Morning News Call – India, December 4 – Reuters India

By Reuters Staff
To access a PDF version of this newsletter, please click here here
If you would like to receive this newsletter via email, please register at:
here
FACTORS TO WATCH
10:00 am: Monetary Policy Committee to announce interest rate decision in
Mumbai.
11:00 am: Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari virtual event to lay foundation
stone of road projects in Nagaland.
12:00 pm: Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das at a virtual media
briefing post release of monetary policy statement.
5:00 pm: Burger King IPO closes for subscription in Mumbai.
5:00 pm: RBI to release weekly foreign exchange data in Mumbai.
6:00 pm: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman at Hindustan Times Leadership
summit.
INDIA TOP NEWS
India’s next budget to focus on boosting growth, says finance minister
India’s economy will return to growth in 2021/22 and higher spending in the
budget due in February will lay the foundations for even stronger growth in the
next four to five years, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told Reuters on
Thursday.
Indian govt to meet protesting farmers again on Saturday as talks continue
A fourth round of talks between the Indian government and 40 farmers’ unions
over divisive farm laws failed to make headway on Thursday, but a cabinet
minister said they would continue discussions on Saturday.
RBI curbs HDFC Bank’s digital, credit card operations
The central bank has forbidden Indias largest private lender HDFC Bank from
adding new credit card customers or launching digital businesses after its
digital payment services were hit by a power failure last month.
Flipkart’s digital payments firm PhonePe to raise $700 mln from existing
investors
PhonePe, the digital payments unit of Walmart’s Indian e-commerce arm Flipkart,
said on Thursday it would sell a stake to existing investors for $700 million,
helping it fuel growth in a crowded market that includes Google and Amazon.
Indian services industry lost some steam in November
Growth in India’s dominant services industry lost some momentum in November as
demand weakened, a private survey showed on Thursday, clouding hopes of a quick
economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic’s blow.
Asia needs flexible LNG deals not linked to oil prices- India oil minister
Asia needs flexible liquefied natural gas (LNG) contracts with no links to oil
prices to reflect changes to the market as demand recovers from the impact of
the coronavirus pandemic, India’s oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on
Thursday.
Siemens Gamesa fired India exec over lack of due diligence in consultancy
dealings -documents
Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy’s India unit fired a top executive after an
internal investigation found he failed to conduct appropriate due diligence when
engaging a consultancy with political connections, court filings seen by Reuters
showed.
Woodside Petroleum matches ONGC unit offer to buy FAR’s Sangomar stake
Australia’s Woodside Petroleum said on Thursday it had exercised its right to
match an offer by a unit of India’s ONGC Videsh to buy FAR’s stake in the
Sangomar oil project in Senegal.
GLOBAL TOP NEWS
Biden pledges to publicly get a COVID-19 vaccine and retain Fauci
U.S. President-elect Joe Biden said on Thursday he would publicly take a
coronavirus vaccine to demonstrate its safety to the public and pledged to
retain the nation’s top adviser on the pandemic, Anthony Fauci, when he takes
office next month.
Pfizer says supply chain challenges contributed to slashed target for COVID-19
vaccine doses in 2020
Challenges in Pfizer’s supply chain for the raw materials used in its COVID-19
vaccine played a role in its decision to slash its 2020 production target, a
Pfizer spokeswoman told Reuters.
Warner Bros disrupts theater business with same-day streaming
AT&T’s Warner Bros studio will debut all of its 2021 films in theaters and on
the HBO Max streaming service on the same day, the company said on Thursday, an
unprecedented shift that hammered shares of struggling cinema operators.
LOCAL MARKETS OUTLOOK
(As reported by NewsRise)
SGX Nifty nearest-month futures were trading 0.3% higher at 13,239.
The Indian rupee is expected to open little changed against the dollar ahead
of the Monetary Policy Committees interest rate decision.
India bond yields are likely to open largely unchanged ahead of the Monetary
Policy Committee’s decision today, wherein most traders expect a status quo on
rates and announcement of liquidity absorption measures. The yield on the
benchmark 5.77% 2030 bond is likely to trade in a 5.90%-5.95% band.
GLOBAL MARKETS
The Nasdaq Composite Index closed at a record high on Thursday, lifted by
Tesla, while the S&P 500 fell after a report that Pfizer had slashed the target
for the rollout of its COVID-19 vaccine.
Australian shares gained modestly as financials kept the benchmark afloat,
offsetting losses in miners following a record rally in the previous session on
the back of rising iron ore prices and a lowered forecast from Brazilian miner
Vale.
The euro was headed for its best week in a month and has blown past major
resistance levels as investors piled into bets the U.S. dollar has further to
fall as the world begins to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic.
U.S. Treasury yields drifted lower on Thursday as the market looked ahead
to the November employment report to cap a week of rate surges and retreats,
seeking clues from the data on where the coronavirus-battered economy is
headed.
Oil prices rose, heading for a fifth week of gains, after major producers
agreed to continue to restrain production to cope with coronavirus-hit demand
but the compromise fell short of expectations.
Gold prices edged higher on cautious investor optimism over additional
U.S. stimulus, while news that drugmaker Pfizer slashed the target for the
rollout of its COVID-19 vaccine also helped lift the allure of the safe-haven
metal.
CLOSE FII INVESTMENTS EQUITIES DEBT
PNDF spot 73.89/73.92 December 3 163.73 crores (338.93) crores
10-yr bond yield 5.93% Month-to-date 12,834 crores (1,405) crores
Year-to-date 1,21,080 crores (1,10,357) crores
(FII investment numbers are in Indian rupees. Source: National Securities
Depository Limited)
For additional data:
India govt bond market volumes
Stock market reports
Non-deliverable forwards data
Corporate debt stories [IN CORPD]
Local market closing/intraday levels [IN SNAPSHOT]
Monthly inflows [INFLOWS RTRS TABLE IN]
($1 = 73.86 Indian rupees)
(Compiled by Siddharth Athreya V in Bengaluru)read more