- All eyes on #FederalReserve's interest rate decision tonight
- Cabinet approves #OneNationOneElection proposal
Tune in to 'Profit 360' with Nupur Talwar Suri for top news of the day. #NDTVProfitLive
- Cabinet approves #OneNationOneElection proposal
Tune in to 'Profit 360' with Nupur Talwar Suri for top news of the day. #NDTVProfitLive
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NewsTranscript
00:00All eyes are on the Fed policy meet outcome tonight according to US-based CME Group 62%
00:09of the market is expecting a 50 basis point rate cut.
00:15Cabinet approves the proposal for one nation one election allowing simultaneous conduct
00:20of assembly and parliamentary elections.
00:24The government fast tracks the review of the Income Tax Act, sources say.
00:33It may propose the removal of redundant clauses, that's an NDTV profit exclusive.
00:40Sources say marquee investors such as Madhu Kela, Aakash Bhansali, Sanjay Dangi and Rohit
00:46Kothari have invested in SpiceJet's QIP aiming to raise Rs 3,000 crore for the cash-strapped
00:52airline.
00:54Jammu and Kashmir goes to polls for the first ever assembly election since the bifurcation
00:58of voter turnout of over 58% was recorded as a five in the evening in phase one of the
01:04polls.
01:05DoDA records the highest turnout of 69.33%.
01:10Google's parent Alphabet wins the challenge against 1.5 billion euro antitrust fine.
01:16EU General Court annuls the fine imposed by Brussels court adds that the institution made
01:21errors in its assessment.
01:24Hezbollah warns Israel that it would be punished after hundreds of pages used by its members
01:29exploded in southern Lebanon.
01:31The blast injured 2,800 people while killing nine.
01:47Good evening and welcome.
01:48You're watching Profit360 on NDTV Profit and I'm Nupur Talwar Suri.
01:52Now the Nifty and the Sensex have snapped their two-day rally.
01:56Nifty spiked ahead of the Fed decision tonight, negatively impacting IT stocks the most.
02:02Now Harsh is joining us with a wrap of all the market action.
02:06Well, tough day on the street.
02:09You had the Nifty 50, you know, under some amount of pressure from most sectors.
02:15What really held it up and I'll talk of the positives first is the banking and financial
02:20services sector really, really holding on and helping the Nifty hold on to absolutely
02:26any loss that was coming through, especially from IT.
02:29So it was a tale of essentially two of the largest constituents in terms of sectors on
02:36the Nifty 50, the Nifty Bank and the Nifty IT Index.
02:39The Nifty IT Index was down 3% in trade and you had the Nifty Bank, which was just about
02:46a percent higher at close.
02:49And that was the tug of war, at least on the Nifty 50.
02:52It was down around a fifth of a percent.
02:54The breadth of the market, extremely poor.
02:57You saw almost a 1 is to 3 in favor of the declines.
03:02And you also had a tough day in terms of the breadth.
03:07Broader markets is where all the pressure was at, especially on the mid-cap index, down
03:14nearly a percent.
03:16You had the small cap index down nearly half a percent to the broader markets underperforming
03:20the Nifty.
03:21A little bit of a rotation coming into play with the Nifty Bank doing very well.
03:26A percent higher with several of the largest banks doing well and contributing well to
03:32the Nifty ICICI, HDFC among the top contributors on the Nifty.
03:37In terms of other sectors, most notably, let's pull out something like an auto down around
03:43a third of a percent thereabouts.
03:45You also had the Nifty Media and Metal Index, which were under pressure.
03:49The Nifty Pharma was down a percent and a half.
03:51So, on the broader end of the side of things, the Nifty Pharma was one of the other sectors
03:57which were under pressure.
03:59Overall, a tough day on the eve of the Fed essentially giving us a verdict of whether
04:07it will be 25 or 50, going to be very interesting next couple of days for markets.
04:12All right, Harsh.
04:14Thank you very much for that.
04:15Now, in fact, in the past few weeks, it's seen that more foreign money is moving to
04:21cheaper Asian markets along with India.
04:24Now, here's what Vikas Khemani of Carnelian Asset Management had to say about it.
04:29Precisely, I will say that.
04:32You know, like I said, I will probably correct you the point you made, money is moving towards
04:35cheaper markets.
04:36So, money is moving towards emerging market or money is moving away from emerging market.
04:42Now, within that, there is an overweight, underweight allocation happens.
