Latest Developments

Asia
The Hindu BusinessLine

West Asia crisis, uncertain monsoon major risks for growth: RBI Governor

Reserve Bank Governor Sanjay Malhotra has said the West Asia crisis and the expectation of a weak monsoon present significant risks to economic growth. "Despite global uncertainties, India has witnessed an over 7 per cent growth rate in the past few years. Last financial year, India clocked a growth rate of 7.7 per cent supported by strong and robust macroeconomic fundamentals," he said in an interview to DD News. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has projected a GDP growth of 6.6 per cent for the current financial year despite various challenges, he said. "Monetary and fiscal policies are robust, and because of that, we are witnessing high GDP growth," the governor added. On inflation, he said the central bank has raised its inflation forecast to 5.1 per cent for FY27, higher from its earlier estimate of 4.6 per cent. Inflation going past the Reserve Bank’s median target of 4 per cent in June was largely driven by supply-side factors, Malhotra noted. Retail inflation climbed to 4.38 per cent in June from 3.93 per cent in May, mainly due to costlier food items. The food inflation increased to 5.32 per cent in June from 4.78 per cent in the preceding month. Talking about another risk factor, Malhotra said that how the monsoon behaves is crucial, as a large population depends on the agriculture sector. Agriculture contributes about 17 per cent to the GDP, he said, adding that "we have to be vigilant about that (monsoon)." On the rupee depreciation, Malhotra said the domestic currency performance against peers remains stable despite a stronger dollar and heightened global uncertainty. "After the war in West Asia, the dollar has become strong. The currencies of many countries have weakened. If we look at it from a global perspective, India's rupee situation can be considered normal," he said.

West Asia crisis, uncertain monsoon major risks for growth: RBI Governor
Asia
The Hindu BusinessLine

Markets defy global gloom; crude tops $85

Benchmarks closed sharply higher on Friday, shrugging off weak global cues as buying in banking, IT, and financial heavyweights drove a broad-based rally. The gains came even as escalating conflict between the United States and Iran pushed Brent crude above $85 a barrel and gold wobbled near $4,000 an ounce, keeping inflation concerns alive globally. The Nifty 50 rose 1.09 per cent, or 262 points, to settle at 24,334, while the Sensex advanced 1.25 per cent to close at 78,151. For the week, the Nifty ended 0.53 per cent higher, having found consistent support near the 24,000 level, its 20-day moving average. IT was the standout sectoral winner of the week, surging 4.2 per cent, lifted by better-than-expected results from Tech Mahindra. Private banks also gained on expectations that an RBI special overseas deposit scheme could pull in around $30 billion from NRIs, bolstering forex reserves. Pharma, metals, and realty were the week’s laggards. Broader markets underperformed Friday’s rally, with the Nifty Midcap 100 and Smallcap 100 declining 0.41 per cent and 0.21 per cent respectively, reflecting selective profit-booking outside the index heavyweights. “Markets staged a strong advance on Friday and gained over a percent despite weak global cues...the Nifty closed near the day’s high,” said Ajit Mishra, SVP Research at Religare Broking. On the currency front, the rupee traded largely flat at 96.26 against the dollar, gaining just around 4 paise on the day. Elevated crude prices and cautious foreign fund flows continue to weigh on the domestic currency, with the technical range pegged at 96.00–96.55. In commodities, crude dominated the global narrative. Brent is on course for a weekly gain of over 10 per cent, with tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz at two-month lows after six consecutive nights of US strikes on Iranian military infrastructure. Tehran has reportedly asked Yemen’s Houthi faction to prepare to shut the Bab el-Mandeb strait if Iranian infrastructure faces further strikes, raising the spectre of two simultaneous chokepoint closures. “With the ceasefire effectively in name only and escalation risk building on both fronts, the geopolitical risk premium embedded in prices looks unlikely to unwind soon,” noted Kaynat Chainwala, AVP Commodity Research at Kotak Securities. Gold, meanwhile, clawed back above $4,000 per ounce but remains down 3 per cent for the week. Silver is near its weakest since November 2025, off more than 10 per cent for the week. Fed commentary remained hawkish, with September rate hike odds on CME FedWatch rising to 53 per cent. Looking ahead, investor attention next week will be firmly on earnings. Results from Reliance Industries, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, and Kotak Mahindra Bank over the weekend are expected to set the tone for the Financials sector and define the broader market direction early next week. Siddhartha Khemka of Motilal Oswal expects “a gradual uptrend” driven by the earnings season, though crude at elevated levels and rupee weakness remain key risks to watch. Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments. We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.

