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artificial intelligence infrastructure in the country, likely undermining a key goal of the administration, analysts said on Thursday. Trump and technology executives have touted lofty plans by Oracle, SoftBank and others to invest heavily in artificial intelligence since his return to the White House earlier this year. On Wednesday, Trump slapped steep duties on leading technology equipment suppliers including 34% on China, 32% on Taiwan and 25% on South Korea while imposing a 10% baseline tariff on all imports to the U.S.

Oil prices were heading towards their lowest close since the midst of the coronavirus pandemic in 2021 on Friday, hit by U.S. President Donald Trump's barrage of new tariffs and output increases announced by the OPEC+ producer group. Brent futures plummeted by $2.29, or 3.3%, to $67.85 a barrel by 0948 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures dived by $2.32, or 3.5%, to $64.63.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. US President Donald Trump is showing America’s trading partners no mercy. If they export a lot to the US, it will tariff them back—by half.

European Central Bank could cut rates as soon as this month, Nomura said. U.S. President Donald Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on dozens of countries on Wednesday, which intensified the threat of a global trade war and fuelled fears of a global economic slowdown, or even a recession. The tariffs are «worse than feared», said Nomura, lowering its U.S. GDP growth estimate to 0.6% from 1.5%, on a quarterly basis, and hiking to 4.7% from 3.5% its forecast for year-end core PCE, the Fed's preferred inflation gauge. As a result, the brokerage expects the Fed to lower rates in December, taking the policy rate to 4.125%, followed by two more 25 bps cuts in the first quarter of 2026. It had previously expected the central bank to hold at 4.25%-4.5% until the second quarter of 2026.

Sachin Shah, Executive Director & Fund Manager, Emkay Investment Managers, says private sector banks are favoured due to reasonable valuations, eased liquidity from RBI actions, and a rebound in the rural market economy. Domestic focused businesses and export-oriented industries with strong value propositions also present advantages as India benefits from lower tariffs in global markets. Identifying strong businesses with solid balance sheets will be crucial. What should one do? How should one gauge an event like Trump-led reciprocal tariff and prepare for it? We were preparing, for the last two months we knew we were going to get a reciprocal tariff, April 2nd was the date that we all were watching out for, April 3rd for India. Despite all that, this tariff has hit us hard. It was much more than we expected. Sachin Shah: Yes, you are right, this is an event which we have been discussing for a while now and now it has happened. But we also have to become aware of the fact that this is sustainable, something we need to really think through because this is definitely going to impact the US economy the most and this is also reflected in the US capital markets clearly for the last few weeks and more so in the last couple of days. This is going to be very, very inflationary for the economy and clearly at this point in time, it looks like it may not be very sustainable.

IndusInd Bank ignored established Indian derivative accounting practices for years as it chased profit growth, resulting in a $175 million balance-sheet hole and the biggest crisis for the lender in its three-decade history, multiple sources said. Still, the 2.35% shortfall in the net worth of India's fifth-biggest private sector lender may not have come to light last month had the rupee not sharply slumped recently, said the sources. IndusInd disclosed in March accounting discrepancies in its derivatives portfolio whose impact roughly equated to an entire quarter's profits and sparked the loss of about one-fourth of its market value.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. On Thursday, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) published the formula by which US reciprocal tariffs are to be calculated. The New York Times also published what calculation resulted in country-wise tariffs from 9 April onwards that range in a wide band.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. As investors and consumers fretted in recent weeks about the fallout if President Trump unleashed a massive trade war, Trump himself kept looking to the past. The rest of the world has been ripping off the U.S.

reciprocal tariffs for India to 26% from 27% announced a day before. Revisions have been made for atleast 14 countries including South Korea, Norway, South Africa and Thailand. As per a White House document, India’s reciprocal tariff was originally listed at 27%, as against the 26% that US president Donald Trump had shown during the announcement on April 2. However, the latest annex document shows that the tariffs have been revised down to 26%. The US’ trading partners will be subject to a global 10% tariff on April 5, after which only the countries listed in the annex would have their rates elevated to the revised numbers. Around 60 countries have been slapped with reciprocal tariffs. The measures announced by the US could lead to an overall contraction of around 1% in global merchandise trade volumes this year, the World Trade Organization (WTO) said Thursday.

Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) fell 4.3% to Rs 1,194 in Friday’s intraday trade on the BSE, as markets reacted to global developments, including the Trump administration’s latest tariff revisions. According to a White House document released on Friday, reciprocal tariffs have been updated for 14 countries, including India. While Trump had earlier announced a 27% tariff on Indian goods, the revised figure now stands at 26%. The aggressive tariff stance has reignited concerns over a potential global trade war, dampening sentiment across sectors — with heavyweights like RIL also coming under pressure.

Niti Aayog chief executive Amitabh Kant said, adding that the country must avoid becoming a mere imitator of Western countries or any other nation. “Doing more for less is critical and this is what startups can do. Open-source will be the way forward.We must build sovereign frontier models based on our own datasets and not have inherent biases towards the West,” he said. Speaking at Startup Mahakumbh, an event being organised by Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Kant encouraged Indian startups to get into deeptech sectors such as artificial intelligence (AI), space geostational maps, drones and sunrise areas of growth such as EVs, and electronic manufacturing.

Stock markets in the Asia-Pacific region fell for a second day, hot on the heels of the US S&P 500, which had its worst day since Covid crashed the economy in 2020. Nike, Apple and Target were among big consumer names worst hit, all of them sinking by more than 9%. ALSO READ: An article on Warren Buffett acquiring Elon Musk's Tesla for $1 trillion caused huge confusion online. Here's why

Mahesh Patil, CIO, ABSL AMC, says from an India standpoint, the impact of the reciprocal tariffs is there for a few sectors including large exporters like IT and pharma, because of the slowdown in the US. But the overall impact compared with the US trade, the impact on GDP, will not be more than 20 basis points. The reaction has also not been very big and it should probably settle down. Patil says he does not see a major downgrade to our earnings for next year, except for one or two sectors. Any dip because of this correction could be a good buying opportunity. It is easy to turn bearish in this market, but should one really turn bearish? If yes, why? If no, why not? Mahesh Patil: Clearly, the Trump tariffs that have come out are slightly worse than expectations. But if you look at it from an India standpoint, I would not be too bearish. While the tariffs have been imposed across the various countries, relatively if you look at India, tariffs are much lower than some of these other partners on the global front – be it China, Vietnam, or Bangladesh. In that sense, we will not be competitively worse off over there.

Phil Goff, New Zealand's former High Commissioner to the UK, sacked for publicly questioning US President Donald Trump's understanding of history, has defended his comments. Goff stated his comments were prompted by the US President's «disgraceful bullying» of Ukraine and its president Volodymyr Zelensky, and the «untruthful statements» made by the Trump administration about Russia’s invasion. New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters moved quickly to dismiss Goff, stating his position had become “untenable.” Goff, however, maintains he has no regrets and believes his actions will be viewed favorably in the future. Goff made the first comments about Trump during a live-streamed Q&A event with Finland Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen on March 4. Referring to Winston Churchill’s 1938 speech to the House of Commons following the Munich Agreement, asking Valtonen, “President Trump has restored the bust of Churchill to the Oval Office. But do you think he really understands history?” This question, according to Goff, arose from the “dismay” shared within the diplomatic community in London regarding Trump's stance on Ukraine. “As one untruthful statement followed another like something out of an Orwell novel, I increasingly felt that the lies needed to be called out," he had said.

