Asian markets traded lower on Friday tracking overnight losses on Wall Street after hotter than expected inflation data.

Japan's Nikkei 225 dropped 0.7%, while the Topix declined 0.8%.

US stock market ended lower on Thursday as investors evaluated key economic data ahead of the Federal Reserve's meeting next week.

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

Source: Equitymaster

At present, the BSE Sensex is trading 359 points lower and NSE Nifty is trading 113 points lower.

BPCL, HUL and Nestle are among the top gainers today.

Tata Steel, Hindalco and Infosys other hand are among the top losers today.

The BSE Midcap index and the BSE Smallcap index are trading 0.4% lower.

Barring the oil & gas sector all other sectoral indices are trading mixed today with stocks in the metal sector and IT sector witnessing selling pressure.

The rupee is trading at Rs 84.86 against the US dollar.

In commodity markets, gold prices are trading 0.2% higher at Rs 78,088 per 10 grams today.
 

HAL Inks New Deal

Shares of Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. will be in focus on Friday, 13 December, after the company won an order from the defence ministry on Thursday.

The Ministry of Defence has signed a contract with Hindustan Aeronautics for the procurement of 12 Su-30MKI aircraft. The deal is also for the procurement of associated equipment. The total value of the order is worth Rs 135 bn, inclusive of taxes.

These aircraft will have 62.6% indigenous content, enhanced due to the indigenisation of many components which will be manufactured by the Indian defence industry, the statement said.

All the aircraft will be manufactured at Hindustan Aeronautics' Nashik facility.

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), one of India's premier public sector undertakings (PSUs), stands on the verge of being elevated to the "Maharatna" status.

Tata Motors to Hike Commercial Vehicle Prices

Tata Motors, India's leading commercial vehicle manufacturer, has announced a price hike of up to 2% across its entire range of trucks and buses. The increase will take effect from 1 January 2025.

This decision comes in response to the persistent rise in input costs, which has been impacting the automobile industry.

The company aims to offset these increased costs through the price adjustment. While the exact price increase will vary based on the specific model and variant, it will be applicable to all commercial vehicles offered by Tata Motors.

Earlier, Tata Motors announced that a price hike of 3% will also be implemented across its passenger vehicle portfolio, which will include electric vehicles (EVs). The price increase of 3%, effective January 2025, will vary by model and variant.

Earlier, Hyundai Motor India, Maruti Suzuki India (MSIL), Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M), and JSW MG Motor also decided to jack up prices across their model range in a bid to pass on some input cost pressure to consumers.

In the luxury car market, players such as Audi, Mercedes-Benz, and BMW have announced a price hike of 3% on their entire model ranges, which will also be effective from 1 January 2025.
 

Zomato Gets GST Demand

Food delivery aggregator Zomato Ltd on Thursday (12 December) said it had received an order from the Joint Commissioner of CGST & Central Excise, Thane Commissionerate, Maharashtra, demanding Rs 4 bn in goods and services tax (GST) for the period between 29 October 2019, and 31 March 2022.

The order passed on 12 November 2024, also includes a penalty of the same amount, totalling Rs 8 bn in demand, along with applicable interest.

The demand pertains to alleged non-payment of GST on delivery charges.

Despite the order, Zomato remains confident about the strength of its case and intends to challenge the decision.
 

L&T-Cloudfiniti Secures First Client

Infrastructure major Larsen and Toubro (L&T) on Thursday said its data centre business L&T-Cloudfiniti has on boarded the first major customer at its hyperscale data centre in Sriperumbudur near Chennai.

The centre has a built-in capacity of 30 MW, of which 12 MW colocation-ready capacity is live across two floors.

The company's client, a leading cloud service provider, has rented as much as 6 MW IT Load capacity, consisting of high-density racks spread over an entire floor, and a bulk bandwidth.

The tenure of the contract is 10 years.

L&T-Cloudfiniti is a newly incubated new-age business arm of Larsen & Toubro. It offers end-to-end solutions in data centre, multi-cloud services, network and data security, and application integration with single point responsibility.

As on today, Cloudfiniti has two live data centres, including the one at Navi Mumbai.

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