Markets defy global gloom; crude tops $85
Asia
The Hindu BusinessLine

India’s whole cardamom exports triple in two years to cross $436 million in 2025-26

India's exports of whole cardamom more than tripled in value terms to $436.8 million in 2025-26 from $131.9 million in 2023-24, and its shipment volume more than doubled during the period, according to the Commerce Ministry data. The data showed that exports of whole cardamom stood at $436.8 million in 2025-26 against $201.2 million in 2024-25 and $131.9 million in 2023-24. In volume terms, outbound shipments increased to 16,399 tonne in 2025-26 from 7,674 tonne in the previous fiscal and 7,083 tonne in 2023-24. An official said the sharp rise in exports reflects growing global demand for premium spices, quality production and increasing preference among overseas buyers because of its aroma, quality and purity. The main export destinations for this cardamom include the UAE ($135.22 million), Saudi Arabia ($125.16 million), Bangladesh ($47.71 million), Iraq ($13.71 million), Kuwait ($20 million), and Malaysia ($8.48 million). Countries like the Netherlands, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, China, Egypt and Iran also import the spice from India. Cardamom cultivation in India is broadly divided into two main varieties: Small Cardamom (grown in the southern Western Ghats) and Large Cardamom (cultivated in the sub-Himalayan northeastern regions). The main small cardamom growing state in the country is Kerala (the largest producer accounting for over 56-58 per cent of the country's total supply). The key growing districts include Idukki, Wayanad, and Palakkad. It is followed by Karnataka (Coorg, Hassan, and Chikmagalur), and Tamil Nadu (Nilgiris, Palani, and Pulney hills). Large cardamom (often used in Ayurvedic medicines and hearty spice blends) is primarily grown in high-altitude and northeastern states such as Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments. We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.

India’s whole cardamom exports triple in two years to cross $436 million in 2025-26
North America
Yahoo Finance

INTC, WDC, SNDK, AMD: Red-Hot AI Chip Stocks Lose Sheen In Samsung-Triggered Selloff

High-flying chip stocks tumbled on Tuesday as investors took profits, tracking the selloff in Samsung Electronics shares despite the company’s blowout preliminary results. Samsung said its second-quarter operating profit is expected to rise 19-fold to 89.4 trillion won ($58.44 billion), and revenue to increase 129% to 171 trillion won – above analysts’ expectations on both counts. Still, Samsung shares in Seoul tumbled nearly 7% on Tuesday, pulling down rival SK Hynix and the broader Kospi, where the two tech giants carry significant weight. In the U.S., Intel stock dropped 9.7%, its steepest one-day drop in a month, to emerge as the biggest loser in the S&P 500 on Tuesday, while rival Advanced Micro Devices’ shares plunged 6.5%. Memory chip stocks Western Digital and SanDisk shed over 7% each, while Micron declined 4.7%. Shares of chip-making equipment firms KLA Corp and LAM Research also dropped around 7% each. Curiously, the Nvidia stock, which has underperformed lately, ended 0.7% higher. Tuesday’s selloff is also notable because major chip stocks had already been retreating for several days, raising concerns among investors that the AI trade may be losing steam and that a broader downturn could be underway. Semiconductor stocks continue to dip further below their 50-day moving average. (see chart). There are not many catalysts behind the pullback, although concerns about elevated valuations have been building in the background. Intel stock has tripled this year, while AMD is up 141% and SanDisk has risen a staggering 582%. The AI-driven rally has boosted shares of several smaller players, such as Marvell Technologies, LAM Research, and Nebius. “The AI trade is intact. Structurally nothing has changed,” Daniel Newman, CEO of The Futurum Group said in an X post. “A little profit taking on memory and infra names is healthy after these parabolic moves. It’s still very early and demand still well outstrips supply.”

INTC, WDC, SNDK, AMD: Red-Hot AI Chip Stocks Lose Sheen In Samsung-Triggered Selloff
Europe
BBC Business

EasyJet agrees to surprise takeover bid as rival US firm swoops in

Image source, Getty ImagesByNick EdserBusiness reporter Published10 July 2026, 07:30 BSTUpdated 2 hours agoNo-frills airline EasyJet says it has agreed in principle to a £5.7bn takeover proposal from US firm Apollo Global Management - just days after accepting an offer from a rival suitor. The carrier said Apollo's offer delivered "a superior outcome" to investors than the previous bid from US investment firm Castlelake that EasyJet had also agreed to in principle at the weekend. EasyJet is one of Europe's largest airlines. It employs more than 19,000 people, and flies around 1,200 routes across 35 European countries. It was founded by Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou in 1995 to offer cheap air fares to Europe and, together with other carriers such as Ryanair, has transformed UK air travel. Its first flights took off in November 1995 flying from Luton to Glasgow and Edinburgh, with its first international flights the following year. Sir Stelios and the Haji-Ioannou family still own about a 15% stake in the airline. EasyJet said Apollo's offer was worth £7.15 per share, compared with the £6.90 per share proposal from Castlelake which it said it was now "no longer minded" to accept. Castlelake declined to comment on the latest move. Analysts say EasyJet is an attractive target as it is profitable, has a large fleet of aircraft, and has take-off and landing slots at major airports such as Gatwick and Paris Charles de Gaulle. The most popular slots can be worth tens of millions of pounds when traded between airlines. Susannah Streeter, chief investment strategist at Wealth Club, said Apollo was focusing on EasyJet's potential. "While the carrier has been buffeted recently by higher fuel costs and geopolitical turbulence, it has built a resilient European network, a strong balance sheet and, crucially, a fast-growing holidays business. That's likely to be one of Apollo's biggest attractions." "Package holidays generate higher margins and more predictable revenues than airline tickets alone," she added. "For passengers, it's very much business as usual for now, with flights, bookings and loyalty schemes unaffected while any deal works its way through the regulatory process."

