Indian shares set to open higher ahead of RBI policy decision
June 6 (Reuters) - Indian shares are set to open higher on Friday, ahead of the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) policy announcement, where a rate cut is widely anticipated.
The Gift Nifty futures were trading at 24,842 as of 7:21 a.m. IST, indicating that the benchmark Nifty 50 (.NSEI), opens new tab will open above Thursday's close of 24,750.90.
The RBI is expected to cut its key lending rates by 25 basis points (bps) for the third consecutive meeting in its policy decision at 10:00 a.m. IST.
While a 25 bps rate cut is likely, markets are looking for a stronger growth focus from the RBI to boost consumption and support domestic businesses, said Divam Sharma, co-founder and fund manager at Green Portfolio PMS.
While the GDP growth for the fourth quarter came in at 7.4%, broadly in line with expectation, the gross value added print, which came in at 6.8%, better reflects the state of the economy, according to HSBC.
The Nifty and BSE Sensex (.BSESN), opens new tab rose about 0.5% each on Thursday, with rate-sensitive sectors such as realty and financials leading the gains.
The benchmarks are roughly 6% shy of the record highs hit in late September 2024.
Other Asian markets opened little changed, while Wall Street equities closed lower overnight as a high-profile dispute between U.S. President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk weighed.
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Times
an hour ago
- Times
Rolls-Royce has wowed the City — can it charm airlines too?
With the temperature gauge nearing 40C, it was a typically stifling June day in downtown Delhi last Sunday. The temperature inside the air-conditioned Taj Mahal hotel was more amenable, but Sir Tim Clark was still getting hot under the collar. The British executive, who co-founded Emirates in 1985 and has led the airline since 2003, is known for lambasting aircraft engine manufacturers — and especially Rolls-Royce. Clark has refused to take delivery of multibillion-dollar order of Airbus aircraft until a fix can be found for what he has described as the 'defective' Rolls-Royce engines that power the specific type of planes. Is it frustrating, then, that Rolls's share price is at record highs? 'Just a bit,' he responded sardonically. • Rolls-Royce reinstates dividend and announces £1bn buyback To rub salt into the wound, Rolls's chief executive, Tufan Erginbilgic, cancelled a lunch date with him at the biennial Paris Air Show next week, the 75-year-old claimed during a fringe event as Delhi hosted the annual conference of airlines trade body IATA. This allegation was later hotly disputed by the Rolls camp. Clark is not alone among airline executives in directing his ire at the Derby-based engineering giant. Bosses at British Airways and Virgin Atlantic have been left fuming at chronic problems with Rolls engines that have grounded planes, leading to swathes of cancellations. The situation is worse still on the other side of the Atlantic. Issues with engines built by the Connecticut-based Pratt & Whitney led to a violent sell-off in Wizz Air shares last week. Bosses at the London-listed budget carrier were forced to issue a profit warning and remove forecasts amid concerns about contaminants in the powdered metal used to make its turbofan engines. Sentiment in the Square Mile towards Rolls-Royce, meanwhile, could hardly be more different. The company's shares have risen more than 800 per cent since Erginbilgic, a former BP executive, took office in January 2023. Five-year profit targets have been hit early, and investors have been showered with dividends and share buybacks. Rolls now boasts a stock market value of almost £75 billion, putting it among the five biggest companies in the FTSE 100 last week. The company's success has been built on the back of building and maintaining aircraft engines. Civil aerospace generates 51 per cent of Rolls's revenue and nearly two-thirds of its profits. So having won back the City, can it do the same with the airlines that ultimately keep it aloft? Rolls produces four main engine types: the clunkily named Trent XWB-84 and XWB-97, as well as the Trent 1000 and 7000. 'Yes, everybody who has Trent 1000s has the right to be very cross,' said Nick Cunningham, an analyst at the equity research firm Agency Partners. 'But the whole aero-engine industry is struggling with the latest generation of engines because they collectively ran up against the laws of physics — where the attempt to optimise fuel consumption, emissions and reliability ended up with them pushing the envelope too far.' The Trent 1000 is facing durability issues. 'The blades end up looking like someone with very bad teeth,' said Cunningham. 