Election Financial News

By Howard Schneider

committee on 'one nation, one election' Ram Nath Kovind has started holding deliberations with former chief election commissioners and retired judges on the issue of holding simultaneous polls. This comes days after the panel sought the views of the public on the issue. On Wednesday, Kovind met former Madras High Court chief justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari.

By Jarrett Renshaw

jewellery exports fell 8.14 per cent year-on-year in December to Rs 18,281.49 crore (USD 2,195.23 million), according to data released by the Gem Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC). The total exports stood at Rs 19,901.55 crore (USD 2,413.46 million) in the corresponding month of 2022, GJEPC said in a statement.

Founders Day, which has been directed by Erik Bloomquist, is going to be released this week. Slashers, which are on the holiday theme, have existed for a long time. However, they were going through a renewal period in the past year. In 2022, two-holiday slashers were released consecutively with the smashing hit Thanksgiving by Eli Roth and It's a Wonderful Knife, a Christmastide classic. Within the month's end, the subgenre will be achieving three goals with the Founders Day, the newly introduced satirical slasher. Founders Day witnesses an ordinary and innocent town that faces terror in the form of a concealed figure taking the nominal holiday in a bit more serious manner.

By Jarrett Renshaw

Michelle Obama is most likely to join the Presidential Election 2024 and take on former US President Donald Trump. This speculation has been doing the rounds. But now, it is becoming stronger. In an article written in the New York Post, columnist Cindy Adams said that Obama may be looking to step into the 2024 presidential race and this time it should be Michelle and not Barack. Rejecting incumbent Joe Biden, she writes, «Biden won’t debate. Can’t. Our codger-in-chief can’t even read the prewritten script in front of him fast enough to pronounce the words. So, forget him, which most of us already have.»

With strong expectations and speculations circulating, particularly concerning tax rebates and home loan interest rates, stakeholders are keenly assessing the potential impact on homebuyers and the broader real estate market.

LONDON (Reuters) — The International Monetary Fund faces tough choices on how to deal with Pakistan after the February election and how to assess the country's debt situation, a former central bank governor of the South Asian nation said.

Political risk in the U.K. is «far less than it's ever been» as the difference between the ruling Conservative Party and main opposition Labour on economic policy is «fairly minimal,» Barclays CEO C.S. Venkatakrishnan said Thursday.

Mihir Vora, veteran fund manager and the Chief Investment Officer (CIO) of TRUST Mutual Fund believes the Interim Budget 2024 will unlikely have big-bang announcements but the government may announce the continuation of the current initiatives and schemes. He expects capital expenditure for infrastructure like roads, railways, water, power and defence to increase and there may be some tweaking of the slabs for income tax to boost consumption. In an interview with Mint, Vora also shared his views on the markets and sectors to watch.

Union Budget 2024 is an interim budget because Lok Sabha elections are due early next year. The full budget will be after forming a new government Industry experts believe that implementing artificial intelligence (AI) to simplify tax filing could benefit citizens and government alike. “With advanced natural language processing capabilities, intelligent chatbots could understand complex financial data and automatically populate returns for review.

ICRA Analytics anticipates several potential changes in the upcoming Interim Union Budget for the fiscal year 2025. The Budget will be announced on February 1, 2024. Since the general elections will be held in May, this will be the Interim Budget and a new Budget will be presented in July.

Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council. During December 2023, the drop was to the tune of 9.04% to USD 2.19 billion as compared to USD 2.4 billion in December 2022. The overall import of gems and jewellery too has declined by 22.43% Y-o-Y, to USD 15.59 billion from USD 20 billion during April- December of FY24 as compared to the same period of FY23 and 7.58% to USD 2.09 billion, as compared to December 2022.

