India Financial News

Tech Mahindra in China, addressed a diverse audience representing over 15+ countries. The talk explored India’s rich technological heritage, tracing its roots from Sanskrit texts to the development of large language models tailored to India's diverse dialects. Emphasizing India's commitment to responsible AI, Sharma highlighted Prime Minister Modi’s co-chairing of the Paris Summit as a testament to the country’s leadership in fostering AI for good and for all. The discussion also shed light on India’s thriving startup ecosystem, ranking 19th globally, with Bengaluru securing a spot among the top 10 startup hubs worldwide. India’s substantial new investment of $3 billion in AI infrastructure, the National Quantum Mission, and advancements in AI-driven applications across agriculture, cleantech, spacetech, and healthcare were underscored as key milestones.

The NSE Nifty index was trading 54.3 points up at 22599.0, while BSE Sensex was up 139.61 points at 74479.7 at the time of writing this report.

Anand Ramakrishnan, Managing Director, EQ India

The Nifty futures closed positively with gains of 0.80%, at 22,620 levels on Thursday.

Axis Bank Ltd.(up 1.49 per cent), Punjab National Bank(up 0.81 per cent), Federal Bank Ltd.(up 0.52 per cent), HDFC Bank Ltd.(up 0.42 per cent) and IDFC First Bank Ltd.(up 0.35 per cent) were among the top gainers.

Electronics City elevated expressway from 11 pm to 6 am starting Wednesday until further notice. According to traffic police, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) will conduct maintenance work on the expressway beginning on the night of March 5.

economic data to gauge the Federal Reserve's interest rate trajectory, which could also have a bearing on the domestic rate cycle. While yields on most bonds were flat, that on the 10-year benchmark bond rose slightly after the Reserve Bank of India did not include the note in next week's bond purchase.

At the interbank foreign exchange, the rupee opened at 87.13 and lost further to trade at 87.18 against the greenback in early deals, registering a depreciation of 6 paise from its previous closing level.

ICC Champions Trophy final could shape the future of Indian cricket, particularly in terms of leadership and preparations for the 2027 ODI World Cup and the next World Test Championship cycle, ToI has reported. According to sources, the result of this pivotal match is expected to guide the direction the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) takes with regard to captaincy, especially for Rohit Sharma, as the board looks for stability over the next two years. While discussions regarding the future of Rohit’s leadership in both ODIs and Tests could take a tough turn, BCCI is aiming for a consistent leadership strategy in preparation for upcoming international events.

Laurus Labs will be in focus on Friday after the company approved an investment of Rs 83.3 crore in KRKA Pharma Pvt Ltd, a joint venture. In addition, KRKA d.d., Novo Mesto, Slovenia (the co-venturer), will invest Rs 86.7 crore in KRKA Pharma, thereby maintaining the current shareholding ratio of 51:49 between KRKA d.d., Novo Mesto, and Laurus Labs.

global economic uncertainty and market volatility, retail investors are being advised to hold some cash reserves rather than deploying all their capital into equities. Pankaj Pandey, Head of Research at ICICIdirect, cautioned that persistent global risks, including policy paralysis and trade tensions, could trigger further corrections in the Indian stock market. Speaking in an ET Now interaction, Pandey emphasized that uncertainty regarding global growth and inflation remains, primarily due to ongoing trade disputes between the world’s two largest economies. He warned that the market might not be fully factoring in the potential risks, making it prudent for investors to maintain some liquidity.

Sandip Sabharwal, asksandipsabharwal.com, says on a pure valuation basis, although many mid and smallcaps are looking very attractive right now, the initial up move as foreign funds come back, will be on the largecap side. The largecaps would move up first and then, small and midcaps could catch up. NBFCs, banks, the larger banks and the corporate-focused NBFCs, should be a decent part of the portfolio along with infrastructure-oriented companies. Auto should do well next year. What is it looking like in terms of macros with the RBI injecting further liquidity and crude significantly cooling off, while the tariff flip-flop continues. Does it seem like we could be close to bottoming out at an index level at least? Sandip Sabharwal: I mentioned on Monday that we are fully deployed because in our view risk-reward is extremely favourable in India. Given that the macros will be much better next year as liquidity improves, interest rates come down, government spending improves, and a lot of disruptions which were there last year are no longer there.

Oil prices were little changed on Friday but were set for their biggest weekly decline since October as the uncertainty around U.S. tariff policy is creating concerns about demand growth at the same time major producers are set to increase output. Brent futures rose 13 cents, or 0.19%, to $69.59 a barrel by 0217 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose 8 cents, or 0.08%, to $66.44 a barrel.

Sudip Bandyopadhyay, Group Chairman, Inditrade Capital, says post correction, some of the larger banks, particularly SBI, is looking very good for somebody willing to build a long-term portfolio, Apart from that, one can look at some of the down-and-out banks which took a hit because of multiple reasons, particularly asset quality issues on the microfinance book. IndusInd Bank is one bank which I will definitely recommend from a little aggressive investors’ point of view. It is a good time to start buying into IndusInd Bank as well. Among pharma companies, one can go for domestic focused pharma companies like Mankind Pharma and pharma companies having significant manufacturing facilities in the US like Piramal Pharma. The other stock Bandyopadhyay likes is a defence PSU. There is a significant opportunity for Bharat Electronics (BEL) to perform and outperform. This correction should be taken as an opportunity to accumulate this stock. Some of the markers seem to be reversing. Crude is on our side and now RBI also is pumping in a whole lot of liquidity in the system. Do you think that is enough to turn around the markets? Sudip Bandyopadhyay: Well, it may not be enough in the long term, but the short-term market is very much excited.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. In any word association test, ‘Diego’ would cue the name of football legend Maradona. But for elderly Indians, it recalls Diego Garcia, a geopolitical bugbear of the Cold War era, when India wanted the US to withdraw its forces from an air-base on a small island by that name in the Indian Ocean.

As of 10:39 AM IST, Bitcoin was up 6% at $92,168, while Ethereum surged 5.5% to $2,294. The global crypto market cap gained 5% to $3 trillion in the past 24 hours. Altcoins also saw gains, with Cardano rising 3.3%, Solana up 4.7%, Dogecoin jumping 8%, and XRP gaining 3%.

jobs data due later in the day. Another reprieve of levies aimed at Mexico and Canada announced by U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday offered little relief, keeping the safe-haven yen not far off its strongest against the greenback since early October.

President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that goods from Canada and Mexico covered by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement (USMCA) will be exempted for a month from the 25% tariffs imposed earlier this week. The development comes a day after Trump exempted automotive goods from the tariffs.

China unlocked more stimulus on Wednesday and promised greater efforts to cushion the impact of an escalating U.S. trade war. Hours earlier, Germany's likely next government agreed on the biggest overhaul to fiscal policy since the country's reunification.

Gold prices inched lower on Friday but were on track for a weekly rise as uncertainty around U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff plans firmed demand for bullion, while investors awaited for U.S. non-farm payrolls data later in the day.

strategic bitcoin reserve, a day before meeting with executives from the cryptocurrency industry at the White House. The reserve will be capitalized with bitcoin owned by the federal government that was forfeited as part of criminal or civil asset forfeiture proceedings, the White House crypto czar, billionaire David Sacks, said in a post on social media platform X.