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Author: Newsdesk
Futures of gold, which were soaring well above the Rs 50,000 mark till sometime back amid the weak economic scenario, have now started to ease and have fallen below the Rs 49,000-mark amid optimism regarding vaccines for the novel Coronavirus.
The December contract of gold on the Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) is currently trading at Rs 48,975 per 10 gram, lower by Rs 505 or 1.02 per cent from its previous close.
Similarly, domestic futures of silver also continued its downward trend on Tuesday and its December contract on the MCX is currently at Rs 59,825 per kg, lower by Rs 700 or 1.16 per cent from its previous close.
Anuj Gupta, DVP for Commodities and Currencies Research at Angel Broking Ltd said that noted that the decline has been on the back of recovery in global equity market and development on the front of corona virus vaccine. Gold ETF holding is also falling more than a million ounce in this month, he said.
“The trend of gold and silver now become down and expectation of safe haven demand of this asset may fade out. As for today traders can go for sell in gold at Rs 49,800 levels with the stop loss of Rs 50,100 levels for the target of 49,000 levels,” Gupta said.
In the international market, gold may test $1780 to $1800 per ounce levels soon, according to him.
He was of the view that traders can also go for sell in Silver at Rs 61,000 levels, with the stop loss of 61,800 levels and for the target of 59,800 levels.
Optimism has been fueled in the global markets after the recent series of positive announcements on the vaccine front.
AstraZeneca on Monday announced Monday that positive high-level results from an interim analysis of clinical trials of the Covid-19 vaccine candidate in the UK and Brazil showed it was highly effective in preventing the disease, the primary endpoint, and no hospitalisations or severe cases of the disease were reported in participants receiving the vaccine.
One dosing regimen showed vaccine efficacy of 90 per cent when ‘AZD1222’ was given as a half dose, followed by a full dose at least one month apart, and another dosing regimen showed 62 per cent efficacy when given as two full doses at least one month apart. The combined analysis from both dosing regimens resulted in an average efficacy of 70 per cent.
All results were statistically significant. More data will continue to accumulate and additional analysis will be conducted, refining the efficacy reading and establishing the duration of protection.
Earlier Pfizer and Moderna had reported their vaccines of being highly effecting.
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IT spending in India is set to reach $81.9 billion next year, a growth of six per cent from 2020, according to a forecast by Gartner on Monday.
In 2020, IT spending is expected to total $79.3 billion, down 8.4 per cent from 2019.
“The pandemic situation was a wake-up call for many organisations to relook and revive their IT strategies and increase their spending on IT in 2021,” Arup Roy, Research Vice President at Gartner, said in a statement.
In 2020, the devices and data centre systems segments experienced the steepest declines, as spending dropped 26 per cent and 1.2 per cent, respectively.
Contrary to other markets where spending declined across all segments, Chief Information Officers (CIOs) in India continued to spend on enterprise software, IT services and communication services in 2020.
In 2021, IT spending growth will return as CIOs start positioning IT as not just a growth enabler, but a “survival necessary” strategy.
While all segments will experience an increase in spending, the enterprise software segment will achieve the highest growth of 13.6 per cent, followed by data centre systems at 8.3 per cent, Gartner said.
“The ‘Digital India’ mission will turn a new leaf in 2021 as enterprises across all sectors start spending more on IT. The pandemic provided an opportunity for Indian CIOs to test long-pending projects such as remote working, which delivered on-promise for many enterprises and helped them stay afloat in the most testing times,” said Roy.
“The success of these digital innovations has brought back the focus on investments in IT.”
Analysts discussed the outlook for the Indian IT market during Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo India, which is taking place virtually through Wednesday.
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Tesla chief Elon Musk has surpassed Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates to become the second-richest person in the world.
The Bloomberg Billionaires Index on Monday put the Tesla chief executive, with a $127.9 billion fortune — above Gates — at $127.7 billion, for the first time.
The 49-year-old entrepreneur has added more than $100 billion to his net worth since January 2020, making him one of the fastest-growing among the world’s 500 richest people.
The jump in Musk’s fortune came as the shares of the electric car-maker Tesla soared and its market cap neared $500 billion on Monday.
The wealth gap between Musk and Gate is not huge, and it is possible they could switch places again.
Bill Gates’ current net worth is $127.7 billion, and he would have ranked on the top had he not donated so prodigiously to charities over the years. Gates has donated more than $27 billion to his namesake foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, since 2006.
