Business News at 05:30 pm on 14th February, 2024

Let’s begin. After achieving success in domestic manufacturing of global electronics products like iPhones, the government is now working on a component-linked incentive scheme to make India both a product nation as well as a component-producing destination. The component-linked incentive scheme will encourage the production of electronics parts besides semiconductors, ministry of electronics and IT secretary S Krishnan, said on Tuesday. Krishnan said that while there are big targets of increasing the overall electronics exports from the country, as exports go up, imports will also go up simply because the value addition that happens in the country is still limited, and a significant portion is imported, assembled and then re-exported or used for domestic consumption.

Meanwhile, Sebi has rejected a settlement application by the NSE in the co-location case. According to a report by moneycontrol, NSE had filed under the consent mechanism of the market regulator. The mechanism allows market participants to settle any alleged security market violation by paying a fee and without admitting or denying guilt. However, in this case, the market regulator has denied the exchange any relief under the mechanism. Instead, it is expected to proceed with the charges and issue a regulatory order soon. The case pertains to alleged collusion between NSE officials and OPG Securities –one of the brokers accused of getting preferential access to the exchange’s servers thereby providing them an undue advantage over other traders.

On to economy. Aided by interest-free loans from the Centre, capital expenditure by states jumped by 40% on year in the first nine months of the current financial year compared with a 7% rise in the year-ago period. The states — Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Assam, Uttarakhand, Telangana, Chattisgarh and Jharkhand — reported Rs 4.14-trillion investment in April-December 2024 against Rs 2.96 trillion a year ago. In April-December this year, the Centre provided around Rs 61,500 crore in long-term loans to these states for asset creation.

Moving on. In a bid to promote solar power, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday announced that the government is launching the PM – Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana entailing an investment of over Rs 75,000 crore. Taking to X (formerly Twitter), the Prime Minister said that the scheme aims to light up 10 million households by providing up to 300 units of free electricity every month. The Prime Minister said that in order to popularise the scheme at the grassroots, urban local bodies and panchayats will be incentivised to promote rooftop solar systems in their jurisdictions. He said that the scheme will lead to more income, lesser power bills and employment generation for people.

Over to industry. Moody’s Investors Service has revised the ratings of four Adani Group companies to ‘stable’, a year after they were downgraded to ‘negative’ following a report by short-seller Hindenburg Research. The rating agency has revised the outlook on Adani Green Energy, Adani Green Energy Restricted Group, Adani Transmission Step-One and Adani Electricity Mumbai. Further, Moody’s affirmed a stable rating on another four companies. These are Adani Green Energy Restricted Group, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone, Adani International Container Terminal and Adani Energy Solutions Limited Restricted Group 1. In February 2023, Moody’s had revised the outlook on four rated Adani Group companies to negative, reflecting concerns over their access to capital and a potential increase in capital costs.

In some more industry news, Walmart will triple its sourcing of goods from India up to worth $10 billion per year by 2027, executive vice president, sourcing, Walmart Inc, Andrea Albright said on Tuesday. She said that the company has sourced goods worth over $30 billion from the Indian market in the last two decades for its global operations, Walmart is encouraging MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) and entrepreneurs with proper training and believes that there is a tremendous opportunity to continue to contribute to India’s growing economy, she said. The company has been doing business in India for the last 25 years, Albright said while speaking at the Walmart Growth Summit.

Lastly, let’s look at the stocks in focus today. These include HAL, Reliance, NHPC, Signature Global, and Mahanagar Gas among others. Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd on Monday reported its third-quarter profit for the financial year 2023-24 at Rs 1261.40 crore, up 9.2% as against Rs 1155.19 crore during the third quarter of FY23. With a market cap of Rs 15.6 trillion, Reliance Industries topped the chart of the most valuable Indian companies in 2023, for the third year in a row, closely followed by Tata Consultancy Services. On the other hand, NHPC Ltd on Monday reported its third-quarter profit for the financial year 2023-24 at Rs 491.90 crore, down 26.8% in comparison to Rs 671.67 crore during the corresponding quarter of the previous year.