Stock bulls in India, Pakistan anticipate rebound after truce
Foreign investors, who had been on a 16-day buying streak in Indian shares until the clashes flared up Friday, may resume flows as
volatility
subsides. Meanwhile, in Pakistan, the International Monetary Fund's approval of $1 billion in immediate disbursement along with a new $1.4 billion plan for climate resilience will be a booster for its fragile finances.
'Short covering and deployment of idle funds will lead to a spike in broad
markets
on Monday,' said Mumbai-based Abhay Agarwal, chief investment officer at Piper Serica Advisors Pvt. 'The focus should shift back to fundamentals.'
by Taboola
by Taboola
Sponsored Links
Sponsored Links
Promoted Links
Promoted Links
You May Like
If You Eat Ginger Everyday for 1 Month This is What Happens
Tips and Tricks
ETMarkets.com
Investors had been nervous. India's NSE Nifty 50
Index
slid more than 1% on Friday — its steepest fall in over a month — while the rupee was one of Asia's worst performers last week. Bond yields crept higher as risk premiums widened, although
debt
purchases by the Reserve
Bank
of India helped limit the declines. Pakistan's key stock index is down 9% since the April 22 attack in Kashmir, which prompted India to retaliate.
India's bonds and foreign currency markets are closed on Monday for a public holiday.
With the immediate geopolitical risks easing, investors are expected to pivot to positive signals in India, including hopes for an early US trade deal, ample liquidity, and expected rate cuts by the RBI. In Pakistan, traders anticipate a relief rally, as border tensions overshadowed a surprise interest-rate cut by the State Bank of Pakistan and prospects for additional IMF funding.
Live Events
'Assuming nothing changes from today onward, I see the Pakistan
stock market
hitting a 5% upper circuit,' said Mohammed Sohail, chief executive at Karachi-based Topline Securities Ltd.
Still, the threat of renewed tensions remains, as India has yet to lift its abeyance on the Indus Water Treaty — a move that could harm a large part of Pakistan's farm output. Meanwhile, a top Indian diplomat said that Pakistan violated the truce just hours after it was declared, a claim Pakistan has denied.
'There is still some uncertainty around the pause in fighting and the language from both sides will be important to monitor going ahead,' said Tejas Shah, head of
derivatives
trading at Equirus Securities. 'I don't think we will see a 4-5% move in the Indian market Monday. If we do, some investors will come in to book profit.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Mint
27 minutes ago
- Mint
EV vs hybrid war: All clean fuel-run vehicles are equal for the PMO
The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) believes the Centre needs to support all clean-fuel vehicles including hybrids, even as a rift widens in the Indian auto industry over hybrids being put on a par with pure electric vehicles (EVs). The stand, confirmed by two top government officials, comes after manufacturers of both electric and hybrid vehicles sought the Centre's favour after several state governments proposed incentivizing electric, hybrid and CNG vehicles equally. 'I do not understand why there is so much lobbying. State policies may differ, but the central government has supported both EVs and hybrids in clean mobility schemes. It cannot be that you incentivize one and not the other. The idea is to help all forms and all clean fuels," one of the two officials said on the condition of anonymity. The incentives for EVs and hybrids are aimed at reducing the country's fuel imports and carbon emissions. "All clean mobility initiatives which contribute to this have been incentivized so far, and will continue to be so," the second official said, also on the condition of anonymity. Govt support Mint reported on 6 June, quoting Union heavy industries minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, that the government would continue to support all forms of clean mobility, including hybrid vehicles, which combine the power of a traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) with an electric motor, improving fuel efficiency while cutting down on emissions and fuel usage. Even in the past, the Centre supported hybrids and EVs alike in various subsidy schemes, including the second iteration of the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid &) Electric Vehicles in India (FAME India), which ran from 2018-19 to 2023-24. Also read | ARAI likely to plan division of auto testing agencies allocation Eventually, support for clean-fuel cars was removed under the PM E-Drive scheme (2023-24 to 2025-26). However, it continues to incentivize pure electric buses and electric and hybrid ambulances. The outlay for incentivising such ambulances is ₹500 crore till the end of FY26. Nevertheless, the Union government will continue to support policies to promote clean mobility through all