Updates Financial News

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.India’s food regulator has issued a show-cause notice to Fitshit Health Solutions-owned The Whole Truth over labelling that its chocolate products contained “no added sugar,” a move that could have a broader impact on how companies make and consumers perceive such claims.The notice issued by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) followed a complaint filed by rival chocolate maker Paul & Mike that The Whole Truth was using dates as sweeteners while claiming that no sugar was added to its cocoa products.Under FSSAI’s “non-addition of sugars” rules, such claims are not permitted if ingredients containing sugars are used as substitutes for added sugars. Following a Right to Information petition filed by the complainant in December, the Maharashtra FSSAI issued the notice to The Whole Truth.This tighter regulatory scrutiny could set a precedent how food companies make “no added sugar” claims while using dates, date paste and similar ingredients as sweeteners.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The likes of Intel and Micron Technology have powered the market higher in recent weeks but escalating geopolitical worries could scuttle the chip-stocks rally.In a research note published on Monday, Gavekal Research CEO Louis-Vincent Gave named the looming summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and China’s premier Xi Jinping as one reason for investors to feel cautious about the semiconductor sector.The two leaders are set to meet in China on Thursday and Friday, Beijing confirmed.Trump needs to replenish the U.S.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Brexit was a shot heard ’round the world a decade ago next month, when the British voted to reject the recommendation of their political, economic and cultural establishment and leave the European Union. Its global significance was its loud expression of deep disaffection with the self-satisfied, self-serving elites in Western democracies who dictated the boundaries of acceptable debate on immigration, national sovereignty, the globalized economy and the modern gospel of cultural progressivism.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Healthcare jobs are keeping the U.S. labor market humming.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Potential competition from the National Stock Exchange (NSE), India’s largest bourse, hasn’t perturbed the country’s largest commodity derivatives exchange, MCX, though it is keeping a close eye on NSE’s activity in the commodity derivatives segment (CDS), Praveena Rai, managing director & CEO of MCX indicated on Monday.MCX dominated the commodity options market in FY26 with a 99.9% share, leaving rival NSE with just 0.1%."We are watching the space very closely… it is a large competitor and they have made their intention felt in the market with the focus they are placing on the commodity segment," Rai said in response to an analyst’s query on evolving challenges during the company's Q4 earnings call.Rai didn't name NSE, but the reference was unmistakable as it is the second-largest non-agri commodity contender in CDS, ahead of BSE.Though NSE entered the CDS in 2018, it began working at increasing its market share in earnest only since late last year. Starting last November, it revised the expiry of its WTI crude oil options contracts to seven days before the underlying futures expire—a significant shift from its previous two-day window and the current schedule followed by MCX.In March 2026, it launched a 10-gram gold contract to compete with MCX’s benchmark gold contract, followed last month by a dated Brent Platts futures contract to gain a foothold in the energy derivatives market.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Recent months have tested investor confidence. Indian equity markets have seen noticeable corrections amid global uncertainties, with broader indices declining sharply due to tightening liquidity, rising oil prices, and geopolitical tensions.Most indices declined by over 10% in March, while crude oil prices surged by more than 33% (before cooling off in April).

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Just as online brokers have made stock investing possible with a click, several applications now allow users to invest in fixed deposits (FDs) from multiple banks online without needing savings accounts with those banks.In April, low-cost broker Zerodha joined the bandwagon by launching such digital FDs on its investment platform Coin. Other apps that facilitate digital FD investments include Stable Money, SuperMoney, Jiraaf, and GoldenPiThe main advertising pitch for digital FDs is higher interest rates than those offered by traditional banks and the convenience of a one-stop shop.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.A group of 20 AI researchers recently spent two weeks trying to break a set of autonomous AI agents—systems with real email accounts, persistent memory, shell access and the authority to act on their owners’ behalf. They succeeded 11 times out of the cases they documented. The agents disclosed private medical records, wiped email servers, broadcast defamatory messages, looped in resource-consuming spirals for nine days, and were corrupted through a fake governance document that gave an attacker persistent but invisible control across multiple sessions.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Indian business rarely does exactly what the government wants it to. For the past decade or so, for example, it has obdurately refused to invest as much as officials think it should.Last week, chief economic advisor V. Anantha Nageswaran said that profits for the 500 largest publicly traded companies had grown by over 30% a year since the pandemic, “but still, our overall capital formation rates from the private sector have been disappointing.”Nageswaran is not the only one complaining.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.State Bank of India’s (SBI) shares have fallen nearly 10% in the past two trading sessions to around ₹980, with most of the decline coming after its March quarter (Q4FY26) results announced late Friday.The trigger: net interest income (NII) growth lagged loan growth. While interest-earning assets, mainly loans and investments, rose 14% year-on-year, NII grew just 4% as asset yields declined sharply.On advances, management clarified that external benchmark lending rate (EBLR—repo and treasury bill-linked) loans, which account for roughly 50% of total loans, were repriced lower following the RBI’s 25 basis points (bps) repo rate cut in December.The marginal cost of funds-based lending rate (MCLR) was also reduced by 5 bps, weighing on loan yields.As a result, domestic net interest margin (NIM) fell 19 bps sequentially to 2.93% in Q4FY26.On the investment side, interest income declined 3% year-on-year as the bank sold higher-yielding securities.This move likely helped offset a mark-to-market (MTM) loss of ₹4,522 crore on its bond portfolio due to hardening yields.