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Mumbai: Overseas investors were buyers of Indian equities worth ₹17,932 crore across 15 sectors between April 1 and 15, as per National Securities Depository Ltd (NSDL) data.Power sector received the highest inflow from foreign investors, who bought shares worth ₹5,143 crore after buying ₹45 crore in March. In 2023, the sector witnessed inflows worth ₹2,477 crore. With the government expected to boost the country's power capabilities as part of its ambition to make India into a manufacturing hub, the focus is on the companies that will benefit from the revival of the sector. Foreign portfolio investors continued to pump money into the financial shares with the sector receiving ₹3,212 crore inflows in the first half of the month. The sector received inflows of over ₹52,000 crore last year. 109546023Consumer services, automobiles and telecommunications also received foreign inflows worth over ₹1,500 crore each in the first 15 days of April. Overseas investors bought shares worth ₹1,228 crore in the capital goods sector, after infusing funds worth ₹3,789 crore in March. The sector had previously received strong inflows worth over ₹40,000 crore last year.Foreign investors offloaded shares worth ₹12,525 crore across eight sectors in the first half of April. IT witnessed the highest selling by foreign investors at ₹4,658 crore after they sold shares worth ₹1,659 crore in the sector in March. The sector saw foreign outflows worth over ₹7,000 crore in 2023.Fast moving consumer goods witnessed a shift in sentiment from foreign investors as they turned net sellers in the sectors worth ₹4,351 crore after buying shares worth ₹6,241 crore in March. Consumer durable and oil & gas sectors also saw foreign selling worth ₹1,624 crore and ₹923 crore, respectively.

Mumbai: The Volatility Index or VIX - stock market's fear gauge - unexpectedly plunged nearly 20% on Tuesday, as strengthening expectations of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance winning by a wide margin in the upcoming general elections further boosted risk-on sentiment in the market. Analysts said an imminent change in the lot size of Nifty derivative contracts from Friday could have also contributed to Tuesday's drop in the VIX - the third-largest fall in a day."The drop in VIX is unprecedented, as previously readings of VIX near 8-9% were seen when markets were making a top. This is showing that traders have become overly positive about the upcoming days."VIX, an index based on Nifty option premiums, is a measure of traders' perception of near-term risks to the market. When traders foresee higher uncertainty, VIX increases and vice-versa. In the past, VIX has tended to spike in the run-up to key events, like elections, when the outcomes tend to be uncertain. Soon after the election outcomes, VIX plunges with the uncertainty out of the way."Usually, option premiums stay highest during the month of polling until the day of the announcement of results," said Srivastava. "Last elections, we saw a movement of about 3% on results day, and a movement of about 7-8% in 2014, but this time the market has eliminated the outlook of a single-day movement and has already priced in and discounted the gains of the election results."109545964The drop in VIX on Tuesday was unprecedented and may be signalling that the market is complacent, said analysts. "This fall (in VIX) ahead of elections is unique because it always moves up before the announcement of the poll results," said Rajesh Palviya, head of technical and derivatives research at Axis Securities. "It also indicates that the market is confident or even overconfident about the outcome of the elections."The Sensex and the Nifty ended 0.1% higher on Tuesday in a choppy session, while the mid-cap and small-cap indices surged over 1% each.The VIX has mostly traded in the band of 11-14 in recent months. It hit a high of 16.7 in February before sliding to current levels. The gauge closed at 10.19 on Tuesday. In the past five years, the highest level that VIX has surged to was 86 in March 2020 - at the start Covid."VIX is trading at the lower range of its price band, which may not sustain as going ahead any uncertainty or event can lead to a pullback," said Palviya.A change in the lot size for Nifty options from the expiry of April contracts on Thursday also added to the fall in VIX."The lot size of Nifty have been cut from 50 to 25 starting the May expiry. This will lead to an increase in liquidity and a reduction of the bid-ask spread of OTM (Out of the Money) call and put options," said Apurva Sheth, head of research at Samco Securities. "The reduction in spreads may have led to a fall in India VIX calculation which considers both the near and next month's OTM option premiums for calculations."Analysts said signs of receding tensions in West Asia is also easing uncertainty. "We saw a fall in India VIX as the tensions related to a war between Iran and Israel have subsided, along with the results of market heavyweights like Infosys, HDFC Bank and RIL already declared, which has reduced volatility," said Ruchit Jain, lead research analyst at 5Paisa.com. "Premiums have declined in both call and put sides, which is beneficial for option sellers but negative for option buyers, as the move in premium has been disproportionate."