04:45Like, for example, in last three years when emerging markets were losing money, India
04:49also lost money, but India on a relative basis lost lesser money because India was looking
04:54more promising.
04:55Same way, when money is coming back, initially money might go more towards the markets where
04:59they were underweight, which could be in your definition, the cheaper markets.
05:03But my point is that this money is allocation money.
05:07And then within that, like, you know, let's say if you give me, any investor give me money
05:11to invest in equities, I might do that allocation in different sectors.
05:15Same way, money allocator towards emerging market will do different in different markets
05:19based on their own conviction.
05:20The point is that overall water levels are going up, overall flows are going up.
05:40There is a widespread support for simultaneous elections in the country.
06:09So, that's why NDA, Government Cabinet has accepted these recommendations unanimously.
06:21And its implementation will be in two phases, as per the recommendations of the committee.
06:28In the first phase, elections of Lok Sabha and Assemblies will be tried to be simultaneous.
06:36And in its second phase, local body elections, which are Gram Panchayat, District Panchayat,
06:41Block Panchayat Samiti, and all the urban local bodies, whether it is municipalities,
06:48whether it is municipal committees, whether it is municipal corporations, all those local
06:54body elections have to be done within 100 days of general elections.
06:58Now, in fact, the former Chief Election Commissioner S.V.
07:09Qureshi spoke exclusively to NDTV Prophet.
07:12They have recorded everything, every negative impression and every positive impression,
07:19very honestly, very truthfully.
07:21All the history, the historical document, everything is truthfully recorded.
07:26That is the plus point of the committee.
07:28But now the recommendations.
07:30Some of the recommendations are almost amusing.
07:33Now, what they say is that when we talk of simultaneous elections, we are talking of
07:39Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha only.
07:42And which means Panchayati Raj elections are excluded.
07:48To me, that is absolutely, I don't want to use the strong word because the committee
07:53was headed by our former Rashtrapati.
07:55Now, there are 4,120 MLAs and 543 MPs.
08:00You are talking of 1000 people and you are talking of a simultaneous election.
08:0530 lakhs, 3 million Panchayati Raj elected people you have excluded.
08:11What kind of a simultaneous election is this?
08:14Now, secondly, the committee says, okay, we can't do it together.
08:18We'll do it in 100 days.
08:20Now, that is also not simultaneous election.
08:23Because an election after 100 days is a new election, separate election.
08:28Requires totally separate bandobas.
08:30So many machines, the entire machinery, polling stations, all have to be repeated after 100 days.
08:37So, in the name of simultaneous election, what are they recommending?
08:41Does it make any sense?
08:44Let me tell you, even if election commission by magic can produce all that in 100 days,
08:53all the voters who have come after taking leave from their factories, from their offices,
08:59will not be able to come back to the village within 100 days a second time.
09:03And if you deny this voting right to millions of people,
09:06it is the constitutional right which you will be encroaching on.
09:09What in the name of simultaneous election, about which, let me tell you, there is no sincerity.
09:14If simultaneous election was a sincere thing,
09:16the elections which were already being held simultaneously like Himachal and Gujarat,
09:20why were they separated by 25 days?
09:24All right, now let's take a look at some of the global market action.
09:27Wall Street opened flat on the anticipation of the first Federal Reserve interest rate cut in four years.
09:33The ushering in of the cutting cycle is expected to further boost an already strong market.
09:39Now, European markets, however, were lower ahead of the Fed decision
09:43and the upcoming decision by the Bank of England.
09:46UK's inflation figures for August came in at 2.2% in line with expectations.
09:53And let's, in fact, now go across to Pallavi Nahat of NDTV Profit
09:57to understand how the Fed action will impact India.
10:04We're closely going to be watching out for the FOMC's decision today
10:09because it marks the pivot after the FOMC first began
10:14an extensive rate hike cycle after the pandemic to control inflation.
10:20This after that is likely to be the first in a series of rate cuts that's going to follow.
10:26Now, regardless of whether the FOMC decides to reduce
10:30its key interest rate by 25 basis points or by 50 basis points,
10:35the Reserve Bank of India, closer home, is anticipated to maintain its focus on domestic factors.
10:43Despite that, the Indian Central Bank will also be influenced by the effects of weaker global demand.
10:51On the policy front as well, the RBI's decision will be impacted from the spillovers
10:57by the US Fed decision, by the global monetary easing cycle that we're currently seeing is underway
11:04and affects volatility as well.