possible means, including EVs, hybrid vehicles, as well as vehicles running on compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquified natural gas (LNG), among others, according to the government officials cited above. The EV vs hybrid war Mint reported on 24 April that the Delhi government had proposed to grant hybrid cars the same benefits as fully electric ones, raising concern among carmakers that had committed vast amounts to develop battery EVs, skipping hybrid technologies. The draft of the Delhi Electric Vehicles Policy 2.0 seeks to waive road tax and registration fees on electric cars priced up to ₹20 lakh ex-showroom and extend the benefit to strong hybrid EVs (SHEVs) and plug-in hybrid EVs (PHEVs) with a similar price cap as well. Also read | More than 6 lakh electric 2, 3-wheelers sold under PM E-Drive scheme since April An SHEV is typically a car in which an electric motor gives significant assistance to the combustion engine. PHEVs, as the name suggests, come with a charging port for the battery that drives the motor. These vehicles can also run exclusively on the electric motor. Uttar Pradesh was the first state to waive these charges for hybrid vehicles in July 2024. CAQM direction Meanwhile, the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) on 4 June also directed commercial vehicle operators to include 'clean' vehicles, including hybrids, in their fleets to help curb air pollution in the national capital. Worried about losing market share, EV makers have urged the Union government not to incentivize them on par with EVs. They have argued that parity between incentives for hybrids and pure EVs would push consumers towards hybrids, which are not zero-emission vehicles. Also read | Tata Motors pushes for e-taxi subsidy after exclusion from PM E-Drive India's EV market was valued at $54.41 billion in 2025, and the hybrid vehicle market at about $0.53 billion, according to market research company Mordor Intelligence. India's automobile market, the world's third-largest by sales, was valued at $137.06 billion. Clean-fuel clash India's major EV makers include Tata Motors Ltd, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd, Hyundai Motor India Ltd, Kia India Pvt. Ltd, and JSW MG Motor India Ltd. The hybrid carmakers are led by Maruti Suzuki India Pvt. Ltd, Honda Cars India Ltd, and Toyota Kirloskar Motor Pvt. Ltd. 'Tata Motors believes that government incentives should be directed towards promoting zero-emission technologies such as EVs by bridging funding gaps, developing enabling infrastructure, and accelerating innovation to help them reach scale and maturity. Hybrid is an incremental and mature ICE technology, which is commercially viable and faces no funding or adoption barriers that typically warrant government support," said a Tata Motors spokesperson in an emailed statement. Also read | Subsidies on e-scooters to slide to ₹5,000 per scooter in Oct 2025 The spokesperson added that hybrids use fossil fuels, resulting in PM2.5, CO2, and other tailpipe emissions like any other ICE vehicles. Directing any incentives or subsidies toward them can divert India from its net-zero and energy security objectives. 'Viability gap' Rahul Bharti, senior executive officer, corporate affairs, Maruti Suzuki, countered the argument, saying that strong hybrid EVs reduce CO2 emissions by 25% to 31% over pure petrol vehicles and increase energy efficiency by 36% to 44%, but they still have a viability gap. 'So, the tax cannot be the same for a strong hybrid and a pure petrol/diesel vehicle. Data shows that wherever SHEVs have been incentivized, the sales of BEVs have not fallen at all; on the contrary, they have gone up. SHEVs will help reduce pure diesel/petrol cars, and that is in the national interest," he added. Also read | E-buses under PM E-drive to be used now for intercity, tourist travel While hybrid vehicle sales rose about 12% year-on-year to 365,024 in 2024-25, pure EV sales rose 17% to 1,967,313, showed data from the central government's Vahan portal. Queries emailed on 5 June to the PMO, on 6 June to Mahindra & Mahindra, Hyundai Motor India, Kia India, JSW MG Motor, Honda Cars, and Toyota Kirloskar Motor, and on 7 June to the heavy industries ministry, remained unanswered until the time of publishing this story. Experts weigh in The share of non-conventional fuels has increased to a fifth of total passenger vehicle volumes, as against less than 5% five years ago, said Srikumar Krishnamurthy, senior vice-president and co-group head, corporate ratings, Icra Ltd. 'Specifically, hybrids have seen better acceptance in the last one and a half years as they reduce carbon emissions while managing to achieve good ranges. While hybrids at this stage are a stop-gap solution as EV infrastructure is yet to mature, they are also playing a strategic role in achieving sustainability and with more product launches and better product quality, it has become more popular."
