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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Goldman Sachs might have provided an early preview of market reaction to the first quarter earnings season, which in turn could be a warning to investors looking for outsize profit growth to offset the renewed risks tied to the U.S. war with Iran.The Wall Street titan on Monday posted a massive surge in first quarter profits, thanks in part to record stock trading revenue and a near doubling in investment banking fees, and solid gains from its asset management division.But its bottom line growth rate of 19%, in terms of overall profits, dwarfed the 6.5% rate at which Goldman topped Wall Street’s headline earnings estimate, suggesting investors had already priced a large amount of the bank’s performance into its stock price heading into Monday’s update.Shares in the group, in fact, were last marked 3.5% lower in early Monday trading, dragging both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 lower along the way.Deutsche Bank strategists, led by Binky Chanda, think this could be a theme that repeats itself throughout the whole of the first quarter reporting season.Across Wall Street, analysts are looking for headline earnings growth of around 14%, a rate that would take collective S&P 500 profits to just over $605 billion.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Saurabh Mukherjea is not the kind of fund manager who hedges his bets with careful language. The founder of Marcellus Investment Managers, one of India’s more closely watched boutique fund houses, has made a career of saying out loud what others whisper.His latest vehicle for that is a book—Breakpoint: The Crisis of the Middle Class and the Future of Work, published by Juggernaut in March 2026 and co-written with economist Nandita Rajhansa and human resources professional Sapana Bhavsar.“I have argued in my book that India is not creating enough jobs for the middle and lower income segments,” he said. “This would mean that the opportunity to invest in Indian businesses will come down over the next several years.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.India’s nearly 80 million micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs)—employing over 328.2 million people and contributing 31.1% to gross domestic product (GDP), 35.4% to manufacturing output, and 48.58% to exports—have been navigating a harsh global environment over the past five years. From the covid-19 pandemic-induced economic standstill to cost shocks triggered by the Russia-Ukraine war, recurring volatility in West Asia, and trade disruptions under the Trump administration, the sector has faced repeated stress.

NEW DELHI: India is moving to position its QR (Quick Response) code-based payment system on the global stage. The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has introduced fresh norms covering biometric authentication, QR code-based payments and digital currency security to reduce fraud risks and enhance interoperability according to two people aware of the development.The move is intended to strengthen safeguards in India’s rapidly expanding digital financial ecosystem and build confidence among developed economies, where QR code payments are still a novelty, the people said.The rapid expansion of digital payments, biometric-based authentication systems and QR code transactions in India has raised concerns over fraud, identity theft, data misuse and vulnerabilities in the digital payment infrastructure.

Last week, I warned you that volatility in financial markets would rise further and reach crescendo levels that retail traders are not geared to handle. Sure enough, the markets gyrated wildly with larger-than-normal price swings. The expectations of a mean-reversion upmove and empirical evidence of a shorter trading week favouring bulls also played out as expected.

FPIs, amid a two-week shaky truce between Iran and the US announced last week, fuelled the market's first gain in six weeks through last Friday.A breakthrough in the Islamabad talks could have spurred further closure of bearish bets, while the failure to reach an agreement could result in initiation of fresh shorts, analysts said.Last week, the Nifty recovered almost 8.5% from its 52-week low of 22,182.55 on 2 April through Friday's close of 24,050.6, as oil plunged 13% to $95.2 a barrel following President Donald Trump's announcement of a two-week ceasefire to resolve the conflict in West Asia.With talks in Islamabad having failed, uncertainty rises again over volatile oil prices, although a collapse in Nifty to the 52-week low is unlikely unless the fighting resumes, per G Chokkalingam, founder of research firm Equinomics. “If the truce still holds we may see a tempered fall rather than an oversized one , followed by a period of consolidation.”While FPIs net sold shares worth ₹18,274.6 crore last week, domestic institutional investors (DIIs) net purchased shares worth ₹21,602.32 crore, according data from the National Securities Depository Ltd.However, in addition to the net institutional inflow of ₹3,328 crore, according to depository data, FPIs closed out or covered ₹9,775 crore of cumulative short index futures–Nifty and Bank Nifty–positions last week, which accounted for much of last week's rally."Last week's rally was led by FPI short-covering," said Rohit Srivastava, founder of analytics firm IndiaCharts.

Mint, introduces a bank passbook-like system in which companies that meet targets earn credits, while those that fall short accumulate debits that attract penalties.Automakers with debits will be allowed to purchase credits from the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) at fixed rates set annually from 2028 to 2032, ranging from ₹2,500 to ₹4,500 per gramme of CO₂/km.While automakers will be allowed to trade credits among themselves, as is the global norm, the option to purchase credits directly from a regulator is unprecedented.“California allows fully transparent credit trading among OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), while Europe permits pooling among manufacturers,” said Amit Bhatt, India managing director at International Council on Clean Transportation, a non-profit organization that advises regulators on environmental issues.“In contrast, BEE’s proposal represents a distinct Indian approach by introducing a regulated credit purchase mechanism, effectively creating a financial compliance pathway that is not available in either benchmark jurisdiction,” he added.Queries sent to the BEE, Maruti Suzuki, Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles, Mahindra and Mahindra, and Hyundai Motor India remained unanswered.To put it simply, every automaker will have a passbook for each of the fiscal years from 2028 to 2032. A positive credit balance would indicate that the company's average annual fuel emissions are below the maximum cap.

