Business News Live: Fed Chair Jay Powell green light Sept rate cut

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said on Friday "the time has come" for the U.S. central bank to cut interest rates as rising risks to the job market left no room for further weakness and inflation was in reach of the Fed's 2 per cent target, offering an explicit endorsement of an imminent policy easing.

Ola Consumer has officially revived its car-pooling service, ‘Ola Share,’ nearly four years after it was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The feature, which had been on hold since 2020, was relaunched following a recent announcement at the company’s annual event, ‘Sankalp,’ on August 15.

The Reliance Home Finance Ltd board had warned of extending loans to unworthy creditors, the capital markets regulator Sebi said in its ruling, calling Anil Ambani the kingpin of the fund diversion.

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“Cleaving through one of the most unstable periods marked with geopolitical tensions, rising protectionism, India is and will surely benefit from derisking the supply chain from China,” Ralph Ossa, Chief Economist at World Trade Organisation in an exclusive conversation with Republic Business said. Ossa spoke on a range of issues-from ongoing tariff wars between US-China to Russia-Ukraine war, from the potential impact of the US recession on world trade to India’s trade potential. 

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Indian steel market is hit by unfair imports and dumping amid a demand slump in China and the government needs to take action in a time-bound manner, former steel secretary  Nagendra Nath Sinha has said.

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Reliance Jio has launched a slew of international roaming plans for users travelling to countries in Europe, Saudi Arabia, Canada, the Caribbean, Thailand, and UAE. The new country-specific international roaming plans, the company says, will come with benefits such as free in-flight connectivity and high-speed internet on partner carriers in the destination country. 

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China's Xiaomi Corp 1810.HK on Wednesday reported higher-than-expected revenue for the second quarter, revealing for the first time its auto business unit's contribution of 6.2 billion yuan ($869.2 million).

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 The domestic stock markets move sideways on the last trading session of the week with key indices ending marginally up. Despite selling across sectors, the market ended on a positive note.

The Bombay Stock Exchange’s 30-share Sensitive Index gained 33.02 points or 0.04 per cent to end at 81,086.21 whereas, the National Stock Exchange’s broader Nifty 50 ended at 24,823.15 with minor gains of 11.65 points or 0.05 per cent.

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Government is likely to retract its demand that Infosys pay $4 billion in back taxes after weeks of lobbying by the IT giant and an onslaught of criticism from the software services industry, said two government sources with direct knowledge of the plan.

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 Zomato’s Co-founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal has announced on X.com (previously known as Twitter) that Dua Lipa is going to perform in Zomato’s Feeding India concert on November 30 in Mumbai. 

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Tata Group’s Tata Technologies shares jumped 2.37 per cent on August 23, the last trading session of the week after the private equity firm Apha TC offloaded its stake in the company of nearly 75 lakh shares at the floor price of around Rs 1,010-Rs 1,020 per share, according to the media reports. 

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Nearly 4.09 crore shares of FSN E-commerce, the parent company of Nykaa have changed hands in a major deal on Friday, according to media reports. The shares of the company in the news amounts to a nearly 1.43 per cent stake in Nykaa. The reports suggest that Harindrarpal Singh, a pre-IPO promoter of the company has offloaded his major stake in the block deal. 

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Blackstone-owned diamond grading firm International Gemmological Institute (India) Ltd, has filed preliminary papers with capital markets regulator Sebi to float Rs 4,000 crore through an initial public offering (IPO).

The initial share-sale is a combination of a fresh issue of equity shares worth Rs 1,250 crore and an Offer-For-Sale (OFS) valued at Rs 2,750 crore by promoter BCP Asia II TopCo Pte Ltd, an affiliate of Blackstone, according to the draft red herring prospectus (DRHP).

The company proposes to utilize the proceeds from the fresh issue for the acquisition of IGI Belgium Group and IGI Netherlands Group from promoter and general corporate purposes.

International Gemmological Institute (India) Ltd provides services related to the certification and accreditation of natural diamonds, laboratory grown diamonds, studded jewellery and coloured stones.

Shares of Anil Ambani-led group companies came under heavy selling pressure on Friday after markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India banned Anil Ambani from participating in the securities markets for a period of five years.

The development dragged down the shares of Reliance Power by 3.3 per cent, that of Reliance Home Finance by 5 per cent, and Reliance Infrastructure by 5.65 per cent.

