Billionaire Elon Musk threatened tech giant Microsoft to take legal action against the American multinational technology corporation over claims that the company “trained illegally using Twitter data”. He made these remarks on his official Twitter handle.

“They trained illegally using Twitter data. Lawsuit time,” Elon Musk tweeted.

This came after Microsoft announced that it would drop Twitter from its advertising platform as they refuse to pay the microblogging site’s API fees.

“Microsoft drops Twitter from its advertising platform as they refuse to pay Twitter’s API fees,” Twitter Daily News said in a tweet. (Read More)

The performance of stocks of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies have been mixed in 2023 so far. Bajaj Consumer Care Ltd, Dabur India Ltd and Emami Ltd have seen their shares fall 6-14% so far. On the other hand, Nestle India Ltd and Godrej Consumer Products Ltd (GCPL) have enjoyed gains of 5% and 11%, respectively.

A key factor for the difference in stock returns could be due to the companies’ varied levels of exposure to the rural markets. As the chart shows, Bajaj Consumer, Dabur and Emami derive about 45-50% of their sales from the rural areas. The rural sales split for GCPL and Nestle is at 25-28%. (Read More)

Realty firm Prestige Estates on Wednesday said its sales bookings rose by 25 per cent to a record ₹12,930.9 crore in the last fiscal year on strong housing demand.

In a regulatory filing, the Bengaluru-based firm said, “During the fiscal year FY23, the group registered record-breaking highest sales of ₹12,930.9 crore (up by 25 per cent year-on-year) and highest ever collections of ₹9,805.5 crore (up by 31 per cent y-o-y).”

Sales bookings stood at 15.09 million square feet with an average realization of ₹8,812 per sq ft (up by 17 per cent year-on-year) for apartments/ villas/ commercial sales and average realization of ₹4,124 per square feet (down 2 per cent y-o-y) for plot sales.

The group sold more than 9,600 homes in FY23 spanning over 15 million square feet area.

During the last fiscal, the new launches totalled 26.38 million square feet up by 57 per cent annually. The total completions during the last fiscal year stood at 15.68 million square feet, up by 10 per cent year-on-year. (PTI)

After weak Q4 numbers from Indian IT majors Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Infosys, market participants will keep an eye on HCL Technologies, the third largest IT services company in the country, which is scheduled to release its fourth-quarter earnings today.

Q4 is seasonally a weak quarter due to fewer working days and furlough impact in January. Analysts expect consolidated revenue to remain flat, and net profit to decline by 4.8 per cent sequentially.

Most brokerages are also expecting a sequential decline in constant currency revenue, and margins to contract for the January to March quarter. (Read More)

PVR Pictures Ltd, the film distribution arm of PVR Ltd, posted revenues of nearly ₹200 crore for FY23, on the back of strong box office performances of Drishyam 2, Vikram Vedha and John Wick 4. It is now looking to scale up the business with more independent films across languages, joint managing director Sanjeev Kumar Bijli said.

The firm, which has also produced films, has no plan to go back to production but is looking to ramp up distribution of Indian films, including Hindi and regional movies, as well as English and Japanese television animation, Bijli said. (Read More)

The Indian rupee is expected to consolidate at open against the U.S. dollar on Thursday, after falling below the important near-term support level of 82.20 in the previous session.

The non-deliverable forwards indicate the rupee will open at around 82.20-82.25 to the U.S. dollar compared with 82.2250 on Wednesday.

The rupee declined for the third straight session on Wednesday, bogged down by the cash and hedging dollar demand and higher U.S. yields, according to traders.

“It is sort of a surprise that we have managed to reach the 82.20 level. We were betting on a 81.80 to 82.20 immediate range,” a spot dealer at a private sector bank said.

USD/INR will see a quiet open with traders assessing whether the up move “will stick” and likely to move higher in the afternoon, he said. (Reuters)

HCL Technologies, ICICI Prudential, Cyient, Bodhi Tree Multimedia, and Sterling and Wilson Renewable Energy will be among the stocks in focus as they will be declaring their March quarter earnings today. (Read More)

Apple Inc. plans to double the number of jobs created in India, building on the 100,000 it generated over the past two years through manufacturing and other operations as it reinforced its commitment to Asia’s third-largest economy in discussions with government officials, a person aware of the talks said.

During a meeting with senior government officials on Wednesday, Apple chief executive Tim Cook sought policy predictability, help in developing supplier and component ecosystems, and manpower training as he discussed the company’s business plans in India, the person said, seeking anonymity. (Read More)

Soaring gold prices have prompted Titan Co. Ltd’s jewellery arm Tanishq to reinstate its advanced booking option, allowing buyers to lock in the price of the yellow metal ahead of auspicious occasions such as the Akshaya Tritiya. It is also amplifying its gold-exchange programme and introducing an affordable range of jewellery to woo consumers.

