Wellness Financial News

You know what will happen if you drive looking at the road that is already behind you? Ignoring both the dangers and opportunities ahead? That is what I thought of when I saw that inflows into Indian gold exchange traded funds (ETFs) exceeded flows into equity funds in January 2026.For context, in March and April 2025, gold inflows were hugging the zero line even as equity mutual fund flows were at pretty much the same level as in January—around ₹24,000-25,000 crore. Now the dollar price of gold is down 20-25% from its January peak. But this is not a column about gold.

Mint’s emails till the time of publishing.Broadly, India is seeing renewed investor appetite for preventive nutrition brands as the country’s wellness market scales rapidly. With deal activity accelerating across supplements and nutraceuticals, several mid-size deals have been announced recently as companies look to capture the growing demand for protein, hydration and clean-label products.Fullife Healthcare, which operates Fast&Up and Chicnutrix, on Wednesday said it concluded a ₹300 crore fundraise led by Elev8 Venture Partners, while USV Private Ltd acquired around a 79% stake in nutraceutical firm Wellbeing Nutrition in an all-cash deal valuing the company at ₹1,583 crore in February.Founded in 1971 by Kartar Lalvani, Vitabiotics is one of the largest nutraceutical firms in the UK and owns brands such as Pregnacare, Osteocare, Perfectil, Immunace and Menopace.

war in West Asia has brought to light the dependence on imported fuels.India imports most of its crude oil and a majority of its natural gas requirement. This has caused anxiety among consumers about disruptions in cooking fuel.

crude prices. That is primarily why ONGC shares have not rallied like their global peers since February-end when the ongoing West Asia conflict began.Of course, some don’t expect any new windfall tax. For instance, CLSA has raised ONGC stock’s target price to ₹415 apiece, almost 60% higher than current levels.

drug carries a warning that it must be administered only under the supervision of an endocrinologist to ensure that complex metabolic side-effects are properly regulated. There is a concern that if other medical professionals begin prescribing it, they may not be able to properly manage its side-effects,” one of the two officials cited above said, requesting anonymity.According to a Lancet study, India could have the world's second-highest obesity burden by 2035, with 449 million overweight and obese people by 2050, when a third of the country's population will be obese.

L&T, said in a press briefing on Saturday, the company’s first major status update since the US-Israel-Iran war broke out on 28 February.Most of the work suspension has been voluntary, he said, to ensure the safety of the company’s staff. At two sites, customers recommended temporarily halting work, he added.The company has not yet evacuated any staff from the region, but it is also not sending new people there from India at the moment, he said.

French alcohol major Pernod Ricard recently appointed Debasree Dasgupta as chief marketing officer of its India arm. She moved back to the country from Sweden, where she was Pernod Ricard’s global vice-president and chief marketing officer for Absolut, the firm's vodka brand.This month, Pernod Ricard launched a brand new campaign for its premium whisky brand Blender’s Pride, featuring international runway models Avanti Nagrath, Kirandeep Chahal and Mahieka Sharma, aiming to cement the brand’s 20-year association with ‘success’ and fashion.How does this help Blender’s Pride maintain pole position in the competitive premium whiskey business? Edited excerpts:I landed very recently, in February this year, but I am extremely excited to come back to such a booming market.

farmer incomes, rural livelihoods and export competitiveness. It also mirrors deeper structural issues in the agriculture sector that accounts for around 16% of India’s gross domestic product (GDP), with nearly 46% of the country’s workforce dependent on agriculture."India’s cotton production has remained largely stagnant in recent years, weighed down by technological stagnation, pest resistance, and structural bottlenecks that have eroded farm profitability and discouraged acreage expansion," said Ajai Rana, chairman, Federation of Seed Industry of India (FSII), an association of research-driven seed companies in India.To address the challenges of stagnant cotton productivity, Union budget 2025-26 announced a five-year Cotton Mission and allocated ₹500 crore to increase cotton productivity, especially extra-long staple varieties.