It comes after Sebi exposed a scheme by Reliance Home Finance Ltd. to divert funds. Ambani, along with 24 other noticees which includes former bigwigs of RHFL, has been restrained from the securities market for five years. Anil Ambani has also been directed to pay Rs 25 crore, and, till the completion of the ongoing forensic audit, he is restrained from associating with any listed company or any entity registered with SEBI as a director or KMP.

Google has appointed Noam Shazeer, the former head of startup Character.AI and before that a long-time Google researcher, to co-lead its main AI project.  Shazeer will serve as a technical lead on Gemini, joining the other co-leaders Jeff Dean and Oriol Vinyals, the company said in a memo to staff.  Gemini is the line of AI models being developed by DeepMind, Google's AI division, and which are being integrated into products such as Search and Pixel smartphones.

The share price of Ambuja Cements rose over 4 per cent on August 23 to hit a high of Rs 659.70 during early trade on Friday. The increase in the share price comes at the backdrop of reports that Adani Group offloaded the majority position in the company through a block deal.

Holderind Investments is an Adani Group entity reported to have divested about 69.96 million shares at a floor price of Rs 600 a piece, a 5 per cent discount from the closing price the previous day at Rs 633. This pegs the total value of stake that is being sold at about Rs 4200 crore.

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Markets regulator Sebi has barred industrialist Anil Ambani, 24 other entities, including former key officials of Reliance Home Finance from the securities market for five years for diversion of funds from the company.

Sebi has imposed a penalty of Rs 25 crore on Ambani and restrained him from being associated with the securities market including as a director or Key Managerial Personnel (KMP) in any listed company, or any intermediary registered with the market regulator, for a period of 5 years.

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Shares of RailTel Corporation surged as much as 7.47 per cent to hit an intraday high of Rs 506 after the company informed exchanges that it received an order worth Rs 52.66 crore from Uttar Pradesh Police Recruitment and Promotion Board,

The company received order from Uttar Pradesh Police Recruitment and Promotion Board for installation of Live CCTV Surveillance Service, Impersonation control through Aadhaar based biometric service, Digital Finger print and Facial recognition during written examination and DV&PST.

The Indian equity benchmarks were little changed on Friday as gains in Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, Tata Motors, Sun Pharma and Bharti Airtel were offset with losses in Infosys, HDFC Bank, Tata Consultancy Services, Titan and ITC. The Sensex moved in range of 265 points and Nifty 50 index touched an intraday high of 24,858 and low of 24,792.

As of 9:35 am, the Sensex was up 26 points at 81,079 and Nifty 50 index slipped 6 points to 24,805

Adani Power on Thursday said the NCLT Hyderabad bench has approved its plan to acquire Lanco Amarkantak Power Ltd (LAPL) for an upfront payment of Rs 4,101 crore.

LAPL is undergoing the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, a BSE filing said.

According to the filing, the acquisition shall be subject to the satisfaction of conditions precedent mentioned under the resolution plan.

The Indian equity benchmarks are set to open marginally lower as indicated by the Nifty futures traded on Gift Nifty amid weak cues from Asian markets. The Nifty futures on Gift Nifty fell 15 points or 0.06 per cent to 24,843.

Most of the Asian markets were trading lower with Japan's Nikkei down 0.24 per cent, Singapore's Straits Times fell 0.05 per cent, Hong Kong's Hang Seng declined 0.71 per cent and South Korea's KOSPI declined 0.51 per cent.

Overnight, all three major US stock indexes lost ground on Thursday, weighed by technology shares, as Treasury yields rose on easing recession fears and global central bank officials convened at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium.

The U.S. dollar was calm on Friday as traders braced for comments from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, while Bank of Japan (BOJ) Governor Kazuo Ueda aimed to soothe lingering market nerves after a surprise rate hike last month.

Japan's Nikkei share average edged up in early trading on Friday, helped by a continued surge in pharmaceutical stocks, though gains were muted as technology shares followed the weakness of their US peers.

A weak yen against the dollar lent some support to Japanese equities, especially those of exporters. That said, uncertainties continued to dog the Japanese yen amid calls by investors for Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda's testimonies in parliament scheduled after the unexpected rate rise last month.

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General Motors-backed autonomous-vehicle subsidiary, Cruise, will make its driverless cars available on Uber next year. In this multi-year agreement, Uber users would get an option for Cruise autonomous vehicles while making the booking.

GM's shares rose 1.3 per cent in extended trading following the news, while those of Uber dropped 1.5 per cent.

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