Following a challenging 2022, 2023 proved to be a year of recovery, NIFTY with strong growth of about 20% in CY2023 compared to a meagre 3% in CY2022. Globally, except for a 15% decline in the Chinese and Hong Kong markets, the markets recovered between ~14% and ~25%. Notably, the NASDAQ jumped 45% while the S&P 500 increased by 25%. Healthy returns of CY2023 were on back of negative returns in the range of negative ~8 to ~34% in CY2022 with NASDAQ falling the most at 34% and an exception of Indian markets (positive 3%) being stronger than the world. The year 2023 was not without difficulties, though, as interest rates reached previously unheard-of levels, sparking fears about future economic growth and recessionary expectations in the developed world. Despite challenges, Indian markets and a number of sectors saw outstanding performance, with real estate (up 78%), PSE (up78%), and Autos (up 45%) showing particularly strong returns. The outstanding returns were delivered for the BSE SME IPO index delivering 91%. Abundant liquidity fuelled the IPO markets with astounding oversubscriptions. Moreover, the shift in ownership dynamics, marked by higher domestic ownership and strong inflows, added strength to the market. Global Economic Scenario

Chinese warplanes were detected around Taiwan, with 11 crossing a sensitive median line separating the self-ruled island from China, Taipei's defence ministry said Thursday, the first significant show of force since the weekend's presidential election. The ministry, which releases data daily on the Chinese military presence around Taiwan, said Thursday that 24 warplanes and 5 ships had been detected in the 24 hours leading up to 6 am (2200 GMT). «11 of the detected aircraft had crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or entered Taiwan's southwest and north (air defence identification zone),» the ministry said in a statement.

quarter, helped by volume growth and a reduction in costs, said analysts. After clocking double-digit volume expansion in the first half of the year, growth of these companies in Oct-Dec is seen moderating to around 5-6% for most players due to elections in some states, a construction ban in the NCR region and shortage of labor. While the eastern region was an underperformer, northern markets have performed the best, followed by central India, Jefferies said in a pre-earnings note. Growth in Mumbai was average, while southern regions were weak in November-December, it said. Apart from the volume growth, a significant boost to earnings for cement-makers will come from a fall in input costs which is expected to be at its lowest level in seven quarters. Energy costs have seen a sharp decline with the average cost of petcoke down by nearly a fourth as compared to the previous year, while prices of international coal have plunged by more than 60%, Anand Rathi Shares and Stockbrokers said. While the surcharge charged by Railways will see freight costs inch up, the overall costs for cement makers is still seen lower, which along with a marginal improvement in realisations will help the operating profit grow by as much as 45-60% on year, said analysts. Operating margins, meanwhile, are seen almost 450-500 basis points higher as compared to the previous year.

Arvind Kejriwal is likely to skip the Enforcement Directorate (ED) summons in the excise policy case yet again as he is scheduled to leave for Goa to take stock of the Aam Aadmi Party's preparation for the Lok Sabha elections 2024. Arvind Kejriwal has been summoned for questioning in the Delhi excise policy case for the 4th time which the chief minister has termed as “illegal". Arvind Kejriwal has earlier ignored ED summons for three times.

An absurdist scenario has played out for months in the bizarrely binary racial politics of the US, with one Indian-American identifying as “Black" in the vice-president’s office (Kamala Harris generally downplays her mother’s Tamil heritage) and another passing for “White" (Nikki Haley’s parents are Punjabi Sikhs) in her quest for the Republican party’s presidential nomination in a field of candidates that included Vivek Ramaswamy, the only undisguised Indian-American among the three, till he withdrew from the race this week. This mercurial 38-year-old entrepreneur splashed $17 million of his own money to garner only about 8,000 votes in Monday’s Iowa caucuses, a moment of truth that led him to drop out in support of Donald Trump, with the controversial ex-president hinting of a relationship: “It’s an honour to have his endorsement.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has signalled that he would largely bypass the New Hampshire primary next week and instead would focus on South Carolina where the Republican presidential primary is scheduled for February 24. The move makes it a direct contest between former president Donald Trump and Indian American Nikki Haley for the crucial Republican presidential primary in New Hampshire on January 23. The latest poll released Wednesday showed that Trump and Haley are tied in this State with both polling 40 per cent each.

Alex Murdaugh faces a steep uphill battle in his push for a new murder trial