Voters in a part of south Texas that is home to Elon Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, will decide Saturday whether to officially turn a small, coastal stretch at the southern tip of the Lone Star State into a city named Starbase. If the measure passes, which seems likely, the newly incorporated city would cover only about 1½ square miles, but it would be a much-needed win for the tech billionaire who has had a bruising past few months. In the first weeks of President Donald Trump’s administration, Musk was a mainstay at the White House, flexing his temporary role as chief of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which oversaw cuts and widespread layoffs across federal agencies. But while DOGE projects helped Musk gain enormous power and influence, his reputation has taken a beating in the process. His outsize role in the Trump administration and his efforts to downsize the federal workforce have made him the target of protests around the country. And his electric car company, Tesla, reported a steep drop in profits last month. But Saturday’s vote is expected to be a sure victory for the controversial billionaire. For one, most of the 283 eligible voters — residents of Cameron County whose homes would fall within the boundaries of the proposed new city — are SpaceX employees or have some connection to the company.

Apple violated a U.S. court order that required the iPhone maker to allow greater competition for app downloads and payment methods in its lucrative App Store and will be referred to federal prosecutors, a federal judge in California ruled on Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland said in an 80-page ruling that Apple failed to comply with her prior injunction order, which was imposed in an antitrust lawsuit brought by “Fortnite” maker Epic Games. “Apple’s continued attempts to interfere with competition will not be tolerated,” Gonzalez Rogers said. She added: “This is an injunction, not a negotiation. There are no do-overs once a party willfully disregards a court order.” Gonzalez Rogers referred Apple and one of its executives, Alex Roman, vice president of finance, to federal prosecutors for a criminal contempt investigation into their conduct in the case. Roman gave testimony about the steps Apple took to comply with her injunction that was “replete with misdirection and outright lies,” the judge wrote. Apple in a statement said “we strongly disagree with the decision. We will comply with the court’s order and we will appeal.” Epic Games Chief Executive Tim Sweeney called the judge’s order a significant win for developers and consumers. “It forces Apple to compete with other payment services rather than blocking them, and this is what we wanted all along,” Sweeney told reporters. Sweeney said Epic Games would aim to bring back Fortnite to the Apple App Store next week. Apple in 2020 had pulled Epic’s account after the company let iPhone users navigate outside Apple’s ecosystem for better payment deals. Epic accused Apple of stifling competition for app downloads and overcharging commissions for in-app purchases.

Saurabh Mukherjea says that the current cyclical downturn has probably been sharper than anticipated. Here are details of his top bets, key markets and important levels to watch. The markets have been rather muted in the past few sessions but the worst may not be over yet. That’s what Saurabh Mukherjea, Founder & CIO, Marcellus warns investors about. According to him, we are only halfway through busting the midcap bubble and expects another 30-40% correction in small and midcaps. He highlighted that household debt in India is at an all-time high and investors need to diversify investments, especially in US. In an exclusive conversation with FinancialExpress.com, Mukherjea highlighted the top sectors to bet on at the moment and his big ‘Avoids’. How are you reading the markets currently? Basically just before the elections, the economy started softening, and therefore in our small and midcap portfolios, we started moving into cash from August last year. We’ve kept increasing the cash allocations. Even today we have 30% of our small and midcap portfolios in cash and the corporate earnings slowdown has continued. I think the fourth quarter will probably be the weakest quarter of corporate earnings growth in India. If you leave aside Lehman and Covid-19, I think you probably have to go back 25 years to see something like what we’ll see in the fourth quarter earnings. How do you see tariff impacting markets over the medium term? I think the worst of the Trump tariff is behind us. Most countries including Japan, Europe and India are likely to strike a deal with America. Even with China, on tech and mobile and semiconductor related stuff, America doesn’t seem to be keen to pick a fight and therefore you’re only left with one small piece or relatively small piece which is China non-tech. All trade partners will try to give America something, so that the President can claim victory vis-à-vis his domestic constituency, the people who voted him in, and beyond that, I think trade and business will resume relatively normally by the end of the summer. What exactly will be the impact for the stock markets in the near term or over the long-term? We are invested around the world. We are strongly urging our clients to allocate more to our global portfolio because we think European and American small and midcaps are significantly undervalued and look very attractive. They are trading at a 30-40% discount to the Nifty 50 with far better earnings growth. Our reading is that they’re inexpensive, earnings prospects are reasonably undiminished in spite of Trump’s rhetoric. Back home, we are very worried about the small and midcaps. We have 30% in cash in our midcap portfolio. We think Indian midcaps still have plenty of room to run in terms of correction. I think a 30-40% correction is long overdue in midcaps. I wouldn’t advise anybody to accumulate small and midcaps at these valuations. Indian large caps seem reasonably valued. They might be 10% overvalued, but I don’t think they have a massive overvaluation issue. I think large caps will fall a bit further but I am