EasyJet agrees to surprise takeover bid as rival US firm swoops in
North America
CNBC Finance

Far more real estate agents now report seeing a balanced market, CNBC Housing Market Survey finds

After several years of a lean and pricey housing market that largely favored sellers, buyers are finally regaining leverage and pulling the market back into balance. In the second quarter of the year, 44% of real estate agents surveyed in CNBC's Housing Market Survey said they were seeing a balanced market between buyer and seller. That share is up from 30% in the third quarter of last year, when CNBC began its quarterly survey. "It certainly feels like, depending on the home, depending on the neighborhood, depending on the condition and the price point, that both the buyer and the seller do have a little bit of leverage," said Jeremy Kane, a real estate agent with EXP Realty in Denver. The CNBC Housing Market Survey is a national inquiry of real estate agents selected randomly across the United States. Responses for the second-quarter survey were collected between June 23 and June 30. This quarter, 53 agents shared their insights. Home sales in May were up slightly, 3% higher than the same month last year, according to the National Association of Realtors. That was the result of more supply on the market and easing prices. Sellers appear to be getting more realistic when pricing their homes, not expecting the huge jumps seen in the first two years of the pandemic. "No one really seems to be fighting me much on price like they used to," said Bruce Jones, an agent with Compass in Nashville, Tennessee. "We're not really seeing huge decreases in prices. We've kind of plateaued, but I don't see people arguing too much about that. If it's priced correctly, it is moving." Agents who reported at least one price cut to active listings dropped dramatically in CNBC's second-quarter survey, at 57% compared with 89% during the third quarter of 2025. Home prices are still slightly higher than they were a year ago, up just under 1%, according to the S&P Cotality Case-Shiller national home price index. Sellers, however, seem to be pricing more to the market, resulting in fewer cuts. Asking prices in June were down 2.5% year over year, according to Realtor.com. That is the largest annual drop since the company began tracking this in 2017 and the eighth straight month of declines. "I always tell sellers that I'm in the business of selling homes, not storing them, and so you really need to put a property at the right price in order to get it sold," said Martha Thorn, an agent with Coldwell Banker in Tampa, Florida. CNBC's Property Play with Diana Olick covers new and evolving opportunities for the real estate investor, delivered weekly to your inbox.

Far more real estate agents now report seeing a balanced market, CNBC Housing Market Survey finds
North America
CNBC Finance

Toyota to invest $3.6 billion to move Tacoma pickup truck production from Mexico to Texas

Toyota Motor on Monday announced that it is investing $3.6 billion to move production of the Tacoma midsize pickup truck from a plant in Mexico to its San Antonio, Texas, manufacturing campus. The investment is expected to create 2,000 U.S. jobs at the facility, add a second vehicle assembly line and roughly double the size of the 2.7-million-square-foot plant by 2030, the automaker said. It will expand the plant's annual capacity from roughly 200,000 to 350,000 units, Toyota said. The announcement is part of Toyota's stated plans to invest up to $10 billion more than previously expected domestically in the U.S. through 2030. It comes less than a week after the Trump administration confirmed it would not extend its trilateral trade pact with Canada and Mexico, instead opting to conduct annual reviews. A Toyota spokeswoman said the company is "maintaining its operations in Mexico" as Tacoma production transfers from Tijuana to Texas over the next four years, but she declined to share additional details. The company plans to continue to produce Tacoma pickups at another Mexican plant in Guanajuato, she said. "This investment expands Toyota's manufacturing capacity and complements our broader North American production network," she said in an email to CNBC. The move comes more than six years after Toyota confirmed it would shift Tacoma production from the Texas plant to the Toyota Motor Manufacturing de Guanajuato plant in Mexico. The Texas plant currently produces the Toyota Tundra full-size pickup truck, including a hybrid variant, and the Toyota Sequoia SUV hybrid. Toyota previously announced it was investing $531 million in a 500-million-square-foot rear axle plant on the campus that is slated to begin production in the fall. Potential plans to expand the San Antonio plant, codenamed Project Orca, were first reported in May by Automotive News. "Toyota's continued investment in North America is a testament to our confidence in the region's workforce, innovation and long-term growth potential," Toyota Motor North America CEO Ted Ogawa said in a release. "By expanding our San Antonio plant, we are deepening our commitment to American manufacturing, creating meaningful and sustainable jobs, while advancing our mission to deliver high-quality vehicles that meet the changing needs of customers today and into the future." Toyota, which employs 48,000 people in the U.S., says it has invested $8.3 billion in the San Antonio plant since its groundbreaking in 2003. The increased investment and production capacity could assist Toyota — the world's largest automaker — in becoming the No. 1 carmaker in U.S. sales. Toyota is forecast to narrow the gap in U.S. sales with America's largest automaker, General Motors, this year as hybrids get more popular and all-electric vehicles sputter, according to Cox Automotive.

