News Wrap | Asian Markets Slide; Sensex & Nifty Down 1% Each; Bitcoin Nears $90,000

Good evening, and welcome to Business Hook’s daily news podcast, where we bring you a roundup of the day’s top business stories. I’m Avni Raja, and today is Tuesday, the 12th of November, 2024.

Starting with Asian markets—It was a sea of red across Asian equities as investors remained cautious despite the post-election rally on Wall Street. Underwhelming stimulus measures from China also continued to weigh on investor sentiment in Asia. As a result, China’s CSI 300 slipped more than a percent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down almost three percent. South Korea’s Kospi also saw a sharp cut of two percent, while Japan’s Nikkei was down almost half a percent in Tuesday’s trade.

Back home, Indian equities also saw a sharp decline in Tuesday’s trade. The Sensex dropped by one percent, or over 800 points, slipping below 78,700. The Nifty lost more than 250 points, closing below the 24,000 mark. Of the fifty large companies listed on the Nifty, 46 declined, while only four managed to record gains. FMCG major Britannia was the biggest laggard, falling over seven percent following a disappointing second-quarter performance. While the company’s revenue grew by five percent, its profit dropped nearly ten percent compared to the same period last year. Britannia attributed its weaker performance largely to a slowdown in urban demand.

In the cryptocurrency space – Bitcoin scaled new lifetime highs, surging past the eighty-eight thousand dollars mark. The world’s largest cryptocurrency has seen a meteoric rise since the re-election of Donald Trump as the president of the United States. This surge is driven by expectations of a pro-crypto regime under Trump’s leadership, as the Republican leader promised during his election campaign. At the time of recording this podcast, Bitcoin was trading marginally in the red, giving up some of its gains from the new highs.

The big story from India’s telecom policy space – Union Minister for Communications Jyotiraditya Scindia has announced that the Indian government is open to granting a license to any company, including Elon Musk’s Starlink, provided they comply with India’s regulations. Speaking to news agency ANI, the minister stated, “We are ready to give a license to anyone, including Starlink. They have to comply with all our concerns. We have to see that all security concerns are addressed. There is a specific format. You have to check all the boxes. When you check all the boxes, you get the license. If they do that, we will be very happy,” end quote. This news follows reports that Starlink has agreed, in principle, to meet India’s data localisation and security norms.

Staying with corporate news—Reliance Industries has decided to invest 65,000 crore rupees in Andhra Pradesh to set up 500 compressed biogas plants. According to a report by The Economic Times, the Mukesh Ambani-led company will allocate 130 crore rupees for each plant. This investment marks RIL’s largest renewable energy commitment outside of Gujarat and is expected to create around 2.5 lakh employment opportunities.

In the macroeconomic space—India's retail inflation surged to a fourteen-month high of 6.21 percent in October, up from 5.49 percent in the previous month. The rise in the Consumer Price Index was primarily driven by increases in the prices of vegetables, fruits, and oils and fats. With this surge, India’s retail inflation has breached the upper limit of the Reserve Bank of India's inflation tolerance band. The RBI targets retail inflation at 4 percent, with a tolerance level of two percentage points on either side.

With that, it’s a wrap on this edition of the Business Hook News Wrap podcast. We will be back tomorrow with the next edition of our podcast. You can also check out the Business Hook YouTube channel for the top business developments of the day.