not expecting a big correction in large caps. But small and midcaps on the other hand is where there is a massive bubble. We are halfway through busting the small and midcap bubble. What are your top three ideas for investors in the market, in the current market conditions? I think global diversification is a must. The S&P 500 has delivered better returns with lower volatility and is available cheaper right now than the Nifty, so it makes sense to diversify. In addition, most brokerages now make it very easy for Indians to access global equities through their broking apps. India and America have the lowest correlation amongst the world’s big markets. Secondly, if you are utterly insistent that you want to invest only in India and nowhere else, then within India, diversify across asset classes. Have precious metals, liquid funds and FDs alongside stocks. Thirdly,within equities go towards those sectors which are similar to holding cash today, such as FMCG, such as IT. That will reduce your risk of getting portfolio pounded in what looks to be a fairly deep economic cyclical downturn. Why is this cyclical slowdown turning out to be so dramatic? I think the cyclical downturn has probably been sharper than even I had anticipated. Consumption and Capex are basically the main engines of the Indian economy and they are muted, and I think that’s driving the intensity of the slowdown. Household debt, especially for the middle-class, debt is at an all-time high. If you leave aside home loans, we’re amongst the most indebted nations in the world and obviously with that high level of debt, it’s difficult now for households to incrementally drive consumption. The second is all kind of capex-private and public – now has throttled off. Private Capex has been modest for many years, but government Capex has tailed-off sharply in FY24. The last two months of FY25 suggests that even FY26 would be weak from a government Capex perspective. I think in another year we will be seeing tangible signs of a recovery, but for that to come through, we need heavy rate cuts from the RBI. My reckoning is we need another 150 bps of rate cuts from the RBI. What are the hardest lessons that you have learnt as a fund manager? In the five years ending December 2021, we beat the market by 7 percentage points. By December 21, we thought we were walking on water and that our style of investing in great companies was a great way to invest. But 2022 and 2023 taught us a lesson. Specifically, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the inflation which followed thereafter, and the 500 bps rate hike by the US Fed in 12-13 months led to a massive pullback in expensive stocks around the world. In India, we got hit in those 15 months ending in the summer of 2023. The value of the portfolios we manage fell by about 15%. In response, in the second half of 2023, we changed the tools and analytics we used to invest and that’s brought about handsome results for us over the last 12 months. As a result, our midcap fund has beaten the market by 5 percentage points over the last 12 months. Our small cap product has held its value over the past 12 months in stark contrast to most other Smallcap portfolios. Our global compounders product has beaten its benchmark (the S&P500) by 2 percentage points over the past 12 months. Our Quant product has beaten the benchmark over the 12 months by 7 percentage points. So, the valuation discipline that we injected into our investment process in the second half of 23 has worked nicely for us. I find it interesting that the mistakes that we made in 2021 are the same mistakes we avoided in 2024. In 2025, I can sit and talk about it comfortably. What are the top sectors that you’re betting on? If you take IT services right, like the big IT services companies haven’t done much in terms of stock price over the last 2-3 years, but given where the Western economic cycle is today and given where the valuations of the IT services companies are, we are fairly comfortable holding some of the larger IT services names. Similarly, the FMCG companies haven’t done much over the last three years, but given where the economy is today, we are fairly comfortable holding on to the FMCG names. Similarly, the Agri sector seems to us to be relatively insulated from the economic downturn. The stuff that we regret having is capital goods and industrials. I wish we had a little less of that. Which are the sectors that according to you are a strict avoid at the moment? Well, I would say industrials. I think the extent of the downturn is going to hit investors. I think real estate would be a sector where there will be plenty of pain. The third sector would be low quality private sector lenders. I think they will also get bound in the next 12 months. Several of the smaller banks will really suffer both in terms of asset quality and in their difficulty in raising savings deposits. What books would you recommend for investors at the moment? The book, India Before the Ambanis: A History of Indian Business, Money, and Economy written by Lakshmi Subramaniam is a great read because it gives you a sense of just how vibrantly entrepreneurial we were at the height of the Mughal Raj and in the first 150 years of British rule. Only in the decades prior to the British leaving the country, we started losing our entrepreneurial zeal as the British bounded us, and then obviously after 1947, we became a socialist country. So, it almost feels like the last 15-20 years, we’ve really discovered our entrepreneurial zeal that we’ve always had in our blood. I’m also reading Capitalism in America by Alan Greenspan, and I think Adrian Wooldridge. Alan Greenspan obviously is the famous former US Fed Chief and Woolridge a columnist and author. The reason I’m reading that is, I wanted to understand whether there are historical antecedents to what Trump is doing. Every 40-50 years America tends to get a President who comes to power convincing the public that if they thrash the foreigners, life will be much better. Both interesting reads and about the world’s 2 best performing stock markets and also the world’s two largest free market democracies, and I don’t think that’s an accident.

