50 stocks. The move follows concerns raised by industry players that the current threshold has been skewed following a sharp run-up in the domestic markets after the Covid-19 pandemic.
Benchmark BSE Sensex tanked 824 points to settle at a fresh seven-month low on Monday following heavy selling in IT and oil & gas shares amid weak global trends. The 30-share BSE barometer plunged by 824.29 points or 1.08 per cent to close at 75,366.17 with 23 of its constituents ending lower and seven with gains. During the day the index moved between a high of 75,925.72 and a low of 75,267.59.
As much as half the turnover of all stock exchanges in India is accounted for by only 25 broking firms. Ninety per cent of the turnover of all stock exchanges in the country is out of only five cities. These are hardly healthy signs of India's financial markets.
F&O trading is a zero-sum game where one person's loss is another's gain. Only one per cent of traders gained the money lost by 93 per cent, warns Harsh Roongta.
Tokyo SE Group topped the list followed by Hong Kong Exchanges, Shanghai SE and Australian SE in the top-four. The Indian bourses are fifth and sixth.
All wholesale commodity markets, including bullion and metals, will remain closed on Monday on account of 'Republic Day'.
Are you a first-time IPO investor? Even if IPOs appear attractive with expectations of high returns, they come with risks and complexities, cautions Sheetal Jhaveri and shares her checklist to help you navigate through the world of IPOs
The day, being a Saturday, may add to trading volumes and volatility