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US Federal Reserve. Among other major currencies, the euro and pound rose on Friday as the central banks in Europe stuck to their hawkish paths. The US dollar index, which measures the greenback's strength against a basket of six currencies, eased by 0.02% to 101.94, not far from the four-month low of 101.76 it touched on Thursday.

KFin Technologies declined over 9 percent in trade today (December 15) after shares worth ₹1,650 crore changed hands in a block deal. As per media reports, around 3.3 crore shares, representing 20 percent equity in the company, changed hands at a floor price of ₹500 apiece. The floor price is at a 6 percent discount to its yesterday's closing price of ₹532.25.

Bajaj Holdings & Investment Ltd. slipped 1.52 per cent to Rs 8194.8 in Friday's trade as of 02:00PM (IST). The stock hit a high price of Rs 8360.0 and low of Rs 8175.0 during the session.

e-commerce and fintech company Bolt has confirmed it laid off 29 per cent of its staff. According to a Bolt spokesperson, the company made the cuts to get Bolt to «an operating model optimised for sustainable growth and efficiency», reports TechCrunch.

Mahua Moitra against her expulsion from Lok Sabha in a cash-for-query case. A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and SVN Bhatti deferred the hearing, saying it had not gone through the case files. "I got the file in the morning; I did not have time to scan it.

Bollywood movie Dunki, starring Shah Rukh Khan, Taapsee Pannu and Vicky Kaushal, is set to release on December 21. The film has generated a buzz among fans, with large-scale first-day-first-show plans across India and globally. Dunki advance booking will start on December 16, as per Pinkvilla.

Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL) and Culver Max Entertainment (formerly known as Sony Pictures India), according to a Moneycontrol report. It was hearing an appeal by Axis Finance and IDBI Bank who have challenged the merger in the tribunal. The next hearing has been listed for January 8, 2024.

On Thursday, the Maldivian government announced it would terminate a hydrography agreement signed with India in 2019. The decision came shortly after the newly elected administration of Mohamed Muizzu asked India to withdraw its troops from the island country–a day after he took charge. The two countries have mostly had cordial relations, with India providing administrative and infrastructure support.

Also Read: PBOC's bold move: Injects $112 billion lifeline amid economic challenges The People's Bank of China (PBOC) said it was keeping the rate on 1.45 trillion yuan ($203.97 billion) worth of one-year medium-term lending facility (MLF) loans to some financial institutions unchanged at 2.50% from the previous operation. With 650 billion yuan worth of MLF loans set to expire this month, the operation resulted in a net 800 billion yuan fresh fund injection into the banking system in December, booking the biggest monthly increase on record, Reuters reported.

Live Law report, a habeas corpus petition was filed in the top court on behalf of Gupta, requesting the Indian government to intervene and free him from custody. The bench headed by Justices Sanjiv Khanna and SV Bhatti were hearing the petition. During the hearing, the Justices gave a prima facie opinion, stating that the petitioners would need to go through the Czech Republic court where Gupta is being held.

As the U.S. tries to restore a key forest ecosystem in the Southeast, landowners must light more fires on private property

Asian shares have churned higher after the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed to another record high

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -Swedish fashion retailer H&M (ST:HMb) reported on Friday a 4% drop in September-November sales measured in local currencies, larger than the 3% fall forecast by analysts.

By Tetsushi Kajimoto

Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told ET. The objective is to replace aging rolling stock, necessitating 7,000-8,000 new train sets. Tenders for this procurement, amounting to around ₹1 lakh crore, will be issued over the next 4-5 years and fulfilled over 15 years, the minister said. The Railways Minister also said that 70% of the Rs 2.4 lakh crore capital budget for FY24 has already been utilized, with track laying progressing according to the plan. The minister also said that significant progress has been made in the Eastern and Western Dedicated Freight Corridors, which will free up tracks for increased passenger and freight movement. Almost 80% of the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor has completed while the completion of the entire 1337 kilometre (km) Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor is catalysing the development of new industrial hubs and Gati Shakti Cargo Terminals, the minister said. During the current fiscal, Railways expects to add 5500 to 6000 kms of new tracks, which is 16 kilometres (km) per day. In 2022-23, it had added 5243 kilometres of tracks to it network. He also said that the national transporter needs to invest of close to Rs 12 lakh crore to cater to the current level of economic growth by 2030.