The move is part of a greater push by large retailers to keep the demand momentum intact amid soaring gold prices.

The jewellery chain, which is owned by Tata Group, initiates such strategies whenever the price of gold turns volatile. The advanced booking option typically runs for a short duration, effectively protecting the consumers against any rise in gold prices. (Read More)

UK-based Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) luxury carmaker on Wednesday announced a major investment plan of GBP 15 billion over five years, backed up by a Gigafactory planned by Indian parent company Tata Group in Europe.

JLR Chief Executive Adrian Mardell confirmed plans for the company’s plant in Halewood, north-west England, to become an all-electric production facility as he reaffirmed the firm’s commitment to the Reimagine strategy, which will reposition the luxury car manufacturer as an electric-first company by 2030.

He also revealed that JLR would be the anchor customer of the Tata Group’s proposed Gigafactory, an announcement related to which he said is “hopefully imminent”.

“JLR will not be building a Gigafactory; that is not within our plans. Tata will be building a Gigafactory. We are clear it’s going to be in Europe. A final destination hasn’t yet been chosen,” Mardell told reporters at a media event in Gaydon, the company’s base in the West Midlands region of England. (PTI)

As the global market drooped in cautious trade on US Fed rate hike, the Indian stock market finished lower for the third day in a row. NSE Nifty lost 41 points and closed at 17,618 while BSE Sensex corrected 159 points and ended at 59,567 levels. The Nifty Bank index went off 111 points and finished at 42,154 levels. The small-cap index ended minorly in the positive even as the advance-decline ratio dipped below 1:1 (at 0.91:1) after almost 3 weeks. (Read More) 

AU Small Finance Bank Limited (SFB) Wednesday said it has received permission from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to act as an authorised dealer to deal in foreign exchange.

AU Small Finance Bank in a regulatory filing said the Reserve Bank vide its letter dated April 19, 2023, has granted a licence to act as Authorized Dealer Category-I (AD-I) under section 10 of FEMA, 1999 to deal in foreign exchange.

The company will be able to deal in foreign exchange subject to compliance with applicable regulations. (Read More)

Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Limited, one of India’s leading port and logistics companies, on Wednesday, said, the company’s board will hold a meeting on 22 April to consider a partial buyback of its certain debt securities effective this financial year, subject to market conditions.

Adani group’s total debt stands at around Rs.2.27 trillion as on 31 March.

According to a statement released by the company, the buyback will involve debt securities denominated in either Indian rupees or US dollars. The exact amount and terms of the proposed buyback has not been disclosed by Adani Ports. (Read More)

Bitcoin dropped back below the closely watched $30,000 level amid a wider retreat in cryptocurrencies, as stubbornly high UK inflation fanned fears of higher-for-longer interest rates.

The largest digital token fell as much as 4.5% before paring some of the slide to trade at about $29,276 as of 3:05 p.m. in New York on Wednesday. Bitcoin has traded on either side of the benchmark number after reaching that level last week for the first time since June.

Ether shed 5.6% and smaller tokens like Solana and Avalanche suffered steeper declines. Crypto-related stocks such as Coinbase Global, Marathon Digital and MicroStrategy also slumped.

The bulk of the decline came after UK consumer-price data on Wednesday showed inflation remained above 10% in March, adding to recent signs that central banks will have to keep lifting borrowing costs. That’s giving traders pause after Bitcoin surged about 80% this year, a rally driven in large part by speculation that rate cuts were imminent. (Read More)

Wall Street barely budged again on Wednesday following another set of mixed earnings reports from big U.S. companies.

The S&P 500 inched down by 0.35 points, or less than 0.1%, to 4,154.42. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 79.62, or 0.2%, to 33,897.01, and the Nasdaq composite edged up by 3.81 points, or less than 0.1%, to 12,157.23.

Tesla weighed heavily on the market after the electric-vehicle company cut prices for its two top-selling models, its fourth price cut in the U.S. this year. That could be a signal Tesla is trying to spur sales amid shifting U.S. tax credits for electric vehicles. Tesla fell 2% before releasing its latest earnings report after trading closed.

Netflix slumped 3.2% after reporting weaker revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected, though its profit topped forecasts.

Elevance Health dropped 5.3% despite reporting stronger profit and revenue than expected. The health insurer gave a forecast for earnings this year that fell short of some analysts’ expectations.

So far, most companies have been beating profit forecasts to clear a bar that was set particularly low. Analysts came into this reporting season forecasting the sharpest drop S&P 500 earnings since the pandemic torpedoed the global economy in 2020. Profits are under pressure because inflation is high, interest rates are much higher than a year ago and portions of the economy are slowing. (AP)