Corporate earnings for December quarter and the ongoing three-day Reserve Bank of India (RBI)'s monetary policy meeting are likely to have a major influence on the domestic stocks on Wednesday. On the global front, US President Donald Trump's State of the Union address will be closely watched to see if he drops any hints of progress on trade tariffs. The speech begins at 07:30 am today.
This apart, crude oil prices and movement of rupee against the US dollar will also steer the sentiment.
Among top news, The RBI is getting its half-yearly balance sheet audited to determine the amount of interim dividend it can give the central government. Though a concurrent audit of its accounts is done on a quarterly basis, this is the first time a board-level statutory audit of the RBI is being conducted.
The income-tax department has withdrawn the exemption granted to Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, one of the oldest and biggest philanthropic organisations in the country, in a move that could adversely hit the $103-billion salt-to-software Tata group.
Reliance Communications has sought relief from RBI diktat to speed up Reliance Jio deal. Under the circular, 100 per cent of the members of the committee of creditors have to accept the offer of debt resolution.
In a yet another news, The RBI on Tuesday fined three lenders - Axis Bank, UCO Bank and Syndicate Bank for violating various rules set by the central bank.
RESULTS TODAY
Over 125 companies are scheduled to release their December quarter results later in the day. Some of the prominent names include Adani Ports, Adani Power, Cipla Graphite India, Indraprastha Gas, Lupin, JSW Steel, Muthoot Finance and Manappuram Finance.
RUPEE ON TUESDAY
Snapping its two-day losing streak, the rupee ticked higher by 23 paise to close at 71.57 per US dollar Tuesday amid fresh foreign fund inflows and gains in domestic equities.
GLOBAL MARKETS
Asian shares started cautiously on Wednesday as investors waited to see if US President Donald Trump's State of the Union speech. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was flat with China and several other markets in the region still closed for the Lunar New Year holiday. In the overnight trade, US stocks settled higher. The Dow ended Tuesday up 0.68 per cent, while the S&P 500 gained 0.47 per cent and the Nasdaq 0.74 per cent.
OIL MARKETS
Oil prices edged higher in the early trade. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $53.76 per barrel at 5:08 am, up 10 cents, or 0.2 per cent, from their last settlement. International Brent crude oil futures had yet to trade, after closing down 0.8 per cent in the previous session.
Centre seeks around Rs 69,000 crore crore in dividend from RBI in FY20
The government is seeking around Rs 69,000 crore in dividend from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for the 2019-20 fiscal year, about 83 per cent of the combined dividends of Rs 82,911.56 crore that the Centre has budgeted from the RBI, state-owned banks and financial institutions, a senior government official said.
For the Centre’s current fiscal year, the RBI has already paid Rs 40,000 crore in dividend, and the Centre is seeking another Rs 28,000 crore in interim dividend.
Of the additional Rs 28,000 crore in interim dividend sought for this year, around Rs 13,000 crore is a pending demand from 2017-18, which Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Garg has been publicly seeking from the central bank’s contingency reserve fund. That means about Rs 15,000 crore is a fresh request for interim dividend this year. The RBI follows a July-June fiscal year.
Fraud-hit PNB bounces back into black with Rs 246-crore profit in Q3
State-owned Punjab National Bank (PNB) has bounced back into the black in the third quarter of this financial year — for the first time after it was hit by the country’s biggest banking fraud a year ago — on account of a drop in provisioning for bad loans.
PNB posted a net profit of Rs 246 crore in the third quarter of 2018-19, which is 7 per cent higher than the profit of Rs 230 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year. In the second quarter, it had posted a net loss of Rs 4,532 crore.
The bank’s provisioning for non-performing assets (NPAs) stood at Rs 2,566 crore in the third quarter, down from Rs 2,996 crore in the same quarter last year.
 "RBI policy meet, Q3 nos and global cues to steer indices today")