India is set to more than double its export quotas for wheat, including for its flour products atta and maida, two people aware of the decision said. The move was cleared recently by a top panel monitoring supply of essentials amid the West Asia war, they said.

Since US President Donald Trump started hiking tariffs last year, many commentators have called attention to Asian exporters’ resilience. But the narrowly concentrated gains in Taiwan, Vietnam and Thailand have been driven primarily by electronics, obscuring the sharp divisions that a protectionist US and an export-reliant China are perpetuating across the region. Beyond electronics exports, other sectors are being undercut, leading several governments to announce targeted support measures for firms and consumers, even as headline growth has headed higher.

₹1.20 trillion even as the markets turned volatile, according to a February Care Edge report. A meaningful share of these borrowed positions is concentrated in relatively illiquid stocks, where MTF outstanding is several times the daily trading volume.This is not merely a story about rising leverage. It is a window into a larger regulatory blind spot.Financial regulation is designed to protect individuals.

Farmers have been forced to pause harvesting and the moisture content in the standing crop has increased, making it unsuitable for immediate procurement. The slowdown has led to lower-than-usual arrivals in the wholesale markets, affecting early procurement by government agencies.According to Food Corporation of India (FCI) data, the government’s wheat purchase from farmers in the 2026-27 rabi marketing season (April–June) was 324,065 tonnes as of 8 April, compared to 398,030 tonnes a year ago.

Mint and confirmed by two officials.According to the direction issued as part of the Mediation for Nation 2.0 campaign, state chief secretaries have been asked to actively support efforts to identify and dispose of cases that can be settled through mediation, the government officials cited earlier said, adding that the cases where the state is a complainant can be resolved through settlement.The emphasis is on disputes that are legally compoundable—cases that can be resolved mutually, including cheque bounce cases, land acquisition matters and certain criminal offences, the officials said on the condition of anonymity.The move assumes significance as cheque dishonour cases have been identified as a key focus area due to their sheer volume. As per government data, over 8.007 million cheque bounce cases are pending across high courts.

Banks rushed to settle their foreign exchange positions ahead of Friday’s deadline set by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), five treasury officials told Mint. Despite the new net open position (NOP) restrictions being framed as temporary, bankers expect these curbs to remain in place for several months.On 27 March, the RBI capped banks’ NOPs in the domestic market at $100 million at the end of each business day, and mandated that banks comply with this rule by 10 April.

Bloomberg’s 1% estimate.Growth was broad-based across key geographies and segments, except BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) and CMT (communication, media and technology).Even so, investor sentiment remains fragile. Fears of AI-led deflation, the recent new product launch by Anthropic, and geopolitical tensions have weighed on IT stocks.

HDFC Bank episode shows, ADRs remain a flashing alarm bell for FPI sentiment.In the early 2000s, Indian markets were marked by sharp information asymmetry, and remained relatively isolated from their global peers. For foreign investors at the time, these US dollar-denominated certificates traded in American exchanges opened a critical but often congested lane connecting to Dalal Street.Switch to present—the landscape has transformed.

Market trends have reset as the recent rally failed to find sustained momentum. Investors remain cautious, awaiting a clear direction from TCS's upcoming earnings while persistent geopolitical conflict continues to cloud the outlook.

rental income.Phoenix’s multiple business lines often move in different directions, making consolidated Ebitda less useful as a yardstick, particularly because accounting for real estate construction differs from that for retail and hotels. Investors may instead want to focus on the segment that drives the bulk of the company’s sum-of-the-parts valuation: retail leasing.According to Motilal Oswal Financial Services estimates, the retail leasing segment could post an Ebitda of about ₹2,900 crore in FY26, compared with roughly ₹400 crore from the hotel business.

Sebi. Victims have also started complaining more since the markets have been down in the past two years and they have been forced to bear immense losses,” said Tomu Francis, partner at Khaitan and Co.APs operate under brokers’ control and cannot independently handle client funds or act outside regulatory limits.

Has economic forecasting ever seemed so fraught with risk? A mix of almost imponderable new possibilities made possible by AI and the unpredictable state of the world makes people who trade contracts on so-called prediction markets seem foolhardy. Still, spare a kind thought for those of us in the commentariat who must hedge our prophesying.Put aside for a moment how long the truce between the US, Israel and Iran will last. And, if it does, how to estimate the huge backlog of ships and tankers waiting to transit through the Strait of Hormuz and how long this will take to clear.

₹2.5 trillion relief package, including credit guarantees for MSMEs amid feedback from banks indicating potential stress in their MSME portfolios starting Q1 FY27, the persons cited above said, requesting anonymity.The current environment, shaped by the West Asia crisis, is creating conditions similar to the covid-19 period, warranting a closer look at relief measures. This assumes significance given that the MSME sector contributes about 30.1% to India’s gross domestic product (GDP) and accounts for 35.4% of manufacturing output and nearly 45% of India’s merchandise exports.MSME borrowers have increasingly approached lenders seeking relief measures, citing business disruptions from the West Asia war.

₹10,900 crore production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for the food processing sector has delivered on several fronts, drawing investments and expanding capacity. But questions remain on whether it has actually delivered as expec­ted.With the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM-A) now examining why several PLI schemes have underperformed expectations, Mint explains whether the needle has moved beyond headline investments to sustained value addition.The PLI scheme for the food processing sector is designed to support food manufacturing companies that meet minimum sales thresholds and commit to investments for expanding processing capacity and building global brands.The scheme, being implemented for six years till FY26-27, seeks to create globally competitive food manufacturing champions.