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Three stocks are on the F&O trade ban list on Thursday viz. Hindustan Copper, Steel Authority of India (SAIL) and Zee Entertainment Enterprises (Zee). SAIL and Zee are the latest entrants. The F&O contracts of any stock enter the ban period when the open interest (OI) on it crosses 95% of the market wide positions limits or MWPL. The ban is reversed only if the open interest falls below 80%.Traders who trade in indices do not encounter a situation of security ban.The MWPL of Hindustan Copper stood at 103% on Wednesday with OI reported by Trendlyne at 32.9 million. It was down by 7.5% from the previous session.Hindustan Copper shares ended at Rs 311.25 on the NSE on Wednesday, up by Rs 2.25 or 0.73% over Tuesday’s closing price. The multibagger stock has been in top form over the past 12 months and has delivered a whopping 217% returns during this period. In comparison, the headline index has given nearly 30% returns in the same period. In FY2024 so far, its returns have been over 14%.The MWPL for SAIL stood at 103.9% on Wednesday with OI reported by Trendlyne at 165.6 million. It was down 2.8% from the previous session.SAIL shares closed at Rs 148.30 on the NSE, up by Rs 0.45 or 0.30%. This stock has delivered returns of 80% over the past 1 year and 19% in 2024, year-to-date.The MWPL for Zee stood at 98.4% on Wednesday with OI reported by Trendlyne at 145.6 million. It was up 3.9% from the previous session.Zee shares ended at Rs 153.60 on the NSE on Wednesday, gaining Rs 0.25 or 0.16%. This counter has seen its price fall by nearly 29% in the last 12 months. In 2024, the decline was more pronounced after its deal with Sony fell off.Indian benchmark indices ended Wednesday in the red maintaining a two-session losing streak dragged by auto and FMCG stocks. While The S&P BSE Sensex settled at 73,876.82, lower by 27.09 points or 0.04%, the broader Nifty closed at 22,434.65, down by 18.65 points or 0.08%.(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of Economic Times)

The CEO of India's Vistara Airlines told employees at a meeting on Wednesday that it will revise crew rosters and may scale back flights to address ongoing disruption due to a sudden shortage of pilots, two people familiar with the discussions said. Vistara, owned by the Tata group and Singapore Airlines , has cancelled more than 125 flights since April 1, one of the sources said, after a number of its pilots went on sick leave at the end of March. Some of those who went on leave were protesting against a downwards revision to pay ahead of a merger with Tata-owned Air India later this year, amid growing fatigue due to a busy schedule, according to two Vistara pilots. However, Vistara CEO Vinod Kannan said the shortage was mainly triggered by many pilots having reached their flight duty time limit, and not just because of the high amount of sick leave, the two sources said. Kannan said the airline will look to take pressure off the pilots and from May onwards there would be "visible results" in rostering. Vistara will also look into scaling back its network but Kannan said that would need to be worked out, one of the sources added. Vistara, which operates more than 300 flights a day, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment out of business hours. In a statement earlier this week, the airline blamed the cancellations on various reasons including availability of crew. It has deployed its Boeing widebody jets on some domestic routes to minimise disruptions. The cancellations and delays forced India's civil aviation ministry to intervene and monitor the situation, while the aviation regulator has sought daily information on flight disruptions.

BENGALURU - The Indian rupee will strengthen only marginally against the U.S. dollar over the coming three months as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) uses its foreign exchange reserves to manage volatility and keep the currency relatively strong, a Reuters poll found. While most emerging market currencies have weakened against the dollar so far this year, the rupee has traded in a tight range of 82.64/$-83.45/$ and is down less than 0.5%. That stability has been largely driven by the RBI's continued intervention in FX markets. Its foreign exchange reserves recently hit a record high of $642.63 billion. "The RBI's two-way FX intervention to keep the rupee stable has capped volatility compared to USD/Asia. The RBI has been building up its foreign currency reserves, whenever possible, which are now at record high," noted Dhiraj Nim, a forex strategist at ANZ. "It believes them, not the exchange rate, to be its first line of defense against external shocks. We expect this trend to continue and the rupee to gain modestly over 2024." The rupee was expected to gain slightly to 83.11/$ in a month and 82.90/$ in three months from Wednesday's rate of 83.43/$, the March 28-April 3 Reuters poll of 46 foreign exchange analysts showed. That outlook has remained largely unchanged for several months and has been unaffected by the greenback's relative strength so far this year. The RBI is expected to keep the repo rate unchanged this week and then cut it in the third quarter. The U.S. Federal Reserve is widely predicted to start reducing U.S. borrowing costs in June. But the risk the Fed may not only cut rates later but also cut fewer times than currently expected is increasing. "The key risk to INR (Indian rupee) trajectory will be a further push back in the Fed's rate-cut cycle beyond June," said Aditi Gupta, an economist at Bank of Baroda. "Growth (in the U.S.) has been holding up, which may lead the Fed to delay its rate-cut cycle, which will make the case for a stronger dollar in the near term." Still, the rupee was forecast to gain nearly 1.1% to 82.50/$ in six months and around 1.7% to 82.00/$ in a year.