11:06Now, the Fed's pivot could precede and influence the RBI's change in stance and rate action going forward.
11:15That's according to Madhavi Arora, lead economist at MK Institutional Equities.
11:20What we're also going to be watching out for closely is the Fed dot plot,
11:25which will help determine how deep the rate cuts will be going forward.
11:30And we're also going to be watching out for the FOMC's commentary on the labor market
11:35and, you know, on growth in the American economy.
11:40In terms of flows as well, the FOMC rate cut is a positive for flows to India as well as for the rupee.
11:48All right, Pallavi, thank you very much for joining us on that.
11:51In fact, joining us on the broadcast is Peter Cardillo.
11:54He's the chief market economist of Spartan Capital.
11:57Hi, Peter. Good to see you again.
11:59Peter, what's your sense of how much of a rate cut are we going to be seeing today
12:05and what really will be the implications of a 25 basis point rate cut versus a 50 basis point rate cut?
12:13I think we're headed for a 25 basis rate point basis cut rate today.
12:18And I think the Fed is going to start, you know, being cautious like they were when they began raising rates.
12:26They started with 25 and then, of course, they became a little bit more aggressive.
12:30And I think the same scenario is going to play out today.
12:34And this is, you know, the communique today is going to be quite important because we're going to learn
12:42what's the Fed's thinking in terms of economic growth, also on inflation.
12:48And maybe there might be some hint that they could get more aggressive,
12:53which by that I mean that we could be looking at a jumbo cup rate of 50 percent in December
13:02or possibly 25 in November, 25 in December, which would total about 75 basis points.
13:09And, you know, most of the macro news that we got so far indicates that the economy is still quite healthy.
13:19And we saw that yesterday. We saw that today with the housing stocks, which were up rather sharply, especially from it.
13:28And so I think the Fed remains cautious.
13:31But I do believe that when we get the more inflation news next week, the PCE, that inflation is going to that,
13:43that the index is going to show that inflation continues to move in the right direction.
13:49And that will give the Feds a chance to be more aggressive.
13:54And so, like I said before, the possibility of a 50 basis points cut in the next few months is a good possibility.
14:05Or 25 and 25, which would amount to 75 basis points.
14:09Right. So you believe that the Fed will begin a little more conservatively now.
14:14What sort of a knock on impact do you see of this cut on the Asian markets and particularly, of course, on the Indian markets?
14:23Well, let's put it this way. Today's decision is very important for some of the emerging markets.
14:29India, South Korea, South Africa. That probably means that they will follow suit.
14:35You know, we saw Europe go on its own initiative and they cut the back of Canada cut.
14:42And so I think those three, those three central banks that I just mentioned are likely to follow suit.
14:53And that's going to be good news for the Indian economy.
14:57So whatever the Fed, you know, the Fed today.
15:03Today's Fed move is important not only for the United States, but I think for the global economy as well.
15:11Right. And finally, you know, how do you see the impact of this potential cut with respect, you know,
15:16to the talk of U.S. going into recession on the back of the tech bubble that everybody's talking about?
15:22And, you know, the labor data that's coming in?
15:25Well, you know, a recession occurs almost every six to seven years.
15:30And, well, I think we're right for one. Is it going to happen anytime soon?
15:37No. Could it happen in 2025?
15:41Most likely. And that's why I think the Fed is going to be is going to have to be aggressive,
15:46because I think the Fed realizes that we're ripe for a recession in the latter part of 2025.
15:53And they don't want to weaken the job jobs market too much.
15:58Otherwise we could go into a deep recession.
16:02I think they'll try to cushion it so that if a recession occurs,
16:06it's going to be sort of like a dip type recession where you enter and you get out rather quickly.
16:14All right, Peter. Thank you very much for joining us and sharing your views.
16:19Thank you for having me.
16:21All right. Now on to an ADTV Profit Exclusive.
16:23We learned from our sources that the government is fast tracking a review of the Income Tax Act 1961.
16:29Now, the finance minister had announced modifications to the IT Act in July 2024's budget.
16:35And Srimi Choudhury is joining us for more.
16:38Government is fast tracking the comprehensive review of decade old Income Tax Act 1961,
16:47aiming to complete the whole exercise by January 2025, ahead of the February budget.
