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double-digit growth despite external challenges. For the twelve-month period ending December 2024, EBITDA reached Rs 86,789 crore, marking a 10.1 per cent year-on-year growth. Adjusted for prior income, the growth stands at 21.3 per cent. In the December quarter alone, EBITDA rose 17.2 per cent to Rs 22,823 crore, a company statement said. A key to this growth is the emerging businesses under Adani Enterprises, including solar and wind manufacturing and airports.

Pi Network has officially launched its Open Mainnet, marking a major milestone for the project after a two-year delay. This launch enables external blockchain connectivity, allowing transactions beyond the closed Pi Network ecosystem for the first time. Additionally, Pi Coin is now listed on major cryptocurrency exchanges such as OKX, Gate.io, Bitget, and CoinDCX, allowing it to be actively traded and valued in the open market.

cryptocurrency market is closely watching Pi Coin as it nears a major milestone — the long-awaited Open Mainnet launch, scheduled for Thursday, February 20. The launch enables external blockchain connectivity, allowing transactions beyond the closed Pi Network ecosystem for the first time. This transition from a closed network to full decentralization could be a game changer, potentially leading to its listing on major exchanges such as Binance and OKX.

«The capital market leaders will continue to do well, but this 25-30% type compounding in AUMs it is a cycle, so when the markets will correct people will go back to banks and maybe two-three years later they will come back to capital market stocks and so on,» says Manish Chokhani, Director, Enam Holdings. So, one is banks and financials, but the bigger question that everyone is now also pondering about is what to avoid, when the market does come out of this abyss are you going to see newer sectors emerge as leaders and what will continue to remain under performers? Manish Chokhani: Actually if you look out two years from now, I do not think people have realised, for example ICICI Bank will cross the earnings number of Infosys.

Even with a downward revision in FY25 GDP projections and low capex spending in the first half of the year, infra, defence, and PSU themes remain relevant investment opportunities, says Nikhil Rungta, Co-CIO Equity at LIC Mutual Fund Asset Management. PSUs, particularly in sectors like railways, power, and defense, may continue to see earnings visibility and improving efficiency, he opines. Excerpts: Net equity inflows in January were strong despite negative sentiments though down on a MoM basis. Do you think there is an attitudinal shift in the way people are now approaching equity investments in a sense that they want to remain invested even if it is small, come what may? Yes, there is a clear attitudinal shift in the way investors are approaching equity investments. Despite market volatility and occasional negative sentiment, investors are demonstrating resilience by continuing their investments, even if in smaller amounts. This is largely driven by the increasing financialisation of savings, with a growing preference for equities over traditional asset classes.

On the BSE, Superior Finlease(down 19.76 per cent), Aadi Industries Ltd.(down 10.97 per cent), Roni Households(down 10.00 per cent), Shiva Granito Export(down 9.97 per cent) and Priya Ltd(down 9.96 per cent) were among the stocks that plunged over 5 per cent during the session.

Arvind Sanger, Managing Partner, Geosphere Capital Management, says Trump's threats of tariffs are just the starting point in negotiations, not the final goal. Because of this, the market continues to rise. Another interesting point is that this year's rally isn't just fueled by the Magnificent 7. It's much more widespread. This is a positive sign, indicating a general sense of economic optimism rather than just focusing on those seven companies and ignoring the rest. What will the US President do next, no one knows. I at least do not know. Do you? Arvind Sanger: None of us know, but the market has correctly been rising because the bet is that at the end of the day, Trump's tariff threats are a negotiating tool. They are not a tool to destroy the US economy because eventually tariffs hurt everybody. So, the market is making the bet that deregulation is coming, taxes are going to stay low. The one area where I worry is that there is a hope that maybe there will be a lot of cost savings from DOGE and Elon Musk, and I am not sure how much they will be able to extract, but there is some hope that there will be something there.

«I remember all of us from the markets were in this very famous now, Jaipur Jamboree in December and the mood was also quite unanimous over there that the markets have run far ahead of themselves,» says Manish Chokhani, Director, Enam Holdings. The markets have taken a nasty knock. Everybody knew that this was coming. It is just that when it hit us, nobody was prepared for it. Manish Chokhani: Yes, it is true. Even I never thought that we have a bubble in the market, because the largecaps actually had not really participated. And the bubble we used to always talk of was occurring in the smallcaps and the SME type IPOs and that is where the pain has obviously been the maximum and earnings have dramatically slowed down.

