Good morning. Markets have had a bruising few sessions as oil prices grind higher, and that pressure is showing up everywhere from fuel bills to the currency. There has also been a busy stretch of corporate news overnight, from courtrooms to boardrooms, so let us get straight into it.
In today's newsletter: crude's slow-burn assault on the rupee, Vodafone Idea's big tax win, and Jaguar Land Rover's global job cuts.
Sensex 76,132.81 DOWN 382.62 |
Nifty 50 23,779.15 DOWN 118.55 |
USD/INR ₹94.39 RUPEE UP 4 PAISE |
Brent Crude $97.05 UP 0.8% |
The Sensex and Nifty both slipped half a percent as IT, metal, PSU bank and media stocks led the fall, with crude near $97 a barrel and rate worries weighing on sentiment. The rupee eked out a small gain even as the broader mood stayed cautious.
Iran nears a safe-passage deal with Oman for Hormuz, but oil near $97 is already hitting India
Over the weekend, the US military struck Iranian oil tankers after Tehran targeted American warships near the Strait of Hormuz, the latest escalation in a conflict that has now stretched into its seventh month.
Iran now says a deal with Oman to manage a temporary safe shipping route through Hormuz is in its final stages, an attempt to keep some tanker traffic moving through the world's most important oil chokepoint without giving up its threat to squeeze the rest.
For India, the number that matters is Brent crude near $97 a barrel, which fed directly into Monday's fall in the Sensex and Nifty and keeps the pressure on the rupee and the country's fuel import bill.
India imports more than four-fifths of its crude, so every extended dollar move in Brent shows up within weeks in petrol pumps, fertiliser subsidies and the current account. A war that keeps oil anchored near $95-100 for months, rather than spiking and fading, is the scenario that actually worries Indian policymakers.
The Oman-brokered safe route, if it holds, would not end the standoff, it would formalise a two-tier Hormuz: some cargo moving under negotiated safe passage while Iran keeps the right to stop everything else. That is a durable higher-risk-premium world for oil, not a quick return to normal.
Supreme Court hands Vodafone Idea a win, quashing a ₹363 crore GST demand
The Supreme Court has rejected the Centre's plea to revive a ₹363 crore GST demand against Vodafone Idea, upholding a Bombay High Court order that had thrown out the tax notice altogether.
The demand traced back to the 2017 transfer of Vodafone Mobile Services' telecom tower business to ATC Telecom Infrastructure. The GST notice was issued in 2024, years after the entity in question had ceased to exist through a merger, and the courts found the notice was void from the start for being served on a company that no longer existed.
It is a small but welcome bit of legal certainty for a telco that is still working through a mountain of past dues, even as it looks to shore up its balance sheet.
Tata-owned Jaguar Land Rover to cut 4,000 jobs worldwide over two years
Jaguar Land Rover, owned by Tata Motors, will cut around 4,000 jobs, roughly a tenth of its global workforce, as part of a plan to save £1.7 billion while it contends with US tariffs, the aftermath of last year's cyberattack and stiffer competition.
The cuts, confirmed by chief executive P B Balaji, are expected to fall mostly on management and research roles over the next two years, with factory jobs largely protected where possible. JLR currently employs around 43,000 people globally.
For Tata Motors, JLR remains the profit engine of the group, so a leaner cost base there matters well beyond Britain's factory towns.
Breaking.exe
India's biggest spacetech round. Bengaluru's Pixxel raised $100 million in a Series C round led by Temasek and Seraphim, the largest fundraise yet by an Indian space-technology company, to expand its earth-observation satellite constellation. |
Voice AI funding. Sovereign voice-AI startup Navana.ai raised Rs 40 crore in a Series A round led by Ronnie Screwvala, money it plans to use to scale its Indian-language speech models for banks and lenders. |
Chipmaking gets a firmer push. The government has issued the full notification for Semicon 2.0, putting formal weight and a new pillar for chipmaking equipment and specialty materials behind India's semiconductor push. |
Apple's first Ternus-era launch. Ahead of Wednesday's event, reports point to Apple unveiling its first foldable iPhone alongside the iPhone 18 Pro line, the first product launch under new chief executive John Ternus. |
Pangaea Revisited
Indonesia's airports paralysed. Ash from the eruption of Anak Krakatau has grounded flights at seven Indonesian airports, disrupting roughly 341,000 travellers including two serving Jakarta. |
Cargo plane crash in Miami. An Amazon-branded cargo plane overran the runway at Miami International Airport and struck vehicles, killing five people and injuring five more; investigators are examining both mechanical and weather factors. |
Yemen conflict escalates. The Houthis have accused Saudi Arabia of killing seven people in an air strike on a prison, as fighting for control of the Bab al-Mandeb strait intensifies. |
Deadly avalanche in Russia. An avalanche on Mount Mizhirgi in Russia's North Caucasus has killed at least 11 climbers, with six more still unaccounted for as rescue teams battle difficult terrain. |
Also, Also, Also
HUL's reset. At her first Capital Markets Day as chief executive, Priya Nair outlined HUL's "Winning in New India" strategy and raised capex guidance, while withholding a specific earnings growth number for next year. |
Weak IPO debut. Luxury fashion platform Purple Style Labs listed nearly 7 percent below its IPO price on both the NSE and BSE, a soft start for the owner of Pernia's Pop-Up Shop. |
Banks in favour. Brokerage Nirmal Bang raised target prices on ICICI Bank, SBI and HDFC Bank after loan growth accelerated to 17.2 percent year-on-year in the June quarter, the fastest pace in several quarters. |