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A government shutdown at risk, House Speaker Mike Johnson is fighting to figure out how to meet President-elect Donald Trump’s sudden demands — and keep his own job

«2025, the key is that what sort of revival we see in the auto sector. This year has been very turbulent, like initially there were good demand trend, then inventory got built up, festival season was fine, but post festival season again the growth concerns are there. The inflationary concerns in the minds of the consumers has held back consumption across various sectors and on top of that liquidity and interest rates have been higher,» says Sandip Sabharwal, asksandipsabharwal.com. We were just chatting yesterday about Asian Paints and how you think actually maybe it could bottom out in the year ahead. But that is not the case. I can even see names like IndusInd Bank, Nestle, Tata Consumer. We know your thoughts on FMCG, but what about banks? Do you think that the underperformers, like a case in point being IndusInd Bank, Bandhan, etc, even IDFC, and it is a long list, AU Small Finance Bank as well added in there, could they actually play catch up? Sandip Sabharwal: If we look at the internals of the banking stocks, especially the smaller ones, then what we need to see is that how the asset quality buildup is there, what have been the growth drivers in the past, how margins will get impacted for them, etc, and what the managements have historically said and what they have been able to deliver.

Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. traded at Rs 141.10 on BSE at 11:18AM (IST) on Friday, 1.03 per cent from previous close. The stock quoted a 52-week low price of Rs 117.25 and a high of Rs 196.80.

«For the first time Chair Powell kind of tipped his hat to that saying we just do not know what is going to go on. So, in this environment with not much in the way of rate cuts, I thought there will only be two actually in the new dot plot. I thought they would be a bit more hawkish. I am surprised the market was so surprised but there you go,» says Geoff Dennis, Independent Emerging Markets Commentator. What should one be prepared for in the year 2025 because given the fact that you had the Federal Reserve go ahead and lowered their dot plot when you talk about the rate cuts come next year. You saw the markets spook. How should one read into all of these signs because yesterday when you saw the US GDP growth as well, they revised it upwards? Geoff Dennis: It is a difficult environment for emerging markets let me start by saying that and it is summed up by the fact that the Fed is now assumed anyway in terms of the dot plot that the midpoint is two interest rate cuts.

The NSE Nifty index traded 16.4 points up at 23968.1, while BSE Sensex was 16.95 points at 79235.0 as of 11:12AM(IST)on December 20.

Honda Cars India on Friday said it will hike prices across its model range by up to 2 per cent from January next year, in order to partially offset the impact of rising input costs. The company sells models like Amaze, City and Elevate in the domestic market. The automaker will increase the prices of its models by up to 2 per cent from the beginning of January 2025, Honda Cars India Vice President — Marketing and Sales Kunal Behl said. The company has been making strong efforts to absorb price increases during this year, ensuring minimal impact on customers, he added.

buy call on Azad Engineering Ltd. with a target price of Rs 2450. The current market price of Azad Engineering Ltd. is Rs 1704.55. Azad Engineering, incorporated in 1983, is a Small Cap company with a market cap of Rs 10040.34 crore, operating in the Engineering sector. Azad Engineering's key products/revenue segments include Engineering Goods, Sale of services, Scrap and Export Incentives for the year ending 31-Mar-2024.

data centres humming at the outskirts of Dublin are consuming more electricity than all of the urban homes in Ireland and starting to wear out the warm welcome that brought them here. Now, a country that made itself a computing factory for Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft and TikTok is wondering whether it was all worth it as tech giants look around the world to build even more data centres to fuel the next wave of artificial intelligence. Fears of rolling blackouts led Ireland's grid operator to halt new data centres near Dublin until 2028. These huge buildings and their powerful computers last year consumed 21% of the nation’s electricity, according to official records. No other country has reported a higher burden to the International Energy Agency.

buy call on Lemon Tree Hotels with a target price of Rs 190. The current market price of Lemon Tree Hotels Ltd. is Rs 154.25. Lemon Tree Hotels, incorporated in 1992, is a Mid Cap company with a market cap of Rs 12207.73 crore, operating in Tourism & Hospitality sector. Lemon Tree Hotels Ltd. key Products/Revenue Segments include Income from Rooms, Restaurants & Other Services and Other Operating Revenue for the year ending 31-Mar-2024.

