Rise With Profit: US Jobs Data, Swiggy's Upcoming IPO, October Auto Sales

Happy Monday to you. This is the daily morning update from NDTV Profit. Over the next few minutes, we’ll bring you up to speed with everything you need to know to start your week ahead of the curve.

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We’re back after the Diwali break and there’s a bit of news from overseas to catch up with. In the US, the major data point on the economy, ahead of this week’s Fed meeting, was the jobs data for the month of October. Hiring in the US grew at the slowest pace since 2020, while the unemployment rate remained low in October.

Specifically, nonfarm payrolls increased 12,000 last month, and hiring over the previous two months was also weaker than previously thought, suggesting the underlying labour market continues to cool. With this data, there are some that suggest that another 25 basis point cut by the Fed may be in the offing this week, though you shouldn’t be too surprised if there’s a pause.

Markets didn’t react too sharply to the lower jobs data. And that’s because it was expected to be lower because of the disruption caused by two major storms and the strike at Boeing. In fact, US stocks ended higher, led by tech stocks—the Dow and the S&P 500 gained 0.7 and 0.4% respectively and the Nasdaq climbed 0.8%. In the Asia Pacific region, only two of the three early risers were trading and they were both positive last I checked—the Japanese market is shut for a holiday.

In the commodity space, oil traders were once again on edge over the weekend after Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the US and Israel would receive a crushing response to the attack from a week ago. Additionally, the group of oil producing nations, the OPEC+, has agreed to delay a planned increase in output that was scheduled for December. The increase will now take place in January. That’s based on a Reuters report.

As of this morning, Brent crude was trading at $74.2 per barrel last I checked.

Back home, equity markets ended higher during the special Muhurat trading session. And that was despite continued selling by foreign institutional investors. The selling streak is now at a new record with over Rs 1.2 lakh crore being sold in 25 sessions.

There’s a high likelihood of cautious, sideways trade at the start of the trading week, ahead of the US Presidential Election and the meeting of the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee. Voting takes place on Nov.5 in the US and given the number of swing states this time around, a result may not immediately become apparent.

There’s some interesting action in the primary market this week, with four new issues and one listing. Swiggy’s offering, which opens on Wednesday, is going to be the one most closely tracked—the company is planning to raise Rs 11,327 crore. Others include Niva Bupa Health Insurance, ACME Solar Holdings, and Sagility India.

There’s also the listing of Afcons Infrastructure to watch for. It was oversubscribed 2.77 times on the third and final day of its issue last Tuesday.  

There’s auto sales data to account for. Most companies sent out the data for October before the special trading session on Friday, but a couple that came after stood out in the two-wheeler space in particular. Hero MotoCorp reported an 18% year-on-year increase in total October sales at 6.79 lakh units, while scooter sales declined 5% to 43,304 units. And Ola Electric clocked its highest monthly sales so far this financial year, boosted by festive discounts.