SEBI on Opinion Trading Platforms today, April 30: SEBI warns against 'Opinion Trading Platforms'; avoid illegal schemes misusing trading terms. Stay informed to protect investments! The markets regulator has cautioned people to stay away from ‘Opinion Trading Platforms’ where these platforms, in the guise of opinion, are trading securities similar to those of registered investment platforms and are illegal. They are using similar terminologies like profit, loss, stop loss, trading, and many others to make them sound similar to registered investment platforms. The market’s watchdog said that investors indulging in either way will not be provided investor protection mechanism under the securities market purview. “In view of the above, investors are advised to note that, in general, opinion trading does not fall within the regulatory purview of SEBI, as what is traded is not a security,” said the press release. The platforms providing opinion trading can not qualify to be recognised as a stock exchange and are neither registered nor regulated by SEBI. So, any trading of securities (in case some of the opinions traded qualify as securities) taking place on these platforms is illegal. Such platforms will be liable to face action for violation. SEBI advised the recognised stock exchanges to initiate appropriate action for such violations.

An English court on Wednesday approved the extradition of an Israeli man charged by New York prosecutors with running a “hacking-for-hire” operation that targeted environmental groups. Prosecutors say that companies run by the man, Amit Forlit, 57, earned at least $16 million by hacking more than 100 victims and stealing confidential information on behalf of a lobbying firm working for a major oil company. Lawyers for Mr. Forlit identified the company as ExxonMobil in a January court filing. Exxon has been sued by Democratic attorneys general and other local officials over its role in climate change. The lawsuits claim the company covered up what it knew about climate change for decades to continue selling oil. The lobbying firm was identified in the filing as DCI Group. An Exxon statement said the company had not been involved in and was not aware of any hacking. “If there was any hacking involved, we condemn it in the strongest possible terms,” the statement said. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT A spokesman for DCI, Craig Stevens, said the firm instructs employees and consultants to comply with the law and that no one at DCI had directed or was involved “in any hacking alleged to have occurred a decade ago.” DCI also said that “radical anti-oil activists and their billionaire donors, many of whom still sleep on beds paid for by their family’s fossil-energy legacy trust funds, peddle conspiracy theories” about the firm. That was an apparent reference to the role of the Rockefeller family in supporting organizations advocating for climate-change litigation. Heirs of John D. Rockefeller, who made his fortune in oil more than a century ago, today lead a foundation, the Rockefeller Family Fund, that plays a key role in the movement to sue oil companies over climate change. Lee Wasserman, its director, has said he was targeted by the hacking campaign. Mr. Forlit was arrested in London last year following a grand jury indictment in New York on charges of wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit computer hacking, which could carry a lengthy sentence. His lawyers had argued that he should not be extradited because he would not receive a fair trial in the United States because of the political firestorm over climate change litigation. They argued that “one of the reasons underpinning the prosecution is to advance the politically motivated cause of pursuing ExxonMobil, with Mr. Forlit a form of collateral damage.” His lawyers also argued that Mr. Forlit would be in danger at the Metropolitan Detention Center, the only federal jail in New York, which has been plagued by violence and dysfunction. High-profile defendants recently held there have included Luigi Mangione, Sam Bankman-Fried and Sean Combs, also known as Puff Daddy and Diddy. The Westminster Magistrates’ Court rejected those concerns. Mr. Forlit can appeal the decision. His lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. One of the groups targeted was the Union of Concerned Scientists, which has long researched the fossil fuel industry’s role in what it calls climate science disinformation. The group also does source-attribution science, the practice of using data to estimate the contributions