Cycling Financial News

₹26,000 crore. Over 10 crore folios are active. By most measures, India is making meaningful progress on wealth creation.Yet a gap remained.

private equity—rush in to participate.The outcome is predictable. New supply emerges. Competition intensifies.

BENGALURU: Reliance Retail is reshaping its fashion business around faster-moving private labels as it looks to win over India’s young shoppers, betting speed and control over its own brands will be critical as competition intensifies across apparel and lifestyle retail.The shift is visible across its brands, such as Azorte and Zivame, where the retailer is speeding up product cycles, adding more trend-focused styles, and investing in tech-enabled store experiences for consumers who increasingly discover fashion through digital content and influencers.The push reflects how Reliance Retail is adapting to a market where younger consumers are increasingly setting the pace of competition.“India’s median age is 26. If you are in an aspirational category like fashion, lifestyle or beauty and you are not targeting this segment, then you are missing the obvious,” said Ankur Bisen, senior partner at The Knowledge Company.

Automobile sales in February were good for almost all sub-segments and companies, but the performance of Tata group companies stood out. Domestic sales of Tata Motors’ commercial vehicles (CV) grew 32.8% year-on-year to 40,893 vehicles, whereas rival Ashok Leyland Ltd’s growth was 28% to 20,314 units.The robust data vindicates statements from CV makers that replacement cycle demand is kicking in. The average fleet age needing a replacement is now 9-10 years versus 7-7.5 years before covid.

₹7,421 crore in 2024, per latest available data from media investment agency WPP Media, while media spends rise 7% to ₹7,989 crore the same year.“ICC’s new sponsorship cycle that began in 2024 had a leaner look with fewer number of brand partners,” the WPP report said. “This strategy, driven by the 'Less is More' approach, aims to limit sponsor slots, allowing each brand a larger Share of Voice (SOV) within the roster.

ETFs (exchange traded funds).While fund houses are preparing to launch offerings under the new category, the key question is whether these products meaningfully improve outcomes for investors.At its core, the structure is simple: risk reduces automatically over time.In the early years, for instance, 15 to 30 years before maturity in a 30-year fund, portfolios can hold high equity exposure, typically between roughly 65% and 95%, with smaller allocations to debt and limited exposure to gold and silver. As maturity approaches, equity allocation is gradually reduced while debt exposure rises to cushion volatility and preserve gains.

India’s once busy SME-to-mainboard migration route has slowed sharply. Tougher rules, volatile markets and heightened governance scrutiny have cooled the graduation cycle that had gathered pace during the 2020–22 bull run.A higher eligibility bar introduced in 2025 by the National Stock Exchange raised the threshold for graduation, reshaping the scale at which companies can aspire to move up.The revised migration framework required small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to report revenue from operations exceeding ₹100 crore in the preceding financial year and maintain an average market capitalisation above ₹100 crore.

A surge in domestic and international travel by Indians has turned India’s direct-to-consumer (D2C) luggage sector into a magnet for venture capital investment over the past few years, even as legacy players struggle under their own weight.According to data from the tourism ministry’s India Tourism Data Compendium 2025, Indians recorded 2,948.19 million tourist visits in 2024, a 17.5% increase over the previous year, while overseas trips rose 10.8% to 30.89 million.A host of startups are looking to cash in on this boom. Uppercase, a digital-first luggage and travel gear maker based in Bengaluru, is in talks to raise about $20 million in a Series C round as it sharpens its plans for overseas expansion and accelerates its offline retail rollout, Sudip Ghose, the company's founder, said in an interview with Mint.

Sebi eight years, but it got there.The portfolio overlap restriction on sectoral and thematic funds is equally welcome. No sectoral or thematic fund can now have more than 50% overlap with other equity schemes, computed quarterly from daily values. Existing schemes get three years to comply or merge.This addresses a growing problem: thematic funds barely distinguishable from diversified ones.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. “I have to giggle," says Jim Chanos, asked if investors have become overly optimistic about artificial intelligence. “We’ve got to the ‘data-centres-in-space’ stage of the cycle." Firms from SpaceX and Blue Origin to Alphabet plan to shrug off earthly constraints on the computing clusters that power AI, and launch them into orbit.

specialty chemicals and capital discipline.“We are not in that mood right now—just deleveraging,” Shroff said, almost matter-of-factly, when asked about fresh acquisitions.But analysts tracking the company are not sure yet.“Unresolved leverage concerns and post-restructuring dilution,” Nuvama Institutional Equities said in a note dated 22nd February, downgrading the stock to ‘hold’.The brokerage added that the exercise “keeps total debt similar even though redistributed between two entities”, with deleveraging contingent on future cash-flow generation. The backdrop to this reset is the bruising cycle that followed covid.