Gates was the richest man for four years running till 2017 when Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos overtook him. Bezos continues to be the richest man in the world with an estimated net worth of $182 billion.
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Rather unexpectedly when the economic conditions looked challenging and visibility was low, India Inc has surprised with the Nifty companies delivering their highest-ever quarterly profits in September 2020 in the last 45 quarters.
“While this quarter’s superior earnings performance is well acknowledged, just highlighting this exhibit of last 45 quarters of absolute PAT. Both Nifty and MOSL Universe delivered their highest ever quarterly profits in Sep’20. (Guess very few, if any, would have imagined this in April’20),” said Gautam Duggad, Head of Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services.
No wonder that stock markets are rallying to lifetime highs as companies are posting record profits and stock prices are keeping pace with the improving profitability, at least among the big companies. As the Covid pandemic rages, there was uncertainty about corporate performance which has clearly been belied.
In an earlier report, Motilal Oswal Institutional Equities had said that the September quarter (2QFY21) corporate earnings season was a blockbuster one, with big beats and upgrades across sectors.
According to a report by Motilal Oswal Institutional Equities, wiith an upgrade (more than 5 per cent) to downgrade ratio (less than 5 per cent) of 4:1, this has by far been the best earnings season in many years.
“Sixty-three per cent of the companies in our coverage universe beat 2QFY21 estimates, while 18% reported below estimate results. This has resulted in the first material earnings upgrade for Nifty EPS estimates in many years”, the report said. More importantly, corporate commentaries across the sector suggest continued demand recovery in 3QFY21, underpinned by a healthy start to the festive season.
While sales growth was in-line, better-than-expected demand recovery, continued cost control measures, and lower-than-expected provisioning costs for the BFSI segment drove a spectacular profit beat. Cement, private banks, banks, PSU banks, healthcare, oil and gas, technology, and utilities reported year on year profit growth, while auto, capital goods, consumer, NBFC, and retail reported YoY declines. The telecom sector posted a loss.
The report said QFY21 corporate earnings were a broad-based beat, leading to significant upgrades in earnings estimates. Better-than-expected demand recovery and continued cost control initiatives were the key highlights of the quarter.
BFSI earnings were particularly strong, with commentaries from large private sector banks indicating the stress on asset quality may not be as bad as initially feared. Although, banks continue to increase provisions for COVID-related stress. Economic recovery continued, with high-frequency data for October coming in fairly strong (GST collections, Manufacturing PMI, rail freight, power demand, and IIP).
Early trends from the festive season suggest continued demand recovery. However, after the 68 per cent rebound from March lows, Nifty valuations are no longer cheap, the report said.
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Optimism over the vaccine front against the novel Coronavirus and the continued flow of foreign funds have boosted the Indian stock market, as on Tuesday the Nifty50 crossed the 13,000 mark for the first time.
The Nifty50 on the National Stock Exchange touched an all-time high of 13,048.75 points on Tuesday, and the BSE Sensex hit a record high of 44,499.62 points.
Healthy buying in auto, banking and finance stocks supported the indices.
Optimism has been fueled in the global markets after the recent series of positive announcements on the vaccine front.
AstraZeneca on Monday announced Monday that positive high-level results from an interim analysis of clinical trials of the Covid-19 vaccine candidate in the UK and Brazil showed it was highly effective in preventing the disease, the primary endpoint, and no hospitalisations or severe cases of the disease were reported in participants receiving the vaccine.
One dosing regimen showed vaccine efficacy of 90 per cent when ‘AZD1222’ was given as a half dose, followed by a full dose at least one month apart, and another dosing regimen showed 62 per cent efficacy when given as two full doses at least one month apart. The combined analysis from both dosing regimens resulted in an average efficacy of 70 per cent.
All results were statistically significant. More data will continue to accumulate and additional analysis will be conducted, refining the efficacy reading and establishing the duration of protection.
Earlier Pfizer and Moderna had reported their vaccines of being highly effecting.
At 12.27 p.m., Sensex was at 44,402.66, higher by 325.51 points or 0.74 per cent from its previous close of 44,077.15.
It opened at 44,341.19 and has so far recorded an intra-day low of 44,247.12 points.
The top gainers on the Sensex were Axis Bank, Mahindra & Mahindra and Maruti Suzuki India, while the major losers were Bharti Airtel, HDFC and IndusInd Bank.
Nifty was trading at 13,026.10, higher by 99.65 points or 0.77 per cent from its previous close.
