Canara Bank Split, Wipro-Nokia 5G Launch, Paytm Board Restructure, TVS Motor’s Stake Boost

Opening Bell:

Gift Nifty is down by 59 points in the early morning trade, indicating a negative opening for Indian stock market.

Asian markets traded mixed on Tuesday following overnight drop on Wall Street amid subdued investor sentiment. Japan’s Nikkei 225 gained 0.3%, while the Topix rose 0.1%. South Korea’s Kospi eased 0.1% and the Kosdaq dipped 0.3%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index futures indicated a slightly higher open.

US stocks ended with modest losses on Monday as attention shifted from last week’s AI-driven rally to upcoming economic data. The focus is on Thursday’s release of January’s PCE index, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, which could dampen enthusiasm if it indicates insufficient cooling of price pressures. The Dow fell 62.30 points (0.16%) to 39,069.23, the S&P 500 lost 19.27 points (0.38%) at 5,069.53, and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 20.57 points (0.13%) to 15,976.25.

Stocks News:

👉 Canara Bank: The public sector lender on Monday said its board has approved the split of each share into five shares, in an exchange filing. Canara Bank added that the move is aimed “to improve the liquidity of the Bank’s share and to make it affordable for retail investors and also to broaden the retail investors base”. The expected time of completion for the stock split is 2–3 months, the public sector lender added. The Centre owns nearly 63% stake in Canara Bank, while public shareholders own the rest.

👉 Wipro: The IT services company and Nokia Corporation have jointly launched a private 5G wireless solution to help enterprises in their digital transformation. The offering will initially be available only to companies operating in the manufacturing, energy, utilities, transportation, and sports entertainment space, Wipro said in a release on Monday. Wipro said the new technology’s speed and security coupled with the AI-driven automation it provides, would help companies improve their operational efficiencies.

👉 One 97 Communications: The company’s associate entity, Paytm Payments Bank (PPBL), has reconstituted its Board of Directors with the appointment of former Central Bank of India chairman Srinivasan Sridhar, retired IAS officer Debendranath Sarangi, former executive director of Bank of Baroda Ashok Kumar Garg, and retired IAS officer Rajni Sekhri Sibal. They have recently joined as independent directors on the board. The company has withdrawn its nominee from the Paytm Payments Bank board, and Vijay Shekhar Sharma stepped down as part-time non-executive chairman and board member.

👉 TVS Motor Company: Subsidiary TVS Motor (Singapore) Pte Ltd has agreed to acquire a further 8,000 equity shares in Killwatt GmbH for 4 million euros. With this, the shareholding of TVS Motor (Singapore) Pte Ltd in Killwatt GmbH will increase from 39.28 percent to 49 percent.

👉 Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) net sold shares worth Rs 285.15 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) offloaded Rs 5.33 crore worth of stocks on February 26, provisional data from the NSE showed.

Domestic and International Events

• The government has spent 80% of its revised FY24 budgetary allocation for capital expenditure and 79% of revenue spending until January, a senior official said on Monday, exuding confidence that the revised fiscal deficit target of 5.8% of gross domestic product (GDP) will be met this financial year. In the revised estimate for FY24, the government pegged its budgetary capex outlay at ₹9.5 lakh crore and revenue spending at ₹35.4 lakh crore.

• Japan’s consumer inflation slowed for the third straight month to 2.0% in January. The year-on-year rise in prices, excluding those for volatile fresh food, followed an increase of 2.3% in December, government data showed. The dip in the core consumer price index (CPI) was slightly less pronounced than expected, with economists polled by Bloomberg predicting 1.9%.

• Gold inched lower on Monday as the market focus shifted to U.S. inflation data due this week which could influence the timeline of Federal Reserve interest rate cuts. Spot gold edged 0.5 percent to $2,025.91 ounce. U.S. gold futures dropped 0.6 percent to $2,036.60.

• Oil prices ticked up in early Asian trading on Monday, extending gains for the third straight day, as shipping disruptions spurred supply worries. Brent crude futures rose 16 cents, or 0.2%, to $82.69 a barrel by 0106 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures (WTI) climbed 15 cents, or 0.2%, to $77.73 a barrel. Both benchmarks had settled more than 1% higher on Monday.