made by specific corporations to the effects of global warming, like sea level rise or wildfires. Its work has been cited in lawsuits against the oil industry. The organization learned of the hacking from a 2020 report by Citizen Lab, a cybersecurity watchdog group at the University of Toronto, according to Kathy Mulvey of the Union of Concerned Scientists. The report found that hackers had targeted American nonprofit groups working on a campaign called #ExxonKnew, which argued that the company had hidden information about climate change. Numerous Union of Concerned Scientists employees received suspicious emails in which hackers tried to trick them into giving up passwords or installing malicious software. Prosecutors with the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York began an investigation. One associate of Mr. Forlit, Aviram Azari, pleaded guilty in New York in 2023 to crimes including computer intrusion, wire fraud and identity theft and was sentenced to six years in prison. Mr. Forlit ran three security and intelligence-gathering firms, two registered in Israel and one in the United States, that hired people to hack into email accounts and devices, the filing said. His clients included a Washington lobbying firm working on behalf of “one of the world’s largest oil and gas corporations, centered in Irving, Texas, in relation to ongoing climate change litigation being brought against it.” Exxon was previously headquartered in Irving. The lobbying firm identified targets to Mr. Forlit, then he or another person gave a list to Mr. Azari, who owned another Israel-based firm and hired people in India to illegally access the accounts, the filing said. Those details were used to obtain documents that were given to the oil company and the media “to undermine the integrity of the civil investigations,” the filing said.

Explore Motilal Oswal's top Buy picks: Indraprastha Gas, UltraTech Cement, and Cholamandalam Investment. Discover investment insights now! The markets are flat in today’s trade but there is never any dearth of value buys in the market. The well-know domestic brokerage house Motilal Oswal has published a list of its top Buy recommendations at this hour. It has selected Indraprastha Gas, UltraTech Cement, and Cholamandalam Investment & Finance as the top three picks. Here are the details and investment rationale for choosing these three stocks. Motilal Oswal on Indraprastha Gas The broker upgraded the rating on Indraprastha Gas to ‘Buy from ‘Neutral’, considering primarily three factors. The first one is the EBITDA margin bottoming out, and the margin may be driven by the recent CNG price hike of Rs 1/Rs 3, which it took on April 07, 2025. Plus, raw material costs have declined in Q1FY26, such as lower crude oil and Henry Hub index prices. Secondly, the broker has taken a conservative approach regarding earnings assumptions. Although the a strong growth in new geographical areas, which has grown at over 30% year-on-year is upside for it, and the majority of the areas are now reaching EBITDA positive levels. Thirdly, Motilal Oswal found the valuation attractive. The stock is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.9 times for FY26. Motilal Oswal on UltraTech Cements Motilal Oswal retained its ‘Buy’ call on the stock with a target price of Rs 13,900 on the back of in line Q4 earnings. The company’s EBITDA increased 12% YoY to Rs 4,620 crore, while EBITDA/t declined 4% YoY to Rs 1,126, which the broker estimated at Rs 1,104. Operation margin was flat on year at 20%. UltraTech Cement’s volumes of 6% YoY on a like-for-like basis were ahead of industry volumes of 4% in Q4FY25. Its grey cement capacity utilisation was at 89% in Q4FY25 and 78% in FY25. “The company remains focused on capitalising on the infrastructure-led demand recovery, while the recent price increases and cost-saving initiatives drive improvement in profitability,” said Motilal Oswal in a research note. Motilal Oswal on Cholamandalam Investment and Finance The brokerage firm retained its Buy rating on the stock with a target price of Rs 1,770 on the back of healthy assets under management (AUM) growth. Plus, it has launched a gold loan business. The company’s AU grew 27% YoY and 6% sequentially to Rs 1.85 lakh crore, with newer businesses now forming 13% of the AUM mix. Its total loan disbursements in Q4FY25 grew 7% YoY and 2% QoQ to Rs 26,400 crore. However, Motilal noted that the company will have to utilise its levers on NIM (and fee income) to offset the impact of moderation in AUM growth and elevated opex/credit costs.