NEW DELHI: One of India’s most industrialised states takes a much larger share of funds under the rural employment guarantee scheme than its poorest — and more populous — state, puzzling policymakers as they firm up the work demand target for the current fiscal.Tamil Nadu and Bihar are a study in contrast, admit senior government officials and experts. Over the past five years, Tamil Nadu accounted for 10-15.3% of the country's annual work demand submitted by individuals, under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), while Bihar made up just 4-5.7%, according to the rural development ministry data.As for the person-days generated under the scheme, Tamil Nadu’s annual share has been in the range of 8.6% to 13.1% over the past five years, while Bihar’s remained in the 5-8% range.The expenditure under the scheme was 7.6-12.7% of the national level in Tamil Nadu, against 5-7.5% in Bihar.Southern states like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala have been cornering a larger share of MGNREGS funds than other states with similar population or workforce for some years now despite being more progressive, central and state government officials conceded.Reasons for DisparityBut the disparity between Tamil Nadu and Bihar is the most discernible.“These two states are true outliers in the MGNREGS scheme of things,” one of them told ET.Officials and some experts cite two likely factors for this disparity: a more efficient administrative set-up as well as higher participation of women in MGNREGS work in Tamil Nadu.109541806Another official said more than 80% of active MGNREGS workers in Tamil Nadu are women, while it’s about 54% in Bihar.“This suggests that in Tamil Nadu, the scheme is probably being used to supplement family income in many cases, while in Bihar, it’s primarily being tapped to address rural distress or poverty alleviation,” he said.Suspecting possible fund diversion under the MGNREGS, finance ministry officials had earlier called for plugging leakages, especially at the state level.109541811The contrast becomes all the more pronounced when the gross domestic product and population of both the states are compared. Tamil Nadu accounted for 8.7-9.2% of the country’s nominal GDP annually over the past five years, while Bihar’s remained at just about 3%.According to the 2011 census, Bihar’s population, however, is 44% higher than that of Tamil Nadu, which means its workforce is no smaller than the southern state.

Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) wants to disrupt the dominance of multinationals in the local consumer electronics and home appliances market with a new made-in-India brand Wyzr. The company is finalising production agreements with domestic contract manufacturers Dixon Technologies and Onida parent Mirc Electronics, said two executives aware of the plans. The company wants to set up its own plants in the medium term after the brand gains market share, they said.The retail unit Reliance Retail has just launched Wyzr air coolers and plans to extend the range to categories such as televisions, washing machines, refrigerators, air conditioners, small appliances and LED bulbs, the executives said. The company intends to design and develop the products in-house as it pitches to establish a homegrown brand in a market dominated by foreign labels. It had previously launched private label brand Reconnect, with products built by third parties. Reliance Retail chief financial officer Dinesh Taluja told analysts about the new brand launch during RIL's fourth-quarter earnings call on April 22 without elaborating further. 109541865 Earlier ventures The company wants to sell Wyzr products through its own Reliance Digital stores as well as independent dealers, regional retail chains and e-commerce platforms such as Amazon and Flipkart, said the people cited above. JioMart Digital (JMD), engaged in B2B distribution of electronic products, will take Wyzr to other stores. JMD's merchant base grew 20% in FY24.Wyzr products will be cheaper than those of brands such as LG, Samsung and Whirlpool, which dominate categories such as TVs, refrigerators and washing machines. Tata-owned Voltas is the market leader in ACs but it's closely followed by MNCs such as LG and Daikin."Reliance had earlier disrupted the MNC-dominated feature phone market with its own product, JioPhone. It wants to replicate the success in electronics in a sustained manner, riding on the make-in-India wave," an executive said. In 2022, Reliance acquired a 50.1% share in the Indian entity of US-based manufacturing solution company Sanmina for Rs 1,670 crore to expand into the electronics manufacturing segment. Sanmina has a 100-acre campus in Chennai where it may set up a plant for Wyzr products, an executive said. "But nothing has been finalised and the priority is to launch the products right now," he said. Reliance Retail didn't respond to queries. Mirc Electronics managing director Vijay Mansukhani declined to comment, while an email sent to Dixon was unanswered. Reliance Retail had earlier tried to sell televisions and some appliances under its brand Reconnect but saw limited success since these were designed and manufactured by partners. They were sold only through Reliance Digital stores without any marketing push and were meant to compete with the Future Group's private label Koryo and products sold by the Tata-owned Croma retail chain under that name. Reliance Retail still uses the Reconnect brand for accessories. It acquired the licence for BPL and Kelvinator brands a few years back and launched a few TV, refrigerator and washing machine models without gaining any significant market share. These products were designed and manufactured locally by companies such as Dixon, Mirc and PG Electroplast while some were imported from China and Indonesia, produced by TCL, Midea and Toshiba."Reliance management felt that it needed its own brand where it can firmly control the product design and manufacturing to win in this market," an executive said. Taluja said during the earnings call that the FMCG business, which completed its first full year of operations, is "scaling up nicely." He said brands like Campa in the beverages space and Independence in the staples segment "had very strong traction and got very strong customer acceptance." Taluja said the company is "building the supply chain for these products so that we have a localised supply chain in different parts of the country and looking to scale up these businesses."