ChatGPT quite baffled me by commanding me to stop eating batteries and definitely not put one in the microwave again. It sent a page of instructions on how to remove a battery after it had been heated in an oven, and asked whether there was any burning, irritation, or metallic taste in my mouth. It urged me to get to a doctor on the double.

₹1,290-1,750 per month for its vial dosages, sharply below Novo's ₹8,790 per month for the starting dose in a pen device. Natco’s pen device is roughly 50% cheaper at ₹4,000 per month for the starting dose.While generics will fight on the price point, Emcure is banking on its “innovator edge” with a biological molecule, as well as patented pen device to cater to specialists.In an earlier interview, Emcure told Mint that it was partnering with well-known celebrities and influencers for an awareness campaign on obesity as a disease, aiming to reach consumers directly in addition to marketing the drug to specialists and physicians.A recent directive by the apex drug regulator has put strict curbs on “surrogate advertising” for GLP-1s, anticipating intense competition and marketing tactics as generics enter the market.However, Emcure will continue building awareness with healthcare providers as well as with patients, Vikas Thapar, president of corporate development, strategy and finance, said.The entry of generics will only expand the market, said Thapar.

Stock market recap: Indian equity benchmarks, Sensex and the Nifty 50, slumped more than 3% on Thursday in their worst session since June 2024, dragged down by heavyweight HDFC Bank after the abrupt exit of its chairman and by a surge in crude prices following attacks on West Asian energy facilities.The Nifty 50 fell 3.26% to 23,002.15 points, while the BSE Sensex also lost as much to settle at 74,207.24.On the Sensex, Eternal, Bajaj Finance, Mahindra & Mahindra, HDFC Bank, Larsen & Toubro and Bajaj Finserv were among the major laggards. HDFC Bank dropped 5.13% after its chairman, Atanu Chakraborty, resigned, citing ethical concerns.Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, soared 6.75% to $114.8 per barrel after Iran attacked a key natural gas facility in Qatar as well as two oil refineries in Kuwait.Best stocks to buy today (All Buy trades are rates of Equity & Sell rates are based on F&O)IPCALAB: Buy above ₹1550, stop ₹1500 target ₹1680 (Multiday)GESHIP: Buy above ₹1445, stop ₹1380 target ₹1540 (Multiday)COLPAL: Sell below 1880, stop ₹1940 target ₹1760(Multiday)Indian equity markets suffered a sharp selloff on Thursday, March 19, 2026, as persistent global risk-off sentiment and a surge in crude oil prices triggered broad-based losses.

Small-cap funds, the most sought-after mutual fund category that has attracted majority of investor money in the last three years, have a problem — spotting specialized talent to run investments.As a result, several of them have managers running both large-cap and small-cap funds or have co-management teams in place or, in some instances, have even the chief investment officers (CIOs) listed as the primary fund manager of small-cap funds.Investors have put over ₹1.35 trillion into small-cap funds in three years through February, yet the number of fund managers equipped to run these schemes, which demands a distinct skill set, remains limited.Assets managed by small cap mutual funds more than doubled to ₹3.64 trillion in February from ₹1.32 trillion in February 2023. Number of folios, as mutual fund accounts are termed, in the segment also more than doubled to 28 million in the same period, according to industry lobby Association of Mutual Funds of India or Amfi.Mint analyzed all the small cap schemes and found that there are 31 asset management companies (AMCs) that offer both small-cap and large-cap schemes.Of these, 12 mutual funds have the same manager overseeing both large-cap and small-cap funds.Further, among a total of 34 small-cap schemes, 11 named the CIO or head of equities as the primary fund manager.Unlike in large-cap stocks where research coverage is vast, spotting good small stocks requires digging and peeling layers.

Bluechip stocks are shares of large, well-established companies with strong financial performance and a long history of stable earnings. These companies are usually industry leaders, have strong balance sheets, and often pay regular dividends to investors.Because of their size and reputation, bluechip stocks are considered relatively safer and less volatile than smaller or newer companies.

