Target Financial News

Investing.com-- Oil prices moved little in Asian trade on Tuesday, nursing some losses from the prior session and seeing little support as top importer China presented a middling economic growth forecast for 2024.

China will on Tuesday set a goal of five percent gross domestic product growth for the year, an official copy of a government work report seen by AFP showed, one of its lowest in decades and in line with last year. The GDP target is set to be officially unveiled later in the day at a meeting of the National People's Congress, China's parliament.

Li Qiang has announced that China's economic growth target for this year is around 5%, in line with last year's performance despite forecasts for a slowdown. The ruling Communist Party has said it is prioritizing efforts to encourage consumer spending to help drive the economy. Last year, the economy grew at a 5.2% pace, but that was after a very slow 3% annual growth rate in 2022, when the country was enduring the worst disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic.

By Georgina McCartney

«The broader market could remain under pressure given the profit booking and adverse advance-decline ratio. Hence we suggest traders be very selective in mid/small caps,» said Siddhartha Khemka, Head — Retail Research, Motilal Oswal.

HDFC Bank bracing for lower loan growth? Brokerage Bernstein said investors are asking this question, extrapolating the bank's management's comments about prioritising profitability over growth and also the continued weak deposit growth. «While the weaker deposit growth has led to more moderate credit growth expectations across the sector, for HDFCB in particular, the extrapolation of management's comments on the usage of incremental deposits (reserve maintenance, HDFC Ltd liability replacement and growth — in that order) has raised questions on whether a loan growth of ~10% would become a harsh reality for HDFC, during the transition phase,» said the firm's analysts Pranav Gundlapalle, Ishan Mittal and Dhruv Luthra in a note to clients, while maintaining an outperform rating with a price target of ₹2,100.

Zee Entertainment Enterprises has come out with competitively priced packages for advertisements during the Indian Premier League (IPL) season, according to a senior executive, a move seen making it easier for brands that find IPL TV broadcaster Disney Star's rates prohibitive. The packages offered by Zee Entertainment — which has more than 17% share in TV viewership — will allow brands to reach audiences at scale with lower outlays during the IPL period. The rates of Zee's prime-time advertisement packages range from ₹16 crore to ₹35 crore, according to Ashish Sehgal, the company's chief growth officer, ad sales. In comparison, rival Disney Star's IPL packages are priced between ₹83 crore and ₹167 crore. Disney Star is also looking to broaden its IPL advertiser base by offering customised packages. Sehgal said the company has multiple advertisement packages for the IPL period for the varied marketing objectives of advertisers. Sehgal said the company has devised an eight-week plan for brands that wish to outshout their competitors during the IPL. It has shorter duration four- and six-week plans.

Investing.com-- Gold prices swelled to settle at an all-time high on Monday, underpinned by ongoing geopolitical tensions and bets on a Fed rate cuts ahead of testimony from Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell later this week. 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Five months into the fiscal year, congressional negotiators have unveiled the first tranche of bills to avert a partial government shutdown, with Republicans and Democrats touting the portions of the legislation that embraced their key priorities.

Most economists agree that it’s just a matter of time before the Bank of Canada cuts interest rates. But, as the bank prepares to unveil its latest rate decision on Wednesday, at least one is warning that the potential for a hot spring housing market and a stimulative federal budget could push the timeline for those cuts back to the fall.

Bitcoin’s latest rally to $66,400, showcasing nearly 6% uptick within a mere 24 hours, becomes a focal point for analysts and investors alike.

₹4 trillion. To put it in context, that is around 8% of the budget’s total expenditure, second only to defence in its non-interest expenditure pie. Add to it separate outlays from state governments—state-level top-ups for minimum support prices (MSPs), power subsidies, etc—and the amount is likely to go up substantially.

The Bank of Canada is expected to preach patience at its interest rate announcement this week as economists say weakening economic conditions are setting the stage for rate cuts in the coming months.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday asked GST officers to leverage technology to plug loopholes and provide better taxpayer services. Inaugurating the first-ever National Conference of Enforcement Chiefs of the State and Central GST Formations, Sitharaman advocated for sharing of the emerging best practices, emphasising the need for seamless coordination across states in the larger national interest. «The Union Finance Minister urged all the GST formations to leverage technology to plug the loopholes as well provide better taxpayer services,» an official statement issued after the meeting said. She also stressed that clarity on the classification of related issues should be looked into at the earliest through appropriate channels.

BJP) to perform a hat-trick in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, the party and its leaders are increasingly talking of their plans for the third term. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has spoken several times in the recent past how his party will form the government and what all it would do. While such statements before polls are considered a rhetorical ploy by a party to present the inevitability of its victory in order to swing the undecided voters, PM Modi has outlined the agenda of his next government. In the last formal meeting of the Union Council of Ministers on Sunday before the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, Modi chaired a brainstorming session on the vision document for 'Viksit Bharat (Developed India) 2047'. A 100-day agenda for immediate steps for quick implementation of policies after formation of the new government in May 2024 was also discussed. It signalled the government's confidence in its poll prospects as well as the eagerness to fast-forward policies that take benefit of the prevailing favourable factors. «Wait for bigger decisions in the third-term. I'm already working on a roadmap that will be completed soon,» Modi said at the ET NOW Global Business Summit last week. «There comes a time in the development journey of any country when all the circumstances are in its favour. This is the time when that country makes itself strong for many centuries to come. That's the time I see for India today,» said Modi.

BRUSSELS : The European Union is set to call for the fossil fuel industry to help pay for fighting climate change in poorer countries under a United Nations target, a draft document shows, as nations prepare for talks this year on a global finance goal. This year's UN climate negotiations in Baku, Azerbaijan, in November, are the deadline for countries to agree to a new goal of how much wealthy, industrialised nations should pay poorer ones to adjust to the most severe impacts of a hotter world.

Mint. “Not only are we a major supplier of critical minerals, we're also home to a buzzing ecosystem that is developing lithium and is looking at the future of lithium-ion technology for batteries and vanadium redox flow batteries, which will be a very key opportunity to grow and address the demands—be it for vehicles or for storage," she added. While Japan, Korea and European nations have been Australia’s traditional partners, Choudhury sees an increasing opportunity for Indian firms.

Investing.com — Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) has overtaken Saudi Aramco (TADAWUL:2222) in market value, making it the world’s third-most valuable public company after Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT).

natural gas pipeline infrastructure in its northeastern states and northern federal territories of Kashmir and Ladakh, a minister said on Monday. India, one of the world's biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, is seeking to boost the use of cleaner fuel to cut its carbon emissions and has set a 2070 goal for net zero carbon emissions. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is targeting raising the share of natural gas in India's energy mix to 15% by 2030 from the current 6.2%. Natural gas, while still a fossil fuel, emits less CO2 than coal.

Investing.com -- The S&P 500 notched yet another record high last week, closing above the 5,100 mark for the first time ever. The Nasdaq Composite index also touched a new all-time high, exceeding its previous peak from 2021. The tech-oriented Nasdaq rose more than 1.1% on the day, surging as high as 16,302, before closing at 16,274. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 90.99 points, or 0.23%, to 39,087.38.

Crude oil is set to have an intriguing week, especially following Friday's breakout. Prices surged even before OPEC+'s weekend decision to prolong supply cuts, suggesting investors may have anticipated such an extension.