Rise With Profit: US Election Vote Counting, Titan's Q2 Results, Swiggy IPO Opens Today | Podcast

This is the daily morning update from NDTV Profit. Here’s everything you need to know at the start of the day.

If you would like to listen to this as a podcast, click here.

The voting is done in the election that will decide the new leader of the free world. And so far, it’s going according to script. It’s a dead heat battle between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris with states on the east coast of the US starting counting.

The race is predicted to go right down to the wire, so don’t be surprised if the results are not apparent by the end of the day. It could well be decided by a few swing states—Pennsylvania in particular. As things stand, the exit polls have predicted a slight edge to Kamala Harris in some of those swing states, which in turn gives her the edge in the wider race. But exit polls have gone terribly wrong in the past, so don’t count your chickens.

Overnight, US stocks gained, led by tech stocks, with some 'Trump Trades' unwinding. All three benchmarks ended higher by over 1%. There was also a rally in bond yields to close to 4.37%. For context, about a month back, the yields were about 50 basis points lower.

Of course, part of the reason for the spike in bond yields is the reset of expectations on rate cuts in the US. And with the headline event, the crucial meeting of the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee that begins today has flown under the radar somewhat. There’s a consensus expectation of another 25 basis points cut this week, but it is not a given— considering the resilience being displayed by the US economy.

It's a positive start to trade in the Asia Pacific region, with all three early risers comfortably in the green.

Back home, equity markets rose in their best day in seven weeks, led by banking stocks. This, despite another day of selling by foreign institutional investors—they’ve now sold equity worth Rs 1.32 lakh crore on a net basis in 27 consecutive sessions.

The earnings season continues and there are a few updates to give you—Titan Co.'s consolidated net profit declined 23% missing analysts' estimates. Revenue grew 16%, but the operating profit margin contracted by 280 basis points to 8.5%, much below estimates. The contraction is primarily because of the jewellery business because the share of studded jewellery was lower.

Dr Reddy's Laboratories Ltd.'s profit fell in the second quarter of fiscal 2025, missing analysts' estimates. Here, too, there was margin pressure. The margin declined by over 3 percentage points to 25.8%, likely because of price erosion in the US market, which has reduced, but remains at high single digits.

There’s plenty of action in the primary market as well. The Swiggy IPO opens for subscription today. On Tuesday, Swiggy raised Rs 5,085 crore by allocating 13.03 crore shares to high-profile anchor investors, including Fidelity and Blackrock, with sizeable participation from domestic investors. Of the total allocation of 13.03 crore shares, about 5.3 crore shares or 40.65% of the total allocation were allocated to 19 domestic mutual funds.

In other news, the All India Consumer Products Distributors Federation has voiced deep concerns about a troubling trend, where fast-moving consumer goods companies are allegedly utilising quick commerce and e-commerce platforms to offload near-expiry and slow-moving stock. The federation has appealed to the Ministry of Consumer Affairs to enforce stricter regulations that could curb such malpractices.