The Sensex surged 1,005.84 points, driven by strong performances from Reliance Industries (RIL) and major banks. FPIs continued buying, boosting investor sentiment. Despite geopolitical concerns, the market rallied, recovering losses and adding Rs 4.53 lakh crore in investor wealth. After ending the previous week on a low note due to rising tensions between India and Pakistan and some profit-booking, benchmark indices rebounded on Monday, driven by a rally in Reliance Industries (RIL) and banking stocks. The Sensex soared 1,005.84 points, or 1.27%, to close at 80,218.37 and recouped losses of 1.13% made in the last two trading sessions. The Nifty rose 289.15 points, or 1.20%, to close at 24,328.50. The benchmark indices also emerged as the top performers in the Asian markets. “Markets started the week on a strong note and gained over a percentage, driven by favourable cues. The absence of any major geopolitical developments between India and Pakistan over the weekend, along with stability in global markets, eased pressure and triggered an upbeat start,” said Ajit Mishra, SVP, research at Religare Broking. Vinod Nair, head of research at Geojit Financial Services, said the sustained buying by foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) and robust results by Reliance Industries (RIL) boosted investor sentiment. He added that a weakening dollar and inflationary pressures in the US may attract FPIs into the domestic market. Nair, however, advised investors to exercise caution in the near term as the market is yet to fully discount the potential impact of retaliation for the Pahalgam terror attack. Both FPIs and domestic institutional investors (DIIs) were net buyers for the second consecutive trading session. While FPIs purchased shares worth Rs 2,474.10 crore, DIIs chipped in with net purchases of Rs 2,817.64 crore, respectively, according to provisional data by the BSE. Over the past nine consecutive sessions, FPIs have been net buyers, purchasing shares worth $4.2 billion (Rs 35,764 crore). Shares of RIL rallied 5.27% — the best single-day gain in 10 months (since June 3, 2024) — hitting a six-month high of Rs 1,368.50 on strong earnings for the January-March quarter. RIL was the top gainer among Nifty shares, alone contributing nearly 400 points, or 40% of the Sensex’s 1,000-point gain. Its market capitalisation surged by Rs 92,629 crore to Rs 18.52 lakh crore. Besides RIL, four major banks — ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, SBI, and HDFC Bank — also contributed around 335 points, accounting for roughly one-third of the Sensex’s gains. Among broader indices, the BSE Midcap index outperformed the benchmarks with a 1.34% gain, while the BSE Smallcap index underperformed, rising only 0.39%. The market breadth was neutral, with 1,958 gainers against 2,038 losers on the BSE. Investor wealth increased by Rs 4.53 lakh crore to Rs 426.12 lakh crore ($5 trillion), recovering more than half of Friday’s losses. Barring IT, all other sectoral indices on the BSE and the NSE ended in the green. Energy, oil & gas, capital goods, auto, PSU banks, and healthcare were the top gainers, rising up to 3.02%.