'We have been taking decisive action and moving quickly to prioritise the resources needed to reduce the impact created by the current industry wide supply chain constraints, it's the highest priority for our civil aerospace division,' Rolls said. The problem with the newer XWB — the -97 version of the engine that, so far, Emirates won't accept — is its propensity to be compromised in hot, sandy conditions such as those in the Middle East. The turbine blades are designed with tiny air-cooling holes. Inspections have found that these have become clogged up with glass, contained in sand blown into the engine, which melts and restricts airflow. A spokesman for Rolls said that Emirates had accepted the XWB-84 version of the engine on its A350-900 jets. The -97 will power A350-1000 aircraft. The interim response has been for Rolls to increase the number of engine inspections and replace parts more frequently. The company is working on a longer-term fix and could make an announcement as early as this month on progress. The increased number of inspections is one reason why BA and Virgin's jets are grounded more often. This has been compounded, across the aero-engine industry, by supply chain problems and labour issues. The roots of this can be traced back to the pandemic, which has led to planes being stuck in maintenance shops for longer. As a result, 15 per cent of the global fleet of aircraft is grounded, compared with the long-term average of 12 per cent, according to IATA. 'The single biggest challenge remains supply chain performance,' said Rob Watson, president of civil aerospace at Rolls. 'Things have improved, but there are still challenges. So that Covid impact is still washing through.' During the pandemic, engine manufacturers' complex network of suppliers had to stop production and furlough staff. Some of the suppliers failed. More recently, geopolitical events have affected access to raw materials. For example, titanium, a crucial metal in the production of engines, was almost exclusively sourced from Russia. 'We still see some fragility in our supply chain,' said Watson. 'So we've invested a lot in our forecasting capability, and we've now got an even better view of our supply chain's ability to order and deliver parts. 'We're doing a lot of work with our quality teams, making sure we've got the right quality in the supply chain and, in some cases, placing employees in supply chain organisations.' Cunningham at Agency Partners pointed out that labour shortages in maintenance workshops have put further strain on the ecosystem. 'All those old guys in the workshop that you used to see — the ones who, in the case of the American workshops, look like members of ZZ Top, and their equivalents in Europe — either got fired during Covid, or decided that it wasn't worth working the last few years of their career after being furloughed,' he said. This has left large parts of the sector with less experienced staff who are not as productive as their older predecessors. For BA, maintenance work on the Trent 1000 engines for its Boeing 787 Dreamliners means that the UK flag carrier has three to four planes grounded at any one time. Sources familiar with the situation said this will continue for the rest of 2025 at least. Such groundings put further pressure on other aircraft in BA's fleet — principally its older-generation Boeing 777 aircraft, which in turn require additional maintenance to compensate for extra flying hours. Sean Doyle, chief executive of British Airways, is thought to be waiting on Rolls to come up with a plan for 2026. BA this weekend declined to comment. • Everyone bashes it but BA is surging ahead … what's its secret? Virgin Atlantic said that aircraft availability continues to be 'slightly impacted' by the continued supply chain shortages related to Trent 1000 engines. 'We work very closely with Rolls-Royce to mitigate impact, and the reliability of our schedule is delivering strong results for our customers,' a spokeswoman said. British Airways recently gave the strongest sign yet that its patience with Rolls has run out in relation to the Trent 1000, however. BA's parent company, IAG, announced in May that an order of 32 Dreamliners would be powered by engines made by GE, Rolls's rival. Watson, Rolls-Royce's civil aerospace chief, said: 'Of course we were disappointed that IAG opted for GE on the recent Dreamliner order. But it's always our customers' choice. 'Let's not forget that at the same time the Dreamliner order didn't go our way, IAG placed a significant order of Rolls-Royce-powered Airbus aircraft [for BA's sister airlines Aer Lingus, Iberia and Level], which I think demonstrates the strong relationship we've built with IAG.' As for the Trent XWB-97 on which Clark at Emirates claims he is waiting, Erginbilgic has set aside £1 billion to find a long-term fix to legacy issues with it and other engines. 'Since he [Erginbilgic] took over from Warren East [as chief executive], he really has transformed that business,' said Clark. 'Maybe he's a little bit more confident about his engineering capabilities. But I haven't seen any 'we will give you the engine' or 'we will guarantee the engine'.' Maybe Clark will find out over their lunch later this month at the Paris Air Show. Assuming their date is still going ahead.
