Stocks in Asia rose as traders weighed prospects for Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts after Jerome Powell cited signals that the US is back on a disinflationary path.Equity benchmarks climbed in Japan, Australia and South Korea, while futures for Hong Kong stocks pointed to a positive start.

US stocks rallied on Tuesday as investors digested fresh commentary from Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, who cheered the disinflationary path of recent economic data.

Here's a table showing how US stocks performed on Tuesday:

Data Source: Equitymaster

At present, the BSE Sensex is trading 492 points higher and NSE Nifty is trading 133 points higher.

HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, and Britannia Industries are among the top gainers today.

TCS, Infosys, and HCL Tech the other hand are among the top losers today.

Broader markets are trading mixed. The BSE Midcap index is trading and the BSE Smallcap index is trading 0.6% higher.

Sectoral indices are trading mixed note today, with sTocks in the banking sector and finance sector witnessing the most buying. Meanwhile, stocks in the media sector and IT sector are witnessing selling pressure.

The rupee is trading at Rs 83.52 against the US dollar.

In commodity markets, gold prices are trading 0.3% higher at Rs 71,766 per 10 grams today.
 

RVNL's New Order Win

Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd (RVNL) on Tuesday, 2 July, announced bagging another order from the Central Railways.

In an exchange filing, the state-owned rail infrastructure major said it has been declared the lowest bidder for overhead equipment (OHE) modification work for upgrading the existing 1 x 25-kilovolt electric traction system to a 2 x 25-kilovolt AT feeding system in the Wardha-Ballarshah section of the Nagpur division of Central Railway to meet a loading target of 3,000 MT.

The total cost of the order is Rs 1.3 bn and is expected to be finished in two years.

Tuesday's order comes a day after the RVNL updated that it will complete the construction work of two piers near the Metropolitan crossing on the EM Bypass of Kolkata Metro's New Garia-Airport route by August this year.

RVNL has received permission from Kolkata Traffic Police for the construction of the two piers near Metropolitan and a traffic block has been in place for 90 days from 13 June to ensure work goes unhindered and traffic flows seamlessly alongside.

The New Garia-Beleghata stretch of Kolkata Metro's New Garia-Airport route which is around 10 km is likely to be commissioned in the current fiscal.

Zomato Withdraws NBFC Applications

Food and grocery delivery major Zomato has pulled the plug on its plan to enter the lending business. Zomato Financial Services, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Zomato, has withdrawn its application for a non-banking financial company (NBFC) license with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), stating that the company does not have plans to pursue lending in the future.

The application for NBFC license was submitted on 29 April 2022.

It comes at a time when the company was reportedly in talks with multiple NBFCs to offer working capital loans to its partner restaurants. Zomato incorporated Zomato Financial Services in February 2022.

The disclosure comes as a separate subsidiary of the company, Zomato Payment Private Limited (ZPPL), voluntarily surrendered the certificate of authorization it obtained from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate as an online payment aggregator in May this year.

Zomato announced the incorporation of ZPPL in 2021 as its wholly-owned subsidiary to carry out the business as a payment aggregator and an issuer of prepaid payment instruments.

Last month, the company along with fintech major Paytm confirmed that they were in talks for a potential acquisition of fintech's movie and event ticketing business.

Although neither Zomato nor Paytm disclosed the valuation of the transaction, the potential deal is estimated to be in the range of ~16 bn to ~20 bn.
 

Britannia's Top Level Management Change

Britannia Industries has appointed former RBI governor Urjit Patel as one of the additional Non-Executive Independent Directors on the board of the company for five years.

The appointment is subject to board approval at the upcoming Annual General Meeting on 12 August 2024.

Urjit Patel had served as the 24th Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) between 2016-18. During his tenure, he was also a member of the Bank for International Settlements and served on the Advisory Board of the Financial Stability Institute.

Urjit Patel has also been a Deputy Governor at the RBI since January 2013. Between 2013-2018, he was a Deputy in the G-20, BRICS Finance Ministers, and Central Bank Governors groups.

During 2022-24, he served as a Vice President (Investment Operations Region 1) at the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

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