On Wednesday, gold and silver settled on a weaker note in the domestic and international markets. Gold April futures contract settled at Rs 85,910 per 10 grams with a loss of 0.24% and silver March futures contract settled at Rs 96,406 per kilogram with a loss of 0.46%.

Baazar Style Retail(up 18.20%), Prajay Engg(up 16.69%) and Windlas Biotech(up 15.29%) were among the stocks that surged over 15%.

Benchmark NSE Nifty index fell 48.06 points to 22884.85 amid selling in frontline bluechip stocks.

Infosys Ltd.(up 0.78 per cent), L&T Technology Services Ltd.(up 0.65 per cent), MphasiS Ltd.(up 0.27 per cent) and Persistent Systems Ltd.(up 0.02 per cent) were among the top gainers.

Open Mainnet launch is set to go live on Thursday, marking a major shift toward decentralization in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. The launch enables external blockchain connectivity, allowing transactions beyond the closed Pi Network ecosystem for the first time. The launch has also fueled speculation over a potential Pi Coin listing on major exchanges like Binance and OKX. The excitement has already driven Pi Coin’s price up 106%, briefly pushing it past the $100 mark.

foreign fund outflow is weighing on investor sentiments. At the interbank foreign exchange, the rupee opened at 86.88 and gained further ground to trade at 86.79 against the greenback during early deals, up 19 paise from its previous close.

«At the same time, I do think that we have underperformed big time and there is too much of focus on these FIIs sell flows and when exactly it will end,» says Hemang Jani, Independent Market Expert. A little hopeful with the recovery in the broader markets yesterday. Do you think we are closer to the end of the pain for the overall market fall? Hemang Jani: I do not think Nifty has been finding some sort of support around these levels. Though we do see a bit of volatility here and there, but there is a by and large comfort in the indices like Nifty and Bank Nifty. After a long time, we have seen a bit of a revival come through in the broader market midcaps and smallcaps where the pain was there for past many days.

Gland Pharma Ltd.(up 1.61 per cent), Cipla Ltd.(up 1.1 per cent), Lupin Ltd.(up 0.49 per cent), Zydus Lifesciences Ltd.(up 0.26 per cent) and Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Ltd.(up 0.1 per cent) were among the top gainers.

Domestic benchmark index NSE Nifty fell 47.31 points to 22885.6, while the BSE Sensex traded 235.62 points down at 75703.56.

Federal Reserve meeting minutes signaled that it’s in no rush to cut interest rates. Stocks in Japan and Australia dropped while equity index futures for Hong Kong also drifted lower. Contracts for US stocks also slipped in early Asian trading after the S&P 500 climbed 0.2% on Wednesday to set a new high, with defensive sectors outperforming in a sign of investor caution. The yen extended its rally against the greenback on Thursday to trade around 151 per dollar.

«The ongoing indecisiveness in the index is keeping participants on edge, and this volatility may persist on Thursday. We maintain our view of adopting a stock-specific approach, focusing on resilient sectors and themes, particularly those holding strong even during market downturns, and accumulating them gradually,» said Ajit Mishra – SVP, Research, Religare Broking.

Goldman Sachs on Wednesday bought shares of leading stock exchange BSE for Rs 401 crore through an open market transaction. According to the bulk deal data available on National Stock Exchange (NSE), US-based Goldman Sachs through its arm Goldman Sachs (Singapore) purchased 7.28 lakh shares of BSE Ltd. The shares of Mumbai-headquartered BSE were picked up at an average price of Rs 5,504.42 apiece, taking the deal value to Rs 401.19 crore.

Bill Ackman, known for his prescient market bets, has raised his takeover bid for Howard Hughes Holdings in a bold push to transform the company into a “modern-day” Berkshire Hathaway, drawing inspiration from Warren Buffett’s legendary investment empire. In a series of posts on microblogging platform X, formerly known as Twitter, the founder of hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management announced a revised proposal to acquire 10 million newly issued shares of Howard Hughes at $90 per share. If the deal proceeds, Pershing Square will own 48% of the Texas-based real estate developer.