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England is set to reopen gyms and non-essential shops after the end of lockdown next month. The UK nations of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have also backed the Christmas get-together plan by the UK government…reports Asian Lite Newsdesk
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced that gyms and non-essential shops in all parts of England will be allowed to reopen when lockdown ends next month, the media reported.
The prime minister told the House off Commons that the three-tiered regional measures will return from 2 December, but he added that each tier will be toughened, the BBC reported.
In this system, spectators will be allowed to return to some sporting events, and weddings and collective worship will resume.
However, every region of England will be told on Thursday which tier they will be put into after the lockdown ends.
The allocation of tiers will be dependent on a number of factors, including each area’s case numbers, the reproduction rate – or R number – and the current and projected pressure on the NHS locally, the report said.
Tier allocations will be reviewed every 14 days, and the regional approach will last until March.
UK-nations back get-together
The four UK nations of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have backed plans to allow some household mixing “for a small number of days” over Christmas, a media report said on Monday.
According to the BBC report, work to finalise the arrangements for a UK-wide approach to restrictions for the upcoming holiday season is ongoing.
In a statement, the Cabinet Office said that Ministers from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have endorsed a “shared objective of facilitating some limited additional household bubbling for a small number of days”.
But they have emphasised that the public will be advised to “remain cautious”, and that “wherever possible people should avoid travelling and minimise social contact”.
While the Scottish government has said that “no agreement has been reached” so far on the arrangements, Northern Ireland Ministers have also “recognised that people will want to see family and friends across the island of Ireland, and this is the subject of discussions with the Irish government”, according to the Cabinet Office.
Under the new system, 10 p.m. closing time for pubs and restaurants will also be relaxed.
Following Johnson’s meeting with his Cabinet to sign off on the plans on Sunday, the Downing Street said that some local measures will be the same as those in the previous three-tier system which was in place in England until the current lockdown began.
Also on Monday, the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies is expected to publish research on Monday saying the previous tiered restrictions in England were not strong enough.
On Sunday, the UK recorded another 18,662 new coronavirus cases and 398 deaths.
With the new tallies, the country’s overall caseload and death toll have increased to 1,515,802 and 55,120, respectively.
Ex-PMs slam Boris
Former UK Prime Ministers David Cameron and Tony Blair have warned incumbent leader Boris Johnson against slashing the country’s overseas budget, the media reported on Saturday.
The UK is committed to spending 0.7 per cent of the GDP on aid, but the Johnson-led government was mulling reducing the target to 0.5 per cent, which would have saved around 4 billion pounds this year, the BBC reported.
In a statement, Cameron said such a move would be a “moral, strategic and political mistake”.
The 0.7 per cent target, initially proposed by the UN in the 1970s, was first adopted in the UK by Blair’s Labour government in 2005.
However, it was not actually reached until 2013 under the Cameron-led coalition government.
Speaking to the Daily Telegraph on Saturday, Blair said Britain’s 0.7 per cent commitment had saved millions of lives in the past 20 years by helping to reduce deaths from deadly diseases such as malaria and HIV in Africa.
Millions have also been educated, living standards raised, and life expectancy “dramatically” increased, he was quoted as saying.
The warnings come ahead of the UK taking over the G7 presidency from the US on January 1, 2021.
The G7 comprises world’s seven largest so-called advanced economies: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US.
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US President-elect Joe Biden is expected to nominate top Obama-era diplomat Antony Blinken as Secretary of State, setting the ball rolling for a global reset of America’s alliances skewered by four years of Donald Trump’s unique brand of politics.
Blinken, 58, has served as Deputy Secretary of State and Deputy National Security Adviser during the Barack Obama administration. He was a foreign policy advisor to Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.
The news comes even as Donald Trump refuses to concede to Biden and continues to lob legal challenges as a “revenge” tool, according to people familiar with Trump’s thinking. The 2020 US election was called for Biden, on November 7.
The New York Times and the Washington Post are reporting that Biden has already “chosen” Blinken. There’s no official word yet. Others on the shortlist for America’s top diplomat: Susan Rice and Senator Chris Coons. A potential Rice pick comes with political baggage that would face stiff opposition in the Senate.
Biden’s first wave of Cabinet picks are expected to be announced Tuesday, November 24.
“You’re going to see the first of the president-elect’s cabinet appointments on Tuesday of this week,” Biden’s chief of staff Ron Klain told ABC News on Sunday.
Post-election, Biden has promised that his Cabinet will look like America and will be the most diverse in the country’s modern political history.