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.India’s unemployment debate is missing a crucial dimension: time. Time spent waiting is a loss at any age, but especially so in one’s youth. For both the individual and the country, it is a loss of prime productive years.Last year, 11.6 million Indians in their 20s were unemployed and about 6.8 million of them had been job hunting for over a year.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.In a world beset by uncertainty, a 14% plus year-on-year growth in bank credit during December 2025 to February 2026 is reason for cheer. To be sure, part of this reflects a normalization of the credit cycle which saw brief disruption in mid-2025 triggered by US President Donald Trump’s tariff announcements.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.A little-known Iraqi tycoon named Ali Al Zaidi has emerged as the likely next prime minister of Iraq with the backing of President Trump, who has invited the businessman to Washington and said the U.S. “is with him all the way.”The White House endorsement has come with a demand that Zaidi exclude Iranian-backed militias from Iraq’s next government and curtail Tehran’s influence in Baghdad.He has faced similar U.S. pressure before: Zaidi owns a bank that the Treasury banned from dollar transactions in 2024 over suspicions it was doing business with a militia leader linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, current and former U.S.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Tata Trusts chairman Noel Tata has opposed the reappointment of vice-chairmen Venu Srinivasan and Vijay Singh at Tata Education and Development Trust (TEDT), deepening divisions within the philanthropic entities that control the group.With the latest development, at least one expert predicted that the schisms at the controlling trusts, which own nearly two-thirds of Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata Group, show no signs of ending. Most decisions of the trusts require unanimous endorsement of the trustees.TEDT now has three trustees left: Noel, Mehli Mistry, a confidante of the late Ratan Tata, and Jehangir Nariman Mistry, a lawyer with Mulla & Mulla and Craigie Blunt & Caroe.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.WASHINGTON—As the heads of the world’s two superpowers meet in Beijing this week, President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping will have another nation looming over their summit: Iran.The long anticipated meeting has already been delayed once due to the U.S. and Israel’s war against Iran, which has led to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi participated in the oath ceremony in two states. These weren’t meant to declare Samrat Chaudhary and Suvendu Adhikari chief ministers of their states. They were a declaration of an electoral Ashwamedh yagya by the saffron outfit, inspired by its success in recent years.In May 2014, when Modi took the reins at the Centre, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) with all its allies was in power in just seven states.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Mumbai: Axis Bank is selectively chasing corporate loan growth in sectors with strong tailwinds, such as data centres, commercial real estate and renewables, while staying “watchful” in the weaker segments, said Vijay Mulbagal, group executive and head of wholesale bank coverage, corporate salary, sustainability and CSR.The private sector lender has also sidestepped the “bidding game” in some aggressively priced loans to state-run firms, as banks grapple with pressure on margins and companies remain cautious on large capital expenditure despite healthy profitability.India’s third-largest private lender reported a 38% growth in corporate loans during the March quarter of FY26, significantly outpacing its rivals. The growth of corporate lending—outstanding loans at ₹4.12 trillion as on 31 March—was also higher than the bank’s retail or small business segments.Mulbagal, who joined from HDFC Bank in 2024, took over the corporate vertical a year ago, told Mint in an interview that the bank has not been reckless and its underwriting standards have been strong, with corporate borrowers rated A- and above at 91% of the book.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Mollie Amkraut Mueller’s mumbling was starting to get on her husband’s nerves.What was once a sacred nightly routine—putting the toddler to bed, collapsing onto the couch and opening their laptops to finish their work in peace—had become anything but peaceful. Instead of typing quietly, Amkraut Mueller started to hold down the function key and talk in hushed tones to her computer.Amkraut Mueller, who runs her own artificial-intelligence business in Seattle, is hooked on Wispr Flow, a dictation app that users are pairing with coding tools like Claude Code and Codex to turn rambling, stream-of-consciousness prompts into coherent, usable text in seconds.Efficient, yes.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.As content clutter intensifies and organic discovery of fresh titles becomes harder, consumers are increasingly turning to AI for help.According to Gracenote, the content data business unit of Nielsen, adoption of AI-powered entertainment experiences is rising—especially among older Gen Alpha respondents (ages 13 and 14). The shift is already reshaping how this cohort discovers content.When asked to name the best source for TV and movie recommendations, 49% of Gen Alpha chose web- and app-based AI chatbots, ahead of streaming and cable service interfaces and program guides (41%) and internet search engine results (11%).The implication is clear: discovery is moving from browsing to prompting.As a result, creators and platforms are experimenting with multiple entry points.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Apart from some currency depreciation, the Indian economy has held up reasonably well, and growth numbers remain stable, said Sailesh Raj Bhan, president and chief investment officer (CIO) - Equity Investments, Nippon India Mutual Fund.“India today is also far less fragile than before,” he added.The broader belief is that elevated crude prices are not a permanent situation, as they would hurt the global economy as well. Once conditions normalize, flows are likely to return to India, said Bhan.Among the sectors, he likes all private-sector banks, consumer plays, and general insurance plays.Edited excerpts:Things will improve in India as investors begin to see opportunities emerge.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Ted Turner died last week at 87 and the world now feels a little less interesting, a little less imaginative and a little less fun without him in it—but also a lot better off because he was here.After hearing the news of his passing, one moment came to mind that embodied how he moved through the world: a very drunk Turner giving an interview after winning the America’s Cup in 1977. The yachting world was aghast.