Trade Financial News

Sebi) on Monday approved a sweeping set of regulations based on recommendations of a high-level committee (HLC), aligning rules for senior officials with those applicable to employees and plugging gaps in transparency, recusals and personal investments.Mint explains the new rules and whether they are enough to ensure accountability in Sebi’s top brass.Sebi has introduced a tighter disclosure and recusal framework. The chairman, whole-time members (WTMs) and employees must make initial, annual and event-based disclosures of assets, liabilities, trading activity and relationships, and disclose any negotiations for future employment.The rules mandate recusal in cases of material financial interest or other conflicts, with a digital system to record disclosures and approvals.Public disclosure rules have been only partially expanded.

The US government’s trade lawyers are working overtime. So what if the work in question requires more imagination than it does expertise?Over the past fortnight, investigations into 16 countries for supposed manufacturing “excess capacity” have been launched under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act. The office of US Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer also announced that similar probes would begin into forced labour practices in 60 countries.

The India-European Union free trade agreement (FTA) has reduced tariffs on many agricultural exports, but these alone won’t secure market access unless our exporters meet high EU import standards and sustainable production requirements. The EU, through its Green Deal and subsequent directives such as those on deforestation (EUDR) and Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence (EUCS3D), has implemented stiff regulations covering food safety, soil health and environmental and labour standards, including rules on greenhouse gas emissions and the wages, health, gender balance, age adequacy and work conditions of workers.

“Ordinary folks with no financial education can be wealthy if they have a handful of behavioral skills that have nothing to do with formal measures of intelligence,” wrote Morgan Housel in his book The Psychology of Money. He says a “genius who loses control of their emotions can be a financial disaster.”In other words, behavioural biases commonly affect how people make decisions, and they can have a significant impact on investment outcomes.“After having followed the markets for a considerable number of years, the one thing I can say with some certainty is that markets are driven not just by data and fundamentals—they are driven by human behavior,” says Krishan Rao, MD & co-head - Equity Broking Group, JM Financial Services.

plastic waste, here the responsibility shifts partly to companies that bring plastic.The registration module was launched in February, and the platform is expected to become fully operational within the next four months.The initiative comes amid growing concerns over the management of plastic waste, electronic waste, and used batteries, wherein enforcement gaps and fragmented systems have posed challenges to effective implementation."The existing system was not effective in managing the full EPR lifecycle or tracking compliance digitally, as it is more manually. The new portal will enable end-to-end management of obligations, including registration, target setting, monitoring and reporting,” one of the officials said.The portal will require all obligated entities as well as intermediaries such as recyclers and processors to register digitally.An email query sent to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and Central Pollution Control Board remains unanswered."The portal will initially cover five to six waste streams, where EPR compliance is mandatory, including plastic waste, e-waste, battery waste, used oil, and waste tyres.

Geopolitical shocks affect commodity prices and energy costs, altering inflation trajectories and corporate margins. Most immediately, shifts in global risk perception influence capital flows across emerging markets.

There is a paradox at the heart of the US economy. As the federal government imposes sweeping tariffs, signals hostility to multilateral trade and unnerves long-term investors with erratic policymaking, one state has emerged as the most reliable US address for global capital: California, the world’s fourth-largest economy and America’s second-largest exporting state with $188 billion in annual goods exports.

IDBI Bank’s shares hit a new 52-week low of ₹66.45 on the NSE on Monday and have now lost almost 30% since 13 March after media reports that the central government may scrap its plan to sell a majority stake in the lender.IDBI Bank is classified as a private sector bank even though the government and state-owned Life Insurance Corp. of India (LIC) together hold a 94.7% stake in it.

As reports emerged last week on which ships Iran had let through the Strait of Hormuz, India-bound carriers of LPG among them, one group was no surprise: vessels carrying Iranian crude exports. By data analytics firm Kpler’s estimate, Iran’s oil shipments kept up an average daily pace of 1.3-1.4 million barrels in March amid hostilities with the US and Israel. Most of it was headed for China, reportedly, bought by small refiners paying in Chinese yuan.

“These disconnected issues do not take away the confidence in private banks,” said Pratik Shah, partner and national leader, financial services, EY India.Shah’s optimism also stems from stronger regulatory guardrails. He said the regulatory review and oversight process has only got better and more robust over the last few years, and there have been cases where the regulator has not been shy about imposing fines or even shutting down businesses.“I think the environment around us is becoming more and more complex, and business risks are manifesting themselves in a different manner.