Daily Mail
7 hours ago
- Daily Mail
BP battles for its independence amid takeover talk
BP is determined to preserve its status as an independent UK-listed oil company amid speculation that a sinking share price and uncertainty over leadership could push it into an unwanted merger. The firm's shares have plunged 22 per cent over the past year (see chart). With a market value of just £56 billion, it is seen as a tempting bid target for one of the US oil giants or a British bid from Anglo-Dutch rival Shell. Predators see the temporary power vacuum caused by the impending departure of chairman Helge Lund as a vulnerability. An urgent hunt for a strong replacement is being led by Amanda Blanc, BP's senior non-executive director, who is also boss of the insurer Aviva. BP is seeking to convince investors that it can dial down the radical green transition led by former boss Bernard Looney by embracing an aggressive drilling and cost cutting agenda. Chief executive Murray Auchincloss, former finance director, is seeking to restore the company's stock market rating by focusing on capital spend and cost cutting. He has so far failed to convince activist investor Elliott Management, which has built a 5 per cent stake in BP, that the company can drill its way out of difficulty and that his cost cuts are sufficient. However, BP has long history of successful exploration and production, and has recently secured valuable drilling rights in India and Azerbaijan, where it has become the leading oil company. Since taking over as chief executive last year, Auchincloss has consulted 70 per cent of the company's shareholding base. It is thought that long-standing British owners, such as insurer Legal & General, which controls 38 per cent of the stock, would be deeply unhappy if BP were to be taken over. It is also thought that the UK Government is supportive of BP as a national champion which is developing the country's biggest electric vehicle network of charging stations with Marks & Spencer. A bid by Shell for BP, favoured by some investment bankers, is seen as much harder to accomplish than generally thought. Both companies, as international explorers, have large trading operations and a deal would almost certainly cause competition problems. Some 35 per cent of the two London-listed firms' operations are understood to overlap. US rivals Chevron and Exxon Mobil, mentioned as possible bidders for BP, have in recent times virtually withdrawn from exploration beyond the Americas, unlike the two big London-listed players. They have instead focused on the riches of the Permian Basin in Texas and Guyana in South America. Chevron is seeking to complete its $53 billion merger with US group Hess. Oil mergers are seen as notoriously tricky to navigate. A quarter of a century after BP, then led by John Browne, took over Amoco, the group is still wrestling with integration of complex accounting systems. BP believes that if it can lift its annual cashflow from $8 billion in 2024 to $14 billion by 2027, it can raise the value of the group, securing its status.
The Sun
12 hours ago
- The Sun
I jetted to China to furnish my UK house – for £1k I got a king-sized bed, mattress, tables, chairs and MORE
A YOUNG woman has jetted off to China to furnish her UK house. Shirley Bekker took to social media to share her experience, leaving people stunned by just how affordable it was. 2 She decided to spend six days in Foshan, China, to find furniture for her new house. And it seems to have worked in her favour; not only does she cut out the middleman by going to the manufacturers directly, but she was also able to get her furniture customised to her liking. Shirley spent the day looking for furniture for her bedroom and managed to kit it out for just £1,000. First, she looked for the ideal mattress to take home along with a bedframe. She ended up finding both and was able to customise the colour of the bedframe. In total, the two pieces cost her just £350. Next, she spotted a large chair and foot stool for her bedroom to match her new bed frame. "Shirley almost choked on her own saliva when the man said £185 for the set. But she quickly calmed down," the video read. "After reverse search imaging the chair, it revealed that the chair alone costs thousands of pounds in the UK. Eventually, she shook hands at £165." Next, she found a dressing table and chair that she was also able to customise for £170. Shoppers urged 'not to blink' and get their hands on Home Bargains garden essential that sold out fast last time and it makes your garden extra cute - TikTok homebargainsofficialuk While she was meant to be shopping for her bedroom, Shirley got distracted with the outside furniture and picked up an egg chair for just £45. She also bought a table and chair set for outside as well as a TV stand. "I spent £1000 today and managed to buy: king-sized custom bed, perfect mattress for my back, egg chair, Bistro table and chair, TV table, 6 handmade ceramic pots, dressing mirror, Japanese style chair and pouffe," added Shirley. The clip went viral on her TikTok account @ shirley_bekker with 319k views and 47k likes. People were quick to share their thoughts and were eager to try it for themselves. One person wrote: "Ok I've seen enough… anyone wanna go China and go halves on a shipping container to the UK???" Another commented: 'How much to ship to the UK? Cos I'm gonna need to book a flight to China." "Oh so we're being ripped off real bad here in the UK," penned a third. Meanwhile a fourth said: "This is crazy. I might make a trip too." "I have never been so influenced to go to China,' claimed a fifth. Someone else added: '£350 for the whole bed is insane."