TV broadcast distribution companies are bundling traditional and digital services to arrest subscriber churn with platform-agnostic content consumption and on-demand viewing getting more prevalent, say industry executives.Having lost customers to over-the-top (OTT) platforms, traditional TV distribution platforms are looking at bundled services to retain customers. In 2023, the domestic pay TV industry lost two million customers, according to a Ficci-EY report.Telecom operators Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio have been bundling data and content for several years. Among standalone players, DTH company Tata Play has been bundling linear TV and OTT offerings for subscribers through a single billing.Airtel is offering a combination of direct-to-home (DTH), broadband, and OTT through the Airtel Black plan, while Jio has been providing linear TV and OTT through wired broadband service, JioFiber. In fact, Airtel Black has helped the Bharti Airtel-owned DTH platform, Airtel Digital TV, build customer stickiness. "Today 25% of our DTH acquisitions are happening through the converged plans," Bharti Airtel CEO Gopal Vittal said during the company's Q3 earnings call.Dish TV has also launched an integrated bouquet that offers both linear TV and OTT content to consumers for the same price. The move is part of the company's strategy to stem customer churn and save capex on new customer acquisitions."We felt that there is a need gap in the market to provide a bundled offering to customers who want one subscription for both TV and OTT content," said Dish TV CEO Manoj Dobhal. He added that the initiative will help the DTH company retain subscribers amid increasing churn in the industry.109541777"Our capex will come down if we manage to retain subscribers because of this initiative. It will also help us acquire new customers," Dobhal said. Cable TV operator GTPL Hathway is bundling cable TV services with broadband to retain customers. Both DTH and cable TV service providers are facing 0.5-1% customer churn every month. During its Q4 earnings call, GTPL Hathway chief strategy officer Piyush Pankaj said the company's overarching strategy involves the convergence of both cable TV and broadband services to provide holistic bundles to subscribers. He also added that the company is adding other services such as gaming, OTT, and TV to offer a holistic offering to subscribers."This will not only help improve customer stickiness, thereby reducing the churn but will also help us increase our ARPU and thus improve our margins," Pankaj said.

The government will continue to auction telecom spectrum, and the administrative allocation route will be used sparingly, only in those cases where it is technically not feasible to do so or for areas that are strategic in nature, sources said. The Department of Telecom (DoT) is gearing up to hold the next round of spectrum auction on June 6 for eight spectrum bands (800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1,800 MHz, 2,100 MHz, 2,300 MHz, 2,500 MHz, 3,300 MHz, and 26 GHz) meant for mobile phone services at a base price of about Rs 96,317 crore. The spectrum will be assigned for 20 years and successful bidders will be allowed to make payments in 20 equal annual instalments in the coming mega auction. Sources asserted that the spectrum for mobile services will continue to be given through the auction process. As enacted in the Telecom Act, 2023, only a very limited and narrowly defined cases, including spectrum for walkie-talkie for police organisations, radar for weather forecasting, radar and communication for ships, communication for space and satellite applications, communication and radar for the Army, Air Force and Navy and state-owned telecom corporation like BSNL, airwaves will be given on administrative basis, sources said. Of the total allocations, these amount to a minuscule, just 5-7 per cent of the cases. The government had on Monday moved the Supreme Court seeking a modification of the 2012 order. The modification sought was to allow for administrative allocation in select cases where it is not technically feasible to use the auction route. However, for the majority of the spectrum, the auction will continue to be the mode of allocation. The matter in the Supreme Court is basically an application filed (in the apex court) following the due process before introducing the Telecom Bill in parliament, sources clarified.