16:56What we are picking up from our sources that the tax review panel constituted by CBDT,
17:02led by VK Gupta, senior tax official, is deliberating on a lot of interpretational issues and challenges
17:09and discussing how to simplify the entire act.
17:13Upon deliberation, what we have picked up from our sources is that up to 120 subsection, section and clauses
17:21are identified as redundant and have no relevance in the current tax issues that could be scrapped.
17:30Other than that, they are more focused on rationalizing the exemption in the existing IT Act
17:37and also how to simplify the entire appeal system to reduce the litigation.
17:43Direct tax code, however, which is one of the most talked about points,
17:48and whether it is coming this time or not is unlikely,
17:51because the more focus is to make a simple language of the IT Act.
17:56What we are also picking up that there could be some sort of assistance
18:01will be sought from the law ministry in drafting the certain sections.
18:08However, it is not yet clear that whether the government will bring certain amendment in the existing act
18:14and whether there will be a replacement of the entire IT Act 1961.
18:44Yes, Nupur, absolutely.
18:45My sources are telling me that the SpiceJet QIP that closed yesterday
18:49and the company was trying to raise 3000 crores via this QIP,
18:53the green shoe option of 1500 crores.
18:56So basically, my sources are telling me that Markey investors like Madhu Khela and Akash Bansali
19:03are a part of investors who have invested via their family offices.
19:08And there are also other names in this list of investors.
19:12That is basically Rohit Kothari is there, Sanjay Dangi is there.
19:16And if we talk about the other investors apart from the family offices,
19:20the names like Think Investments, Data Mutual Fund, Bandhan Bank.
19:23So there are some key names that are coming up in this entire QIP investment.
19:30And also Discovery Fund, Plutus is there, Jupiter Fund Management is there.
19:35So when we talk about this entire issue, my sources are telling me that
19:39there are some top names who have invested in SpiceJet QIP.
19:44And let me remind you that the QIP was basically offered at a discount of 4.92%
19:51to the SEBI floor price and the discount of 20.81% to the closing price of September 16.
19:58We need to remember all these things and SpiceJet QIP is a key to watch right now
20:03because the financial turbulence in the airline has overtaken the entire functioning
20:12of that particular airline and SpiceJet basically right now needs a lot of investment
20:19to flow in to settle the entire functioning.
20:23All right, Aditya, thank you very much for joining us with those details.
20:28Well, Meta has announced that it will be rolling out Instagram teen accounts.
20:33Now, these would come with built-in content and messaging regulations.
20:38NDTV's Arun Singh sent us this report.
20:43Instagram has come up with some special features of these teen accounts.
20:46First of all, all of these accounts will be private accounts by default.
20:51Then there'll be some messaging restrictions.
20:53Teens will be placed in the strictest messaging settings is what Instagram claims.
20:58But then there'll be some sensitive content restrictions as well.
21:01Now, you know, there would be some kind of content which might not violate
21:06the content policy of Instagram, but it would still be sexually suggestive.
21:10So in those cases, Instagram will automatically restrict it for these teen accounts.
21:16And then there'll be limited interactions as well.
21:19Teens can only be tagged or mentioned by people they follow.
21:22I think this is a very interesting point.
21:24And automatically, Instagram will also be hiding words which might be offensive
21:29for teens, for young minds.
21:31And then, very importantly, there'll be time limit reminders.
21:35Now, remember, these reminders are also for us as well.
21:38I mean, we can also put these on app limits or on Instagram itself.
21:41But for teens, they'll get notification telling them to leave the app
21:44after 60 minutes each day, and then there'll be sleep mode.
21:48Now, this is something which is there for adults as well,
21:51which is called the quiet mode.
21:53And then you have sleep mode for teenagers here where it'll be turned on
21:57between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m.
21:59So that's one aspect of it.
22:02But then there is a stricter version of it, which is the supervision,
22:06which I am tagging it as stricter because in this one, you know,
22:12parents will be able to supervise their teens' accounts.
22:16Now, why do I say that it's stricter?
22:18Because parents will get insights into who their teens are chatting with.
22:21Now, while they can't read their teens' messages,
22:24but they'll still be able to monitor who they are chatting with.
22:28So this, I think, is a bit strict.
22:32And then they can also set daily time limits for them,
22:35and then they can decide how much time their teen can spend
22:37on Instagram each day.
22:39Looks like a lot of teen parents will be looking forward to this.
22:43Moving on.
