Election Financial News

BJP president JP Nadda, and former prime minister Manmohan Singh are among the 57 Rajya Sabha members retiring in April, just ahead of the next Lok Sabha polls. The BJP may have to take a call on the candidature of these nine ministers and Nadda before deciding its Lok Sabha candidates. In total, 68 Rajya Sabha members are retiring in 2024. BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh will have a maximum of 10 vacancies, followed by Maharashtra and Bihar (six each), Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal (five each), Karnataka and Gujarat (four each), Odisha, Telangana, Kerala, and Andhra Pradesh (three each), Jharkhand and Rajasthan (two each), and Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, and Chhattisgarh (one each). On the back of victory in recent assembly polls in three states, the BJP's tally in Rajya Sabha may remain the same as it is likely to lose seats in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Odisha.

Bharatiya Janata Party Bengal unit has created a solid organisational foundation and is likely to field more women candidates in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in a bid to achieve the target of 35 seats set by union home minister Amit Shah, top BJP leaders said. «The party is standing on a solid organisational foundation now and we have our vote base as well. So, with these factors in mind, we have been given a target of 35 seats,» former BJP state president Dilip Ghosh told ET.

The elections in Bangladesh are all about one person: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina

Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury's comments regarding seat-sharing in West Bengal, sources from the TMC on Thursday said they will give more time to ally Congress to sort out issues, adding the party is committed to the opposition bloc. The Trinamool Congress (TMC) had pushed for a December 31 deadline for seat sharing talks in the last meeting of the INDIA bloc on December 19.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office is clarifying that he and his family are vacationing in Jamaica “at no cost at a location owned by family friends,” after initially saying the family was paying for their stay.

INDIA alliance as its two key allies, the Congress and the Trinamool Congress, on Thursday clashed over seat sharing for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal. State Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said, «The grand old party won't beg for seats from the TMC,» drawing a response from the Mamata Banerjee-led party, which said, «Badmouthing alliance partners and seat sharing can't go hand in hand.» Chowdhury, a staunch critic of the TMC, launched a no-holds-barred attack, accusing Bengal's ruling party of being busy «serving Prime Minister Narendra Modi» rather than strengthening the opposition alliance.

West Bengal and promising «a corruption & thieves-free state», Leader of Opposition (LoP) Suvendu Adhikari on Thursday urged all to vote for Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the coming Lok Sabha polls. «Time has come for a change in West Bengal. We will have to oust the Trinamool Congress from Bengal. Their days are numbered.

Walmart has decided to put a stop to its plan to open a $100-million distribution centre in Vaudreuil-Dorion, a decision that has taken many businesses and elected officials by surprise.A beacon of business in the area, the 57,000-square-foot facility was supposed to be a brand new delivery hub for online orders in Quebec and Atlantic Canada. The state-of-the-art facility was expected to create 225 jobs, but many are just learning that the project is dead on arrival.“Actually we were very surprised, we learned it through the newspaper,” said Mathieu Miljours, general manager of the Vaudreuil-Soulanges Chamber of Commerce.Walmart announced its plans to set up the facility in September 2022.

Labour scrutinizes the closure of Catamaran Ventures UK, a start-up investment firm owned by Akshata Murty, wife of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. The decision to wind up the company was officially filed in December, with a spokesperson for Ms. Murty confirming that the company's holdings would be transferred to the charity ShareGift. Labour's national campaign co-ordinator, Pat McFadden, has written to Deputy PM Oliver Dowden, seeking clarity on the implications of this closure. Labour's concerns and queries

Britain will likely go to the polls in the last six months of this year, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak indicated Thursday, as speculation mounts about the date of the vote. Sunak, whose Conservative party has been in power since 2010, has until the end of January 2025 to call a much-anticipated general election.

Stock Trader's Almanac analysts noted today that despite last year's significant rally in the stock market, the anticipated Santa Claus Rally has failed to materialize this year.

LONDON (Reuters) — Britain's services firms grew more strongly in December than initially thought and optimism hit a seven-month high, according to a survey that will be welcome news for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak who is expected to hold an election later this year.

By Andrew Chung and John Kruzel

Rajat Rajgarhia, Director, Motilal Oswal Financial Services, says “one thing that we got taught last year was that while top-down, India is very good, the opportunities on the bottom-up are fantastic. If you pick the right sectors, right stocks, there are many compounders, there are many large ones in the making and that is where the effort is mainly focussed upon which is what last year's index was 20%, but the broader market were a lot larger. I do not see that pattern changing, neither this year, nor for the next few years to come.” 2023 was like a great year, it may not repeat itself. So, what should be the basic approach for 2024 — capital preservation or appreciation? Rajat Rajgarhia: When you look at equities as an asset class, you always want appreciation. And if you look at the index as a year, for the year last year, we were up about 18-20%.

Foreign portfolio investors (FPI) made record monthly purchases of Indian equities totalling 661.35 billion rupees ($8 billion) in December, National Securities Depository data showed. The record buying propelled India's stock benchmarks, Nifty 50 and Sensex, to fresh all-time highs. FPIs bought shares worth 427.33 billion rupees in the first half of December, marking a fortnightly record, driven by lower U.S.

AAP leaders on Thursday said the alleged Delhi liquor scam was bogus and asserted that Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will cooperate with the ED if it sends «legal» summons to him. Kejriwal, the national convenor of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), refused to appear before the Enforcement Directorate in connection with the Delhi excise policy case on Wednesday, calling the summons «illegal» and «politically motivated». AAP leader Jasmine Shah said the investigation into the alleged liquor scam has been going on for the last two years but so far, no recovery has been made as evidence by the ED.

Kejriwal accused BJP of wanting to arrest him and dent his honesty. He further added that his lawyers claimed the summons to be illegal. "The truth is that there was no corruption.

A decade ago, global fashion companies set out to raise the pay of workers who make the clothes they sell to a living wage. It hasn’t happened. In Bangladesh, the nearly 600,000 people making clothes for Swedish giant H&M—one of the biggest retailers in this space to start talking about paying living wages—earned an average of $119 a month in the first half of 2023, excluding overtime, the latest available data shows.

Sanjiv Bhasin, Director, IIFL Securities, says “I am amazed at the strength in midcaps. Yesterday, the midcap index was up. So, we are not complaining. All we are saying is that there will be a sectoral churn. Now it is time for banks to come back and if you are looking for an opportunity, then use the next few days’ weakness in metals as a proxy to the dollar to buy.” It is time to definitely tread with caution. I want you to drill the point home that there is no harm in the market consolidating at this juncture, it is only but healthy. Sanjiv Bhasin: Yes, the market consolidation is there and we had run up maybe irrationally and that has seen a little bit of a climax. We have corrected about 400-500 points on the Nifty, which is healthy for the market. I would expect this to end today. There is an up move of about 200-300 points which can come today or tomorrow.

Dabur India and ITC in the December quarter will be seen as a proxy for the broader consumer sentiment in India. Analysts said companies expect the upcoming general elections and a further reduction in inflation to shore up demand in FY25.

Arvind Kejriwal and his Jharkhand counterpart Hemant Soren are the two CMs who currently under the scanner of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) over money laundering cases. They both have skipped summons by the financial probe agencies and are in a close radar of the financial prove agency. Speculations are rife that these two chief ministers may get arrested.