Top headlines: India's exports shrink, Q2 profits down, PM at G20, and more

Business Standard brings you the top headlines this hour

India's exports contract for first time in 2 years; imports moderate

India’s merchandise exports contracted for the first time in two years, in October, as slowing external demand amid recession fears in the West started impacting shipments from the country, further exacerbated by a higher number of holidays during the festival month.

The exports declined 16.65 per cent in October to $29.78 billion, the data released by the commerce department showed on Tuesday. Imports, on the other hand, moderated to the lowest level in eight months, growing at 5.7 per cent to $56.69 billion last month. This resulted in a trade deficit of $26.91 billion, which remained above the $25-billion mark for a fifth straight month, according to the data. Read more...

Q2 earnings: Corporate profits decline, a first in nine quarters

The post-Covid boom in corporate earnings, as expected, seems to have ended, at least for now, as companies saw margins and profits shrink in the July-September quarter (Q2) of FY23, or 2022-23.

Notably, this is the first decline in India Inc’s quarterly earnings since the April-June 2020 quarter, which was impacted due to the outbreak of Covid-19. Read more...

Must not promote restriction on energy supply: PM Modi at Bali meet

Amid the West’s efforts to curb the use of Russian oil and gas globally, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told G20 leaders on Tuesday that restriction on energy supply must not be promoted. Speaking at the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, the PM pointed out that as the world’s fastest-growing major economy, energy security is important to India.

Modi also had interactions with US President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, French President Emmanuel Macron, and several other global leaders on the sidelines of the summit. He met Chinese President Xi Jinping during the welcome dinner. Read more...

Paytm faces another reckoning with lock-in period expiring this week

Paytm, India’s leading digital payments brand, faces another reckoning, a year after it recorded the grisliest initial public offering in India’s history.

This week, the lock-up period for the company’s stock will expire, freeing investors to sell shares that haven’t yet been allowed onto the market. The biggest shareholders in One97 Communications Ltd., Paytm’s parent company, are Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and its fintech affiliate Ant Group Co., as well as Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp. Read more...

Missile that hit Poland 'unlikely' to have been fired from Russia: Biden

US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that it was "unlikely" that a missile that killed two in NATO-ally Poland was fired from Russia, but pledged support for Poland's investigation into what it had called a "Russian-made" missile.

Biden spoke after he convened an "emergency" meeting of the Group of Seven and NATO leaders in Indonesia on Wednesday morning for consultations on the attack that killed two people in the eastern part of Poland near the Ukraine border. Read more...