Venezuelan oil as some refiners in the country have the capability to process heavy crude oil, Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Friday. Indian refiners have already resumed Venezuelan oil purchases, with Reliance Industries, Indian Oil Corp and HPCL-Mittal Energy securing cargoes of Venezuelan oil after the United States lifted sanctions in October. India last imported Venezuelan crude in 2020. «Many of our refineries, including Paradip, (are) capable of using that heavy Venezuelan oil.

Pidilite Industries Ltd. traded 0.66 per cent up at Rs 2651.1 at around 12:12PM (IST) on Friday. The stock had closed at Rs 2633.5 in the previous session.

CERT-In) has issued a warning for some Samsung mobile phones, highlighting multiple vulnerabilities. The warning highlighted critical security issues affecting Samsung Mobile Android versions 11, 12, 13, and 14. «Multiple vulnerabilities have been reported in Samsung products which could allow an attacker to bypass implemented security restrictions, access sensitive information and execute arbitrary code on the targeted system,» CERT-In, which works under Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology of the Government of India, said in its advisory. The agency said that the vulnerabilities are diverse and impact various components of the Samsung ecosystem. «These vulnerabilities exist due to improper access control flaw in KnoxCustomManagerService and SmartManagerCN component, integer overflow vulnerability in facepreprocessing library; improper authorization verification vulnerability in AR Emoji, improper exception management vulnerability in Knox Guard, various out of bounds write vulnerabilities in bootloader, HDCP in HAL, libIfaaCa and libsavsac.so components, improper size check vulnerability in softsimd, improper input validation vulnerability in Smart Clip and implicit intent hijacking vulnerability in contacts,» it said. CERT-In warned that attackers may explot the vulnerabilities to «access device SIM PIN, read sandbox data of AR Emoji, bypass Knox Guard lock via changing system time and gain access to sensitive information, execute arbitrary code and compromise the targeted system». To mitigate the risks associated with these vulnerabilities, users are advised to promptly apply the security updates provided by Samsung in their official security advisory.

Colgate-Palmolive (India) Ltd. dropped 0.07 per cent to Rs 2374.9 at 12:07PM (IST) in Friday's trade. The scrip hit a high of Rs 2408.7 and low of Rs 2371.6 so far during the session.

Mayuresh Joshi, Head, Equity Research-India, William O'Neil, says “as metal demand comes back slowly and steadily as far as China is concerned, the expectations of a soft landing in the US, strong recovery signs that we are seeing in Europe and holding out of macros and the expectations of infra spend in India, is expected to keep volumes afloat as far as Indian companies are concerned. With a sharp recovery in LME prices, the large expectation is that operating leverage should start kicking in from the first of the next financial year. It is a pre-emptive move that we are probably seeing on a lot of these counters.” What do you think is aiding the move in metals and is it sustainable? Two-three factors are clearly aiding the kind of growth that is now coming through for the sector as a whole. One, yesterday, Powell statement which is clearly indicating that at some stage in the second half of the next calendar year rate cuts will be a given, that will give a huge boost to the global economy and commodities in general should see a huge comeback.

The NSE Nifty index was trading 133.2 points up at 21315.9, while BSE Sensex was up 463.02 points at 70977.22 at the time of writing this report. In the Nifty index, Tech Mahindra Ltd.(up 4.30 per cent), LTIMindtree Ltd.(up 4.30 per cent), Infosys Ltd.(up 4.20 per cent), HCL Technologies Ltd.(up 3.96 per cent) and Tata Consultancy Services Ltd.(up 3.62 per cent) were among the top gainers.