₹30,500 crore in FY15 to nearly ₹2.9 lakh crore by FY25, according to industry estimates and RBI data.The rapid expansion in cards and outstanding dues raises an uncomfortable question: are more Indians slipping into a credit card debt trap?Outstanding balances per card have also climbed steeply—from ₹1,600 in FY15 to nearly ₹25,700 in FY25—signalling significantly higher credit utilization.For those who have already fallen into the trap, is there a practical way out? Experts say—yes, there is.The real issue, experts argue, is not the rise in credit card usage, but the purpose for which cards are being used.“While rising credit card usage reflects both expanding financial access and growing consumer confidence, the intent behind spending matters more than the volume,” said Yashoraj Tyagi, chief executive officer, CASHe, an online lending platform.“When usage grows faster and financial literacy doesn’t catch up, credit stops being just a convenience tool, it becomes a survival tool,” said Bhuvanaa Shreeram, co-founder of House of Alpha Investment Advisers, a Sebi registered investment advisory firm.Rising delinquencies suggest that for a segment of borrowers, cards are not just financing convenience purchases—they are also plugging cash-flow gaps. And that, she believes, is the real problem.According to the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) Financial Stability Report, household debt in India rose to about 41.3% of GDP by end-March 2025, up from around 38% in recent years.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The fast fashion boom is decisively back on India’s startup map. The segment is projected to account for more than a quarter of India’s retail apparel market by FY31, according to Redseer last year.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Hindalco Industries Ltd stock is down 7% since the company announced its December-quarter (Q3FY26) results. The oft-cited reason for this is the two fires at subsidiary Novelis’s Oswego plant in September and November 2025, which disrupted operations.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank of India may have delivered a cumulative 125-basis-point cut in the repo rate since February 2025, but financial conditions have failed to ease in ways typically associated with monetary loosening. With the rate-cut cycle now widely expected to pause, the central bank is likely to rely increasingly on liquidity measures to ease conditions instead, economists said.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Real estate has long been a favoured asset for Indian investors, but owning commercial property comes with high entry barriers. Large upfront capital, long-tenure loans, tenant management, maintenance hassles and illiquidity make direct ownership cumbersome.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The end of history’ is a fool’s title. It invites mockery the way a tall poppy invites a scythe.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Raamdeo Agrawal, co-founder of Motilal Oswal Financial Services, says the next trillion dollars of India’s market capitalization could create more wealth than the last. Drawing on decades of market cycles, the ace investor, speaking at the Mint Money Festival on 14 February in Mumbai, argued that compounding on a larger base, deeper participation and improving corporate profitability could make the coming decades disproportionately rewarding for patient investors.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. In a world defined by volatility and uncertainty, building disciplined, well-balanced portfolios is key to compounding wealth. At the Mint Money Festival 2026, investment and personal finance experts shared practical insights on managing money and investing wisely.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. India's top auto part makers are rushing to add more capacity, after the September cut in goods and services tax (GST) sparked a scramble for cars, scooters and sport utility vehicles. Component makers such as Tata AutoComp Systems Ltd, Bosch Ltd, Belrise Industries Ltd, Uno Minda Ltd and Bosch Ltd have either kicked off capacity expansion plans or are evaluating them, as demand rises for wheels, seating systems, and electric vehicle components.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. At the Mint Money Festival in Mumbai on 14 February, an audience poll revealed that people are more concerned with the Union Budget creating jobs and improving the government’s fiscal health than delivering tax breaks. Monika Halan, founder of Dhan Chakra Financial Education, decoded Budget 2026 for households to explain what really matters for jobs, taxes, investments and long-term financial security.