Talk has been swirling about more glass ceilings that could be shattered. Will Biden nominate a woman to head the Pentagon, the Treasury or the Department of Veterans Affairs? Also being closely watched is whether Biden will pick an African American to head Defense, the Interior Department or Treasury.
Biden’s running mate and now Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is the first woman, the first South Asian and the first African American to ever ascend to the highest political office in the United States.
Biden said in televised remarks last week that he has already decided on his Treasury pick, someone who will be agreeable “for both the moderate and progressive sides of the party”.
Klain said plans for the January 20 inauguration are also underway, although it will be transformed by the public health imperative of the still-raging pandemic, which has killed more than a quarter million Americans in 10 months.
“They’re going to try to have an inauguration that honours the importance and the symbolic meaning of the moment, but also does not result in the spread of the disease. That’s our goal,” Klain said.
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The short pre-season that preceded the season meant that Bengaluru FC were forced to make substitutions on Sunday in their Indian Super League (ISL) match against FC Goa despite them needing one more goal to win the match, according to coach Carles Cuadrat.
Cuadrat said that he was tempted to not make any changes, which included taking off talismanic forward Sunil Chhetri and goal scorer Cleiton Silva while the score was 2-2, but had to do it so as to avoid injuries.
“We were trying to avoid injuries. You don’t want to touch anything when you are winning but we have to make substitutions to give some break to the players. Unfortunately, in just three minutes they got two goals so there was no time to make more changes. But the guys did well and I feel it was a fair result,” Cuadrat said on Star Sports after the match.
Bengaluru were leading 2-0 despite not having much of the ball untill 66th minute after which Goa scored twice in three minutes to draw level.
“We were working for the three points but Goa are a great team, they can play some wonderful passes. We were doing our best considering that the players had a short pre-season and tend to get tired quickly,” said Cuadrat.
“It was the match plan, to hit them on the counter attack knowing that they are going to have more possession. We took advantage of things that we are good at like set pieces. I think we were good until the last pass. We did well everywhere but only in the last pass we were lacking. We will keep working on that.”
FC Goa coach Juan Ferrando also said that he is happy with the result considering the fact that the players are not yet ready to play the full 90 minutes. “In the press conference before this season I said that we need time. It’s not just our players but also players of all teams had short pre-seasons and so the players are not 100 per cent ready to play 90 minutes,” said Ferrando.
Captain Virat Kohli will be missed after India’s first Test against Australia in their upcoming tour Down Under but it is also an opportunity for younger players in the team, according to head coach Ravi Shastri.
Kohli will be playing in the series-opening pink ball Test at the Adelaide Oval starting December 17 but will return to India after that for the birth of his first child.
“I think it’s the right decision he’s taking,” Shastri said on ABC Sport. “These moments don’t come time and time again. He has the opportunity, he’s going back, and I think he’ll be happier for that.”
“If you see where India have gone in the last five-six years, there’s no doubt in absolutely anyone’s mind that he’s the driving force and the man behind it (India’s success). So he obviously would be missed. But like I say, in adversity comes opportunity. There are lot of young guys in the side and it’s an opportunity for them.”
Shastri also said that Rohit Sharma and Ishant Sharma will have to be on the flight to Australia in the “next four or five days” if they are to take part in the Test series against Australia.
Rohit is currently at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) recovering a hamstring injury and will be missing the limited overs leg of India’s tour of Australia which begins on November 27.
“He’s (Rohit) going through some tests at the NCA and they’re obviously going to decide [for] how long he needs to take a break,” Shastri said, speaking to ABC Sport.
“But things could get difficult if he’s asked to wait for too long, [because] then you’re talking of the quarantine again, which might make it really tough for even him to come just in time for the Test series.”
Shastri said that Rohit was never considered for the limited overs leg, which includes three ODIs and three T20Is before the first Test which will start on December 17 in Adelaide. A 14-day quarantine is the current norm in Australia amid Covid-19 and India are also expected to play a three-day warm-up match on December 11.
“He was never going to play the white-ball series, they were just looking to see how long he needed the rest, because you can’t afford to be resting for too long,” Shastri said. “If you need to play in the Test series or any red-ball cricket, you’ve got to be on the flight in the next three or four days. If you aren’t, then it’s going to be tough.”
“It’s a similar case to Rohit,” Shastri said of Ishant. “You don’t really know how quickly he’ll be available to fly out. Like I said, if anyone has to play in the Test series, he has to be on the flight in the next four or five days. Otherwise, it’s very difficult.”
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