Toyota to invest $3.6 billion to move Tacoma pickup truck production from Mexico to Texas
North America
CNBC Finance

Klarna seeks U.S. bank charter in latest push beyond buy now, pay later

Klarna, the Swedish fintech firm best known for its buy now, pay later offerings, said Monday it applied to federal and state regulators to establish a U.S. bank subsidiary. The firm said that, if approved, Klarna Bank USA would be a Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.-backed institution chartered in Utah. The proposed bank would be led by Gary Harding, former CEO of Milestone Bank and Prime Alliance Bank, according to Klarna. "We've seen firsthand the appetite for a fairer, more transparent approach in the U.S., and our own banking license is the natural next step," said Sebastian Siemiatkowski, co-founder and CEO of Klarna. The move will give "customers tools to borrow responsibly and build financial confidence, while bringing greater competition, innovation, and choice" to the market, he said. Klarna's application is the latest sign that fintech firms, which mostly partner with U.S. banks to offer services, now see owning their own charters as a key advantage. In April, fintech provider Mercury said it won conditional approval to establish its own bank, joining a wave of fintech and crypto firms seeking entry to the traditional banking system. Klarna said that its charter, if approved, would let it bring its banking operations in-house and strengthen reliability across payments, credit and merchant services. The application marks Klarna's latest step toward becoming a broader consumer bank rather than just a buy now, pay later provider. Last month, Klarna introduced high-yield savings accounts to U.S. customers, though its partner WebBank holds those accounts. By owning a bank, fintech firms can fund loans with their own customer deposits instead of more expensive wholesale financing, directly offer checking accounts and credit cards and rely less on third-party banking partners. Klarna, which went public last September, is trading for about half of its initial public offering price of $40. Get this delivered to your inbox, and more info about our products and services. Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes. Global Business and Financial News, Stock Quotes, and Market Data and Analysis.

Klarna seeks U.S. bank charter in latest push beyond buy now, pay later
Europe
BBC Business

Man nearly sucked out of window mid-air on Ryanair plane, passengers say

A man was nearly sucked head-first out of a cabin window in mid-air on a Ryanair plane, passengers have said. Tracking data shows the plane was in the air for about 10 minutes when it abruptly descended 9,000ft (2,700m), with passengers telling local media they heard "some kind of explosion". A Greek hospital official said a 61-year-old Serbian national was being treated for friction burns. "His wife held onto his legs for around five minutes to stop him from being sucked out," Michalis Giannakos said. In a statement, Ryanair said its Friday morning flight from the Greek city of Thessaloniki to Germany's Memmingen returned "shortly after take-off when a passenger window dislodged in flight". "The aircraft landed normally and passengers returned to the terminal. One passenger requested and received medical assistance on the ground in Thessaloniki," the Irish budget airline said. It added that "a replacement aircraft was arranged to bring passengers to Memmingen" several hours later. Passengers have told local media the man was left hanging head first out of the window as far as his shoulders before other passengers managed to pull him back inside. Those on board have also said the window was smashed by pieces of the jet's engine - although Ryanair has not commented on this. "We immediately realised there had been a decompression. There were screams... for a moment I thought someone had accidentally opened the emergency door," Christina, a fellow passenger, told Radio Thessaloniki. "The masks dropped and there was a strong smell. The head and shoulders of one passenger were outside the window. Fortunately, he hadn't taken off his seat belt." Another passenger, Sofia, told Radio Thessaloniki: "When the oxygen masks dropped, we had no idea what was going to happen. We didn't know whether we would make it back. We were sitting at the back of the aircraft, and we realised there had been some kind of explosion. "We thought the plane was going down. The decompression was extreme. It felt like we couldn't breathe. The man who was injured was bleeding and then lost consciousness several times, most likely because of the lack of oxygen and the shock," Sofia added.

Man nearly sucked out of window mid-air on Ryanair plane, passengers say