One way or the other, an extended West Asia war will impact earnings growth, said Ajay Tyagi, senior executive vice president and head of Equity at UTI Asset Management Co.He believes, “If markets remain flat or correct further, leading to poor two-three year returns, SIP (systematic investment plan) flows may slow down”.Tyagi, who directly manages about ₹2.5 trillion worth of assets, explained that while the structural shift of household savings into markets remains strong, it will see ebbs and flows rather than move in a straight line.He said that SIP inflows, currently around $3 billion, will have their own cycles and are unlikely to keep rising indefinitely.Edited excerpts:For large caps, the correction is mostly over, as they have reached a fair valuation zone. While not yet ‘cheap’, which would mean falling below long-term averages, they are close enough to offer comfort.

Keki Mistry, for a period of 90 days. So, we have 90 days for the board to undertake the process of examining the regulatory requirements for a part-time chairman. It is possible that if Mr.

Indian trade negotiators and diplomats soliciting foreign investment never miss an opportunity to showcase the country’s swelling middle and its robust legal system as the cornerstone of a vibrant democracy. Data emerging from recent research, however, shows both these bragging points to be over-wrought and unsaleable today.The size of India’s vaunted middle-class is projected to go from 500 million individuals currently to over 700 million in 4-5 years.

₹60,000 crore in revenue, or closer to ₹80,000 crore when the broader Indian ceramic industry is counted. India is the world’s second-largest tile manufacturer, behind China, and Morbi is the engine of that position.The industry’s growth has tracked India’s real estate expansion with unusual fidelity.

The international system is entering a phase that increasingly resembles an earlier era of geopolitics—one defined less by shared rules and more by competing spheres of influence. Signals emerging from Washington’s strategic thinking, particularly during the presidency of Donald Trump, point to a worldview in which power, leverage and bilateral bargaining take precedence over the norms and institutions that have guided global governance for decades.With the next Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) approaching, the future of multilateralism is in the spotlight.

In the shadow of the Iran war, with crude hovering around $100 a barrel, the allure of a quick fix for energy inflation is understandable. But intervening directly in financial markets by taking a bearish short position in oil—which the US Treasury says it’s been discussing—is a terrible idea. Selling oil futures would be a desperate ploy, born of panic about rising US gasoline and diesel retail prices ahead of the midterm elections.

₹1 trillion, highlighting a surge in leveraged stock buying even as risks loom large for retail investors.Data from the National Stock Exchange shows total outstanding funded stock positions across brokers have surpassed ₹1 trillion, reflecting how aggressively investors have embraced leveraged stock buying in recent years.The pitch is tempting: put in a fraction of the money, borrow the rest from your broker, and take a larger position in a stock you are bullish on. But the mechanics of margin trading facilities (MTF) carry risks that are easy to underestimate.MTF lets investors buy stocks by paying only part of the total transaction value upfront.

market, investors crave stability, and it’s understandable. Nobody wants to lose sleep over their equity portfolios. But there is a proven way to invest in turbulent times and still aim for long-term profits: value investing.At Equitymaster, we believe this strategy is the key to finding high-quality stocks today.

₹100 crore.“This season our sales have declined by 25-30%,” Salam told Mint. “Fruit growers are hesitant to plant trees in dry soil.”Apples dominate Kashmir’s horticulture economy, with production estimated at about 2.05 million tonnes in the 2025 season, a slight decline of 0.4% from 2024, according to official data.The 2026 harvest season is still around six months away.The region produces roughly 75% of India’s apples, making it the country’s primary supplier.

New Delhi: As the West Asia conflict drives crude prices above $100 a barrel, India has begun a calibrated pass-through of the shock—raising prices of select fuels while holding the line on retail petrol and diesel.State-run oil marketing companies (OMCs) have raised industrial diesel prices by around ₹22 per litre and premium petrol by about ₹2 per litre, according to industry sources. However, the prices of regular transport fuels and premium diesel have been kept unchanged.In Delhi, the price of premium petrol has been increased from ₹99.89 per litre to ₹101.89, and the price of industrial diesel, which is procured in bulk, has been increased to ₹109.59 per litre.Earlier this month, prices of domestic cooking gas were raised by about ₹60 and commercial LPG by about ₹115.Addressing the media on the developments in West Asia, Sujata Sharma, joint secretary in the ministry of petroleum and natural gas (MoPNG), said there has been no increase in prices of regular petrol and the hike is limited to premium variants, which account for just 3-4% of total demand.

₹1,558 crore, a decline from FY25’s 15.4% growth to ₹1,874 crore.Exports have been a key drag this year amid tariff uncertainty. With 36% of FY25 revenue coming from overseas markets, the impact is material. In Q3FY26, export growth slipped to the low single digits.