Rise With Profit: Israel-Lebanon Ceasefire, Mahindra's New Launch, Indian IT In Focus | Podcast

This is the daily morning update from NDTV Profit and I’m Alex Mathew. Over the next few minutes, we’ll bring you up to speed with everything you need to know, so you can start your day on the right foot.

Big news this morning—and something that was in the works yesterday. A ceasefire has been announced between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah. This will take effect today at 4 a.m. local time there and was possible because both sides accepted an agreement that was brokered by the US and France.

President Joe Biden made the announcement last night at the White House, shortly after Israel’s security cabinet approved the agreement in a 10-1 vote.

Israel will gradually withdraw its forces over 60 days as Lebanon's army takes control of territory near its border, with Israel to ensure that Hezbollah does not rebuild its infrastructure there, Biden said.

US stocks gained overnight in a session that featured the minutes of the last meeting of the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee and the latest consumer confidence reading. The latter improved again in November, nearing its highest in two years. In fact there was optimism in the US about job prospects that was highest in nearly three years and inflation expectations have fallen.

Meanwhile, Federal Reserve officials expressed confidence that inflation is easing and the labour market is strong, allowing for further interest rate cuts down the line. But the pace is expected to be gradual.

The positive cues from the US haven’t carried forward to the Asia Pacific region, where two of the three early risers have started in the red.

Back home, the benchmark indices were rangebound yesterday and ended with narrow cuts. But interestingly, overseas investors remained net buyers for a second consecutive day, while domestic institutions remained net sellers. It’s an important point to note, because foreign investors had been net sellers for 38 straight sessions before Tuesday.

Watch out for Vedanta Ltd.—it is set to invest $2 billion to build copper-processing facilities in Saudi Arabia. The firm will build a new smelter and refinery with a capacity of 400,000 metric tons per year, according to a statement on Tuesday. Vedanta also plans to set up a facility to produce as much as 300,000 tons per year of copper rods, a key raw material for electric cables. This is effectively a move to shift the production to Saudi Arabia after the setback the company faced with its facility in Tuticorin.

IT will continue to be a sector to watch in trade today, having been an outperformer both in yesterday’s session and so far this month. IT major Wipro Ltd. has bagged a four-year deal from Marelli, which is the Italian automotive parts manufacturer. The value of the deal is $100 million, according to people in the know. The four-year project extension focuses on cloud transformation and enhanced operational efficiency to drive innovation and reduce time-to-market. Wipro had first struck a software engineering contract with Marelli in 2020.

Meanwhile, Infosys Ltd. will pay 90% variable pay to its employees for the second quarter of the fiscal. This comes after the company beat market expectations in the quarter and raised its full year guidance. Variable pay is a component of an employee's salary that is contingent on the performance of the employee and the company. It is also called performance-linked pay. That the company is paying most of the amount will be considered a positive sign.

Mahindra & Mahindra has unveiled its first pure electric SUVs ahead of mass-market rivals Maruti Suzuki India and Hyundai Motor India. It’s going to be an interesting space to watch, as competition heats up for the current leader Tata Motors.

And finally one more piece of international news—China handed a suspended death sentence to former Bank of China Chairman Liu Liange over bribery, marking heightened scrutiny over the nation’s $66 trillion financial sector. That’s a report by Bloomberg. Liu’s penalty carries a two-year reprieve and all his assets will be seized, state broadcaster China Central Television reported Tuesday. The sentence means he could be spared execution if he behaves during the period.

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