Donald Trump lambasted globalization as a raw deal for the United States that has devastated US manufacturing towns. Trump left out the upside to the United States from the liberal flow of goods: a reliable supply of affordably priced appliances, clothing and electronics whose consumption has helped lift US economic growth above other developed economies in recent years. «Obviously we've benefited significantly,» said Paul Gruenwald, global chief economist at S&P Global Ratings. «We get to consume a lot of things that are produced more efficiently in other countries.» Trump's tariffs are almost certain to negatively impact this dynamic, say economists who see the levies lifting the price on everything from Gap t-shirts to the Apple iPhone to French wine. «This is very clearly going to raise consumer prices,» Michael Pearce, a US economist with Oxford Economics, said of the barrage of levies announced late Wednesday in an unveiling the White House billed as «liberation day.»

«The whole purpose of creating this chaos seems to be to deliberately weaken the dollar. Gold has been pricing this in for a while now, and it’s already extremely expensive—so don’t read too much into gold’s move yesterday,» says Maneesh Dangi, Macro Mosaic Investing. World moves in a pattern, which is that if there is problem of growth, then gold goes up. If there is problem of inflation, gold goes up. If there is a fear of recession, then equities go down. Last night, everything went down, gold, silver, Bitcoin. Why have we seen such a massive synchronised sell off last night at least in US markets? So, if uncertainty increases in general, the typical reflex you talked about does occur. However, we are in uncharted territory. It has never happened before that a country like the US is behaving the way it currently is. The whole purpose of creating this chaos seems to be to deliberately weaken the dollar. Gold has been pricing this in for a while now, and it’s already extremely expensive—so don’t read too much into gold’s move yesterday.

Salman Khan’s Sikandar has seen a further drop in its earnings. The movie, which released on March 30, has witnessed declining box office collections since Eid. On Thursday, April 3, Sikandar saw a fall of 41.03 percent in its collection. As per Sacnilk, Sikandar grossed Rs 5.75 crore on April 3, bringing its total domestic earnings to Rs 90 crore.

BEIJING — China's reaction to new U.S. tariffs will likely focus on domestic stimulus and strengthening ties with trading partners, according to analysts based in Greater China.

Fitch Ratings. The ratings agency said the new tariffs, announced on what is labelled as “Liberation Day” by the US administration, go far beyond what it had previously expected and are already altering the global economic outlook. The tariff regime now imposes a minimum rate of 10% on all US trade partners, with significantly higher levies on 57 selected countries. As a result, the effective tariff rate (ETR) for EU imports into the US has jumped to about 20%, while the rate on Chinese goods has surged to 64%. These figures compare with Fitch’s earlier March assumptions of 15% for the EU and 35% for China. Other Asian economies have also been hit hard. Vietnam now faces a 46% tariff, Thailand 36%, Taiwan 32%, India 26%, South Korea 25%, Malaysia 24% and Japan 24%. Sector-specific exclusions—such as semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, copper and lumber—may be negotiated separately. Also Read: Recession, not Liberation Day! India, US and world GDP may slump for Trump tariff 'insanity' «We estimate the changes will raise the overall US ETR to about 25%, which would be significantly higher than the 18% we had assumed for 2025 in the March GEO and the highest rate for more than 115 years,» Fitch said.

UltraTech Cement shares will be in focus as the company plans to acquire Wonder WallCare, a wall putty manufacturer, for an enterprise value of up to Rs 235 crore as part of its expansion strategy. The acquisition will strengthen UltraTech’s portfolio of value-added products. Wonder WallCare, a wholly owned subsidiary of Wonder Cement, operates a manufacturing plant for wall putty and related products with a capacity of 600,000 tonnes per annum, located in Rajsamand, Rajasthan.

President Yoon Suk Yeol, upholding parliament's impeachment motion over his short-lived imposition of martial law last year that sparked the country's worst political crisis in decades. With Yoon's ouster, a presidential election is required to take place within 60 days, according to the country's constitution. Prime Minister Han Duck-soo will continue to serve as acting president until the new president is inaugurated. The ruling caps months of political turmoil that have overshadowed efforts to deal with the new administration of U.S. President Donald Trump at a time of slowing growth. Separately, 64-year-old Yoon faces a criminal trial on insurrection charges. The embattled leader became the first sitting South Korean president to be arrested on January 15 but was released in March after a court cancelled his arrest warrant.