Vishal Mega Mart Ltd.’s trading debut Wednesday underscored this insatiable appetite for IPOs — shares of the retailer surged more than 40%. The feeding frenzy is set to roll into 2025, according to several women on the front lines.

buy call on Indian Hotels Company (IHCL) with a target price of Rs 950. The current market price of Indian Hotels is Rs 880.3. IHCL, incorporated in 1902, is a Mid Cap company with a market cap of Rs 125461.32 crore, operating in Tourism & Hospitality sector. Indian Hotels Company's key products/revenue segments include Income from Rooms, Restaurants & Other Services and Other Operating Revenue for the year ending 31-Mar-2024.

tech industry: Don't expect chatbots to continue to improve as quickly as they have over the past few years. AI researchers have for some time been relying on a fairly simple concept to improve their systems: the more data culled from the internet that they pumped into large language models — the technology behind chatbots — the better those systems performed. But Hassabis, who oversees Google DeepMind, the company's primary AI lab, now says that method is running out of steam simply because tech companies are running out of data.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The sun was rising when a bird at the very top of a bush raised its head and started warbling. It was haloed by the pink-orange sun, and so I couldn’t immediately see it.

At least five companies, including Zomato Ltd. and its recently-listed rival Swiggy Ltd., have unveiled or announced plans to offer quick food delivery in the last few weeks. But how they do it varies: Zomato unit Blinkit’s food delivery app Bistro and Zepto Cafe are relying on in-house kitchens to swiftly cook and assemble eatables, while Swiggy is partnering with restaurants from Starbucks Corp. to McDonald’s Corp.

Sandip Sabharwal, asksandipsabharwal.com, says the valuation derating for HDFC Bank seems to be more or less through. If going forward from next year, they come back to the credit growth trends which they had historically, then there is a realistic possibility that HDFC Bank should do well. Reliance is down almost 30% from the top and there is a realistic possibility it could outperform next year. This is how the last part of 2024 is going to pan out I guess because a whole lot of cues have dried up. The FII volumes as well have abated and it is going to be very minuscule up until January when the earning season kicks off. Then there will be the budget and it is going to be a hectic calendar year henceforth. Sandip Sabharwal: Although trading activity ebbs going into the end of December, the markets move have been there historically and that is still possible. But overall there is a greater possibility that given the lack of cues per se in terms of any significant policy decision or any significant news flow coming in or likely to come in over the next couple of weeks, the probability that after this initial sell-off driven by US Fed action or the projection they have given for the year 2025, we should see the markets become range-bound without any significant dip or up move.

Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) are in focus after a senior executive of the company stated that it will invest over Rs 21,000 crore to expand its Barauni refinery in Bihar and establish a city gas distribution network across the state. IOC is upgrading the Barauni refinery from a capacity of 6 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) to 9 mtpa, along with a petrochemical plant, at an estimated cost of Rs 16,000 crore.

Varun Saboo, Head-Equities, Anand Rathi Shares, says there is no reason why Nifty should trade anything below 18 times in general. He does not see those times coming back where we go down to 15 times earnings. Because whatever said and done, our growth rates are much better than any country in the world, so that premium, that multiple to peg will remain and the Nifty will remain firm. However, one has to see how the Jan and next earnings season pan out. Among the biggest losers among banks in 2024, one can bottom fish in Bandhan Bank next year. Towards the fag end of the year and perhaps the start of the new year as well volumes, cues, are going to dry up and then will come the January earnings followed by budget, etc. What do you think the market construct is going to be? Will this kind of volatility persist or is it going to become more lacklustre with the drying up of volumes? Varun Saboo: There are two-three things which you are talking about.

Bharti Airtel are expected to remain in focus today (Friday, September 20) after the telecom major informed exchanges about pre-paying Rs 3,626 crores to clear all liabilities for spectrum acquired in 2016. The company has prepaid a total of Rs 28,320 crores of spectrum liabilities in this calendar year. «With this, Airtel has now prepaid all its spectrum dues that had interest costs higher than 8.65%,» the company filing on Thursday said.

International Gemmological Institute will debut on the exchanges on Friday. Ahead of the listing, the company's shares were trading with a GMP of Rs 135 in the grey market. Considering the upper price band of Rs 417, the stock is expected to see listing gains of 33% over the issue price.

FIR against Rahul Gandhi is a diversionary tactic in response to his staunch protest against Home Minister Amit Shah's remarks on B R Ambedkar. In a post on X, KC Venugopal shared, «The FIR against Rahul Gandhi is nothing but a diversionary tactic in response to his staunch protest against the Home Minister. A case against him for defending Babasaheb's legacy is a badge of honour. In any case, Rahul Gandhi is already facing 26 FIRs due to the BJP's political vendetta and this latest FIR will not stop him or the Congress from standing up against the casteist RSS-BJP regime. At the same time, why has the Delhi Police not acted on the FIRs filed by women MPs of INC against the BJP leaders who physically assaulted them?» Delhi Police on Thursday registered an FIR against Rahul Gandhi, who is also Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, in connection with a scuffle in Parliament with BJP and Congress filing cross-complaints against each other.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. On remittances from abroad, India remains the world’s top beneficiary. For 2024, such inflows stood at $129 billion, according to a blog by World Bank economists, almost double that of second-ranked Mexico, which got $68 billion, and more than two-and-a-half times China’s $48 billion.