It is unfortunate that India’s government has decided to call off the privatization of IDBI Bank for now, as reports indicate. The disappointment is that this decision was reportedly taken in response to poor investor interest—as seen in low bids for the 61% stake on offer to corporate bidders. There are many reasons behind the process of what we in India like to call ‘disinvestment,’ a euphemism coined as a political shield against critics.

There is something remarkable about the best salespeople, something quiet. Not the loudest, not the most decorated, not the ones with the fanciest titles or biggest incentive payouts. The truly effective ones, if you spend enough time around them—in liquor distribution, IT services, pharmaceuticals, agricultural inputs, across every sector—you begin to notice a common thread that has nothing to do with technique or personality type.They have pride in their work.

The Indian stock market is in a clear downtrend. We had barely taken a breather from harsh tariffs, and now we find ourselves caught up in the consequences of a war.Given our dependence on oil and gas imports and trade with West Asia, this has serious implications for India. And the markets are reflecting that.The pain is much sharper in broader markets than what indices reflect.

Mint, Audi India's top executives said that the company has exhausted its current resource allocation for the EV business and is in discussions with its headquarters for the next phase, echoing earlier comments from Skoda and Volkswagen India leadership, and leaving the Wolfsburg-based Volkswagen Group among the few major foreign carmakers without a clear EV roadmap for the country.This is in contrast with other foreign luxury car makers like Mercedes and BMW and mass-market players like Renault, Honda, Hyundai, VinFast and Suzuki that have announced their EV plans for India and committed to scale their sales over the next few years.“We are not selling an electric car because we have been selling it for the last 3-4 years. The quota that was allocated to us, the cars that we were selling got over,” Balbir Singh Dhillon, brand director at Audi India, told Mint ahead of its latest car launch in the national capital.“We are in the process of defining what next model that we bring in, at what point in time, at what price point,” Dhillon said, adding that the company would publicly announce its plans soon and remains optimistic about the opportunity in the country's EV market.Dhillon's comments echo statements from the brand head of Skoda as well as the Volkswagen Group head in India over the past two months.

Mint spoke with traders who left salaried jobs to trade full-time, on what it takes to make it work in this changed environment.At 58, Manish (name changed) left his job as a director at one of the Big Four firms in 2018 to start a renewables-focused start-up. With that not panning out as expected, he wanted to keep his income level sustained without disturbing the corpus he had.He decided to take up trading full-time and started doing certificate courses for currency and derivatives trading, took the NSE exam, and attended various private classes.

₹20,020 crore.In fact, Q3FY26 revenue growth was as high as 46%, led by a 54% jump in its mainstay wires and cables business that contributes 88% of the gross segment revenues.Like peers, supply chain uncertainties and demand disruptions following the Middle East conflict are expected to hurt Polycab too. “March so far has been weaker versus initial expectations, thereby impacting Q4 estimates, emanating from uncertainty from the ongoing Middle East conflict, and a high base,” wrote JM Financial Institutional Securities’ analysts after interacting with Polycab’s executives in a report on 15 March.Should the ongoing uncertainty persist, Q4 volumes could remain flat year-on-year, revenue growth relying on input cost appreciation (18-20%), it added.March usually accounts for 45-50% of Polycab’s fourth-quarter revenue, but demand has been slower this time owing to uncertainty around commodity prices and project visibility.

investors undertake thorough research and build conviction in a company’s prospects, they must behave like its owners.Market volatility, relentless news flow and short-term noise should not dictate decisions. Instead, investors should stay focused on the long-term trajectory of the business.

about 20% of all engineers, or about 300,000 of them, graduating in India have core IT skills to get employment each year. With recruitment in IT firms slowing, the rise of data-driven engineering jobs across data centres could plug some of this gap.Analysts largely concur with this assessment.“India’s data centres are significantly adding value-added cloud services, which is the core area for them to generate additional revenue.