22:44Now, the cabinet has approved the unified pension scheme,
22:47which is set to be implemented on the 1st of April 2025.
22:51Now, according to DFS secretary, Nagaraju Madhirala,
22:56the finance ministry, is looking to quickly notify
22:59the operational framework for the scheme.
23:01This framework will detail the calculation mechanisms
23:04for pension benefits, which will vary based on factors
23:07such as personal and government contributions
23:10and any amounts withdrawn at retirement.
23:15Now, J&K went to polls today.
23:17This marks the first assembly election since the abrogation
23:19of Article 370 in August of 2019,
23:22which stripped the region of its special status.
23:25As of 5 this evening, the voter turnout had reached over 58%,
23:29with over 2.3 million eligible voters participating
23:32across 24 constituencies.
23:3416 in Kashmir and 8 in the J&K region,
23:37and NDTV's Nasir Masoodi joins in with the latest.
23:42This is the first election after abrogation of Article 370,
23:46first election in the Union Territory,
23:48in the history of J&K,
23:50and first election after a long gap of 10 years,
23:53assembly election.
23:54So, there was enthusiasm since morning,
23:57people were waiting in long queues,
23:59waiting for their turn to cast their vote,
24:01which we showed through the day.
24:02Right now, almost this village in the Anantnag district,
24:05Bijbihara area, is done with voting.
24:08It just looks one or two people coming now,
24:11they come one by one and cast their vote.
24:14So largely, by 4, the vote percentage was 50.
24:18It's expected to cross the last voting percentage in 2014.
24:22And through the day, what was the best thing is that,
24:26you know, it was completely peaceful,
24:28without fear of violence, without fear of boycott calls,
24:32and clearly people were, it was a relaxed atmosphere,
24:36and as massive security arrangements have been made,
24:39as a precautionary measure,
24:41which is being done across the country,
24:43and the security force are more sensitive about J&K,
24:47that they don't want any wrong message to go from here,
24:50that too on a polling day.
24:53Well, on to the top international news story this evening.
24:55Nine people have died and over 2,800 people are badly injured
24:58in a simultaneously major blast in Lebanon and Syria.
25:02The Hezbollah, a militant group backed by Iran,
25:05is using Israel's spy service for the attack.
25:08But what is the backstory?
25:10Malika Mishra from NDTV Prophet now joins us.
25:14Hi Malika, take us through what you're picking up on this.
25:18And we are given to understand that the Hezbollah
25:21is actually blaming Israel's spy agency for these blasts.
25:25Yeah, that's right.
25:27So just a little backstory,
25:29Hezbollah is basically a militant group that is backed by Iran.
25:33In this context, I'll explain the entire story.
25:35So Hezbollah members have been using pagers in today's generation
25:38to avoid being tracked by Israels.
25:41And this is because they do not want a direct war with them.
25:46In fact, they have been in a cross-border conflict with Israel
25:49since the Gaza incident that happened back in October.
25:53In fact, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had warned members
25:56not to use cell phones, and his exact words were,
26:00break, bury or lock phones in an iron box.
26:03However, despite these measures taken by him,
26:06the group has been attacked and there has been a severe pager blast.
26:11One of the many theories behind this blast is the infiltration of supply chains
26:16where basically small quantity of explosives,
26:20which is around 3 grams per pager, could have been implanted
26:25before supplying them to Hezbollah members
26:28and then detonated remotely through a radio signal.
26:31Citing US officials, New York Times reported that
26:34just before the attack, the pagers received a message
26:38that seemed to be coming from Hezbollah leadership,
26:41but in fact, it triggered the attack.
26:43Now do know that Hezbollah is not akin of the US or the European Union directly.
26:49And a senior Lebanese security official said that a Taiwan-based company
26:56called Gold Apollo had received an order from Hezbollah to make 5,000 pagers.
27:02But the leader of Gold Apollo, the founder of Gold Apollo said
27:08that these pagers were not made by his company.
27:11These pagers were in fact made by a company in Europe.
27:15So there's been a lot of confusion about who was behind the attack
27:20and for how long was this attack being planned.
27:23But all we know right now is that Hezbollah members are extremely angry
27:27and they have vowed a serious retaliation against Israel.
27:31Alright Malika, thank you very much for joining us with that report.
27:35And in fact, that's all the time we have right now on this edition of Prophet 360.
27:39Thank you for joining in, but stay with us on NDTV Prophet for more.
27:53Produced by NDTV.