The national capital witnessed a sudden change in weather on Tuesday evening, as reported by the India Meteorological Department (IMD). Parts of Delhi are currently experiencing light-intensity rain and strong gusty winds after a period of warm weather.Spicejet also issued a warning for potential flight disruptions due to the sudden change in Delhi's weather on X. In its post it stated, 'Due to bad weather (heavy rain) in Delhi (DEL), all departures/arrivals and their consequential flights may be affected. Passengers are requested to keep a check on their flight status via http://bit.ly/2tG9xBx.'— flyspicejet (@flyspicejet) Rainfall Forecast and Weather PatternsMeteorological phenomena such as cyclonic circulations over northeast Assam and northeast Bangladesh are influencing weather patterns, resulting in widespread light to moderate rainfall/snowfall accompanied by isolated thunderstorms, lightning, and gusty winds over certain regions. Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Sub-Himalayan West Bengal, and Sikkim are among the areas expected to experience these weather conditions in the next few days. Isolated heavy rainfall is also predicted for Arunachal Pradesh and Assam & Meghalaya.— ANI (@ANI) Heat Wave Warning for North IndiaAdditionally, the IMD has issued a heat wave warning for north India. A persistent heat wave is anticipated to continue across east India, with a likelihood of its expansion into additional regions starting from the 24th of April. Earlier this week, maximum temperatures soared within the range of 42-45°C across much of Odisha and Rayalaseema. Similar conditions were observed in some parts of Gangetic West Bengal, Jharkhand, Vidarbha, Chhattisgarh, southwest Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Coastal Andhra Pradesh, and Yanam, where temperatures ranged between 40-42°C.Warnings and OutlookWarnings have been issued for heat waves, warm nights, and hot and humid weather conditions for the next five days. Severe heat wave conditions are expected to prevail in isolated pockets over Gangetic West Bengal, while heat wave conditions will be present in interior Karnataka, Odisha, east and west Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, sub-Himalayan West Bengal, and Jharkhand during specific periods.Temperature OutlookOver the next two days, northwest India is expected to experience minimal changes in maximum temperatures, followed by a gradual rise of 2-4°C thereafter. Similarly, Gujarat is anticipated to see no significant changes in maximum temperatures for the next three days, with an expected rise of 2-4°C thereafter. The rest of the country is likely to maintain stable maximum temperatures without any significant fluctuations.Delhi's sudden change in weather with rainfall in several parts of the city marks a significant shift in the region's weather patterns. As the IMD issues warnings for heat waves and hot weather conditions in various parts of north India, including Delhi, residents are advised to stay updated with the latest weather forecasts and take necessary precautions to stay safe during these weather conditions.

Nifty on Tuesday ended 32 points higher to reclaim its level above 20-DEMA placed at 22,309 and form a small negative candle, which is indicating ongoing range bound movement in the market.The near-term uptrend status of Nifty remains intact and the short-term trend is choppy. Further consolidation or minor dip could be a buying opportunity. A sustainable move above 22,500 could open next upside towards 22,800 levels. Immediate support is at 22,200 levels, said Nagaraj Shetti of HDFC Securities.Analysing the Open Interest (OI) data, the highest OI on the call side was observed at the 22,500 followed by the 22,600 strike prices. Conversely, on the put side, the highest OI was recorded at the 22,100 strike price.What should traders do? Here’s what analysts said:Tejas Shah, JM Financial & BlinkXNifty is facing a lot of resilience around 22,400-500 levels for the past couple of days on an immediate basis. We need to witness a decisive close above 22,400-500 levels for further strength in Nifty or else reversal is likely from this resistance zone. Support for the Nifty is now seen at 22,200 and 21,950-22,000 levels. On the higher side, immediate resistance for Nifty is at 22,350-375 levels and the next crucial resistance is at 22,500 mark. Overall, Nifty is likely to remain volatile within the 22,000 – 22,500 range in the near term.Rupak De, LKP SecuritiesThe Relative Strength Index (RSI) is showing a bullish crossover with a reading below 60. On the higher end, the range of 22350-22400 is likely to act as a resistance zone; a decisive breakout above 22400 might trigger a rally in the market. On the lower end, support is positioned at 22250; a breach below this level might weaken the bullish sentiment.Jatin Gedia, SharekhanOn the daily chart, we can observe that the Nifty is consolidating around the 22400 mark, which coincides with the 61.82% Fibonacci retracement level of the previous fall from 22,776 to 21,777 and also the lower end of the gap area formed on the 15th of April. A brief consolidation is likely considering the sharp run-up and the hourly momentum indicator turning negative suggests that there could be a few range-bound days of price action ahead. On the upside we expect Nifty to target levels of 22,560 from a short-term perspective.(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)