Indian Investors Show Cautious Optimism Ahead of US-Russia Summit
Good morning, this is Chiranjivi Chakraborty, an equities reporter in Mumbai. There's not much to cheer for equity bulls on a rainy Thursday morning in the city. Nifty futures are trading steady, and Asian markets haven't managed to sustain Wednesday's rally. The focus is shifting to the weekly expiry of Nifty options, especially with a long weekend ahead and a highly anticipated meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Meanwhile, foreign funds seem to be toning down their bearish bets. This, combined with still hopeful retail investors and local institutions sets the stage for a surprise move in the days ahead.
Cautious optimism ahead of the long weekend
Odds favor the Nifty 50 Index breaking its six-week losing streak — the longest since 2020. Despite a dip on Tuesday, the benchmark is up for the week. With Nifty options expiring and an extended weekend ahead, some short covering could give the market an extra lift. Local traders and global funds may also keep positions lighter than usual ahead of the upcoming US-Russia summit on the Ukraine war, mindful of the past market jolts from the unpredictable Donald Trump.
REITs quietly building momentum
While equity markets wobble, India's listed real estate investment trusts are on a tear. Driven by the boom in global capability centers and steady demand for high-quality office and retail space, the four listed REITs distributed 15 billion rupees ($172 million) to investors in the June quarter, up 13% from last year, according to the Indian REITs association. The sector's stability and income potential are making REITs a regular feature in investment portfolios.
Derivatives traders switching lanes?
Another corner of the market is drawing increased interest from traders. With derivatives trading volumes falling, margin trading exposure — or leveraged bets — in the cash market is up nearly 30% since April to 911 billion rupees, according to data from the National Stock Exchange. The surge suggests that some options traders may have switched tracks due to stricter regulations in the derivatives segment since November. While the jump hasn't yet shown up in cash market turnover, brokers are benefiting from the higher commissions such trades generate.
Three great reads from Bloomberg today:
Over in bond land, benchmark 10-year yields have burst past the 6.5% mark for the first time since April, climbing about 15 basis points since the RBI dashed rate-cut hopes. Big buyers are staying away, waiting to see if fiscal measures can soften the blow from steep US tariffs. And just to keep things interesting, a fat-finger trade briefly sent yields tumbling Wednesday morning, only for them to snap right back up.
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--With assistance from Kartik Goyal and Savio Shetty.
(Corrects year in second paragraph.)
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Synopsis In 1944 Rangoon, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose established the Bank of Azad Hind to fund his liberation campaign, demonstrating India's financial capabilities before independence. Capitalised by the Indian diaspora, the bank became the Provisional Government's treasury, issuing its own currency and supporting various war efforts. Image: Netaji Research Bureau It is April 1944 in Rangoon. In a vacant bungalow off Jamal Avenue, carpenters are at work turning bare rooms into a working bank. Just a week earlier, this was an empty space. Now, it is about to become the headquarters of a bank and no, this one is not the story of how the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) was birthed. This bank was under the authority of the Provisional Government of Free India, led by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Five years before the RBI became fully independent in 1949, Bose launched the Bank of Azad Hind to fund his liberation campaign and to demonstrate that India could run its own financial institutions before it had even won its political freedom. Also Read: Independence Day 2025: Tryst with growth — India's economic journey from Nehru to now The short but strong saga of this bank has been well drafted in S.A. Ayer's book, "Unto Him a Witness". Ayer, who served in Bose's cabinet, wrote, 'At this stage, Netaji established the first National Bank of Azad Hind outside India in Rangoon on the 5th of April, 1944, to finance the war of India's liberation.' The 'stage' Ayer refers to was a tense moment. Bose was preparing to leave for the front in the Imphal–Kohima campaign. Japanese and Burmese authorities were sceptical about establishing a bank in wartime, fearing political complications. Some colleagues worried about capital, stability, and the timing. But Bose was unmoved and unbothered. 'Have a bank I must, and that too within a few days, before I leave for the front. I must open the bank and then go to the front,' Ayer quoted Bose as came quickly from the Indian diaspora in Southeast Asia. Ayer recounted how four Indians stepped forward to fund the initial days of the newly founded bank, with a vision of free India. 'Perhaps, you may be surprised to hear that four Indians have come forward to find between themselves all the required capital for the bank. They are prepared to write off the capital, if necessary, though I am quite sure they won't have to. In any event, they are ready to assign to the Provisional Government of Azad Hind eighty per cent of the annual profits.'This show of support ended Japanese resistance. 'That silenced the Japanese pretty effectively,' Ayer notes. What followed was a full and renewed case of dedication. Also Read: India's space race: From bullock carts to Gaganyaan'How one man, Yellappa, and the other four patriotic Indians worked like Trojans night and day for a week and converted a vacant building into a full-fledged bank — with an authorised capital of rupees fifty lakhs is a romantic story that deserves a chapter all by itself,' Ayer Fay, in his book "The Forgotten Army", recounts how Netaji's appeal in Rangoon for rupees 5 million triggered an extraordinary outpouring of support from the Indian community in Burma and Malaya, ultimately swelling the Azad Hind Bank's reserves to about 215 million rupees – more than 150 million rupees from Burma media reports and later historical accounts identify some of the most prominent donors: Abdul Habeeb Yusuf Marfani, a Gujarati businessman in Rangoon, is said to have pledged his entire fortune of roughly 1 crore rupees; the Betai family, Hiraben and Hemraj, reportedly contributed 50 lakh rupees in cash and assets; and Iqbal Singh Narula famously offered silver equal to Netaji's own Bank of Azad Hind soon became the treasury of the Provisional Government. 'The funds of the Provisional Government were banked with this bank,' Ayer wrote. It accepted donations 'in cash as well as in kind' from traders, shopkeepers, and plantation workers. These resources funded soldier pay, procurement, propaganda, and relief efforts. Also Read: UPI and beyond: The great Indian banking leap The bank even issued its own currency, denominated in rupees, which circulated in INA-controlled territories, a symbolic assertion of monetary sovereignty even if it carried no value in British himself served as chairman. 'The National Bank of Azad Hind was established in Rangoon in April 1944. I know a man called Dina Nath. He was one of the Directors of the Bank. I was the Chairman of the Bank,' he institution's life was brief. It closed by the end of World War II or precisely after the INA's retreat and the fall of Rangoon. But decades later, it resurfaced in an unexpected way. Following the Modi government's decision in 2016 to declassify files related to Bose, the finance ministry began receiving unusual petitions. Several borrowers wrote offering to repay their loans using Azad Hind Bank currency notes, some promising the bearer sums as high as ₹1 lakh. 'We have received representations from some individuals who want the currency issued by Azad Hind Bank or similar variants to be recognised as legal tender,' a government official told ET at the Reserve Bank of India, citing Section 22 of the RBI Act, 1934, rejected the requests, saying it had no record of such an entity and that only the RBI has the sole authority to issue banknotes. Some petitioners pushed back, arguing the RBI 'itself was formed by the British' and that the government should take a fresh Ayer's view, the bank was never merely a repository of funds for Bose: Perhaps it was a pledge of a nation to free itself, having 'our own currency and our own bank' alongside an army and a government.