Mint
37 minutes ago
- Mint
Cognizant and Infosys are tapping a new trend in IT deals to combat tough times
Top companies globally are cutting down on the number of information technology (IT) outsourcers they are working with and consolidating work across silos to a few vendors in an effort to cut costs amid uncertainty over the US administration's flip-flops on trade tariffs. Infosys Ltd and Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp, two of India's biggest IT services companies, said during calls with analysts that the move towards so-called 'vendor consolidation deals' is poised to benefit them. Jayesh Sanghrajka, CFO of Bengaluru-based Infosys, and Sandeep Mahindroo, the company's financial controller, told analysts at Kotak Institutional Equities that such deals have become important for the company. 'The IT industry currently does not have a healthy flow of net new deals. Infosys has plenty of vendor consolidation deals in the pipeline, a key area of focus," said Kotak analysts Kawaljeet Saluja, Sathishkumar S, and Vamshi Krishna, in a note dated 6 June. A day earlier, larger peer Cognizant had echoed a similar perspective in a conversation between Surya Gummadi, president of Cognizant Americas, and Bank of America analyst Jason Kupferberg during the bank's annual global technology conference. 'The clients are not necessarily solving for vendor consolidation, but they are solving for cost optimisation," Gummadi said. 'To accomplish the cost optimisation, they are trying to break the silos across multiple vendors and they are trying to consolidate players to a few who can deliver maximum value and provide end-to-end solutions." Gummadi added that Cognizant is getting 'benefitted in that segment". Also read | Cognizant wins $1 billion deal from US-based healthcare company However, both Infosys and Cognizant said they have not seen any ramp-down in client spends or project cancellations. New Jersey-based Cognizant is considered an Indian heritage IT firm as about three-fourths of its employees are based in the country. To be sure, other Indian IT services companies such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), LTIMindtree Ltd, and Persistent Systems Ltd have also signalled that clients across segments are looking to reduce the number of IT outsourcers they work with. 'Companies do these vendor consolidation exercises to reduce expenses and incentivise their existing IT vendors to do the extra work at a lower cost," said Pramod Gubbi, founder of Marcellus Investment Managers. Tough times In terms of financial performance, Cognizant ended 2024–its financial year is from January to December–with $19.74 billion in revenue, up 1.98% compared to a revenue decline of 0.4% in 2023. To be sure, much of its growth has been powered by acquisitions. Infosys, India's second-biggest IT company, clocked 3.85% growth in revenue to $19.28 billion in the fiscal year ended March 2025, compared to 1.9% growth in the previous fiscal. Also read | Cognizant to hire 20,000 freshers in 2025 to support AI-led software services As for other IT companies, market leader TCS reported revenue growth of 3.78% to $30.18 billion in FY25, while third-placed HCLTech led growth in the market with revenues climbing 4.3% to $13.84 billion. However, two other large companies–Wipro Ltd and Tech Mahindra Ltd–reported revenue decline of 2.72% and 0.21%, respectively, to $10.51 billion and $6.26 billion. Large deals A bright spark for Cognizant was when Gummadi announced that the company won two deals upwards of $500 million since the start of 2025, one of which exceeded $1 billion. For Infosys, though, large deals were hard to come by, raising questions on revenue growth in the year ahead. The company reported a 34% year-on-year fall in value of large deals to $11.6 billion in FY25. To be sure, Infosys calls out only the large deals, those exceeding $50 million in annual revenue. Also read | Infosys CEO Salil Parekh gets 22% salary hike, payout now stands at ₹80.62 cr As for the current fiscal year, Cognizant expects to end 2025 with $21 billion, translating to a full-year revenue growth of 6.4%, even as Infosys projected flat-to-3% revenue growth in constant currency terms for FY26, its slowest projection at the start of the year since April 2009, when it had projected a revenue decline of 6.7-3.1% for FY10. However, the Kotak analysts are optimistic on Infosys's FY26 prospects. 'The strong positioning in cost take-outs, vendor consolidation exercises and AI will help Infosys weather the storm," said the Kotak analysts, adding that Infosys is vulnerable to pull-back in non-essential tech spending as it had higher exposure to such deals compared with peers.
Time of India
40 minutes ago
- Time of India
UnitedHealth eyes $1 billion deal to exit Latin America as insurer refocuses on US, sources say
New York: UnitedHealth Group is weighing multiple bids for its Latin American operations, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter, as the insurer buckles down after a series of unprecedented missteps that include the ouster of its CEO and a reported criminal accounting probe. The largest U.S. health insurer has been trying to exit Latin America since 2022, but the sale of Banmedica has taken on increasing urgency in recent months as the insurer took hits on multiple fronts, according to one of the people. New CEO Steve Hemsley told shareholders last week that he was determined to earn back their trust after an earnings miss and a Wall Street Journal report that the company was under criminal investigation for alleged Medicare fraud. UnitedHealth has said it was not notified by the Department of Justice and that it stands by the integrity of its operations. Hemsley replaced Andrew Witty just a few months after the murder of the executive Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, in New York in December while on his way to a meeting with investors. Witty had been UnitedHealth Group CEO since 2021. The company has four non-binding bids for its Banmedica subsidiary, which operates in Colombia and Chile, for about $1 billion, according to both people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private. UnitedHealth's shares tumbled 25.5% in May alone and year-to-date are down 40%. UnitedHealth left Brazil in 2023 and Peru in March. It's aiming to get around $1 billion for Banmedica's operations in Colombia and Chile, the people said. The two people said the company expects to set a deadline for binding proposals as soon as July. UnitedHealth received bids from Washington, D.C.-based private equity firm Acon Investments; Sao Paulo-based private equity firm Patria Investments; Texas non-profit health firm Christus Health; and Lima-based healthcare and insurance provider Auna, the people said. Auna is in talks with a financial partner, one of the sources added. Banmedica's annual earnings before income taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, are more than $200 million a year. Patria, UnitedHealth Group and Christus Health declined to comment. Acon and Auna did not respond to requests for comment. FAILED EXPANSION PLANS UnitedHealth bought Banmedica in 2018, with CEO David Wichmann saying he was "establishing a foundation for growth in South America for the next decades." At the time, UnitedHealth paid around 12 times Banmedica's EBITDA, according to one of the people. Three years later, the insurer decided to leave Latin America as it grappled with losses in its largest operation in the region, Brazil's Amil, which had been acquired a decade earlier. It divested from its Brazilian operations in late 2023. Banmedica is currently profitable, but is considered too small by UnitedHealth. It serves over 2.1 million consumers through its health insurance programs and has around 4 million patient visits annually across its network of 13 hospitals and 143 medical centers. UnitedHealth booked an $8.3 billion loss last year related to the sale of its South American operations - $7.1 billion stemming from the Brazil exit and $1.2 billion from Banmedica. "These losses relate to our strategic exit of South American markets and include significant losses related to foreign currency translation effects," the company said in a February filing. Brazilian investment bank BTG Pactual is advising UnitedHealth on the sale.