Another rift has opened between the U.S. oil and gas industry and President Trump, this time over new rules designed to encourage domestic shipbuilding and undermine China’s maritime power. This month, the Trump administration issued rules that require at least 1 percent of the natural gas shipped overseas to be carried on U.S.-built tankers in 2029. The United States is the top global exporter of liquefied natural gas — gas that has been chilled until it becomes a liquid so that it can be transported in large quantities. But it does not build any of the specialized ships that are used to send that fuel abroad. In a letter to the administration last week, the American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. oil and gas industry’s main trade association, said the industry could not comply with that rule and urged officials to reconsider it. The requirement “risks counteracting the significant progress the Trump administration has made toward reducing uncertainty and unleashing U.S. L.N.G.,” the trade group said in the letter, which was addressed to Chris Wright, the energy secretary, and Doug Burgum, the interior secretary. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT The maritime rules are the latest source of tension between oil and gas executives — many of whom contributed to Mr. Trump’s campaign — and the administration. The industry is aligned with Mr. Trump on an array of key priorities, including exporting more L.N.G. But when it comes to trade, oil and gas companies generally favor more open arrangements, in contrast to Mr. Trump’s protectionist agenda. His policies have also weakened economic confidence, causing oil prices to fall. Many companies that produce natural gas are also in the oil business. Oil now sells for about $62 a barrel in the United States, compared with $78 just before Mr. Trump took office. Natural gas prices have also fallen, but remain well above what they were a year ago. Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary, suggested on Monday that there was room to further negotiate the shipping rules. “We should hear what oil and gas has as their concerns, listen to them, but find a pathway forward where we can build ships in America to send great American energy around the world,” Mr. Duffy said during a visit to the Hanwha Philly Shipyard in Philadelphia when asked about the industry’s concerns. Hanwha Systems, a South Korean defense technology company, and Hanwha Ocean, a South Korean shipbuilder, bought the Philadelphia shipyard last year and plan to modernize it. Hanwha Ocean has delivered 200 L.N.G. carriers from its shipyards in South Korea. Such vessels are primarily built in that country, Japan and China. J. Elizabeth Peace, an Interior Department spokeswoman, declined to comment on the trade group’s letter, which was reported earlier by The Financial Times. The American Petroleum Institute praised other actions by the Trump administration, including those aimed at enabling more L.N.G. to be exported. “On balance, we have made significant progress toward ensuring that we have long-term American energy dominance going forward,” Amanda Eversole, the group’s chief advocacy officer, said on Monday. In addition to requiring the use of U.S.-built L.N.G. ships, the new rules impose fees on Chinese-owned and Chinese-built vessels. The rules originated from a petition requesting a federal investigation into Chinese shipbuilding filed during the Biden administration by labor unions. Shortly before Mr. Trump took office, the Biden administration said its investigation had found that China had used unfair trade practices like subsidies to become dominant in shipbuilding. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT The Office of the United States Trade Representative, the agency behind the new rules, softened an earlier proposal after pushback from many industries and trade groups, including the American Petroleum Institute. But the energy group said the latest version of the rules — which require that 1 percent of L.N.G. exports be carried on U.S.-built vessels in 2029, rising to 15 percent in 2047 — was still too demanding. The industry association estimated that five U.S.-built L.N.G. tankers would be needed in 2029 and said building them was “not feasible,” citing a lack of shipyard capacity and skilled workers, among other concerns. But the rules appear to include a way for companies to delay the use of U.S.-built L.N.G. transporters for three years if they have ordered and taken delivery of a U.S.-built vessel in that time.

Market regulator SEBI has barred Patel Wealth Advisors from using its proprietary account for trading, alleging involvement in 621 instances of "spoofing" — a manipulative trading practice. Four current and former directors have also been restricted from trading, and SEBI has ordered the seizure of Rs 3.22 crore in unlawful gains. Market regulator Sebi on Monday prohibited stock broker Patel Wealth Advisors from trading in securities using its proprietary account for allegedly involving in ‘spoofing’ activity. Additionally, the regulator has restrained four directors (present and former) of the broker from buying, selling, or dealing in any securities, directly or indirectly, according to an interim order. Also, Sebi has directed the impounding of Rs 3.22 crore in unlawful gains earned from them. Sebi will be undertaking a detailed investigation into the matter.In its interim order, Sebi noted that PWAPL, a registered stock broker, undertook spoofing activity multiple times on several days resulting in 621 unique spoofing instances. The present matter involves 173 scrips across 292 scrip-days and resulted in unlawful gains of around Rs 3.22 crore.Order spoofing refers to a type of manipulative trading activity which involves placing bid or ask orders, with the intent of cancelling the said orders before execution while simultaneously executing trades on the opposite side of the book. Going by the order, PWAPL allegedly placed multiple fully disclosed buy/ sell orders in various scrips with large quantities at prices significantly below/ above the prevailing market price, without intention of execution. These substantial pending orders allegedly created a false impression of increased demand/ supply in the scrips, thereby misleading the investors at large and affecting the price in the scrip. Further, while its large orders were pending in the order books of various scrips, PWAPL, allegedly within a short timeframe, transacted on the opposite side in the market and earned wrongful gains. Once PWAPL allegedly executed its order on the opposite side of the book, a substantial part of the orders placed on the spoofing side were cancelled.”The order spoofing is a manipulative, fraudulent and unfair trade practice employed by PWAPL to deceive other market participants and profit from price fluctuation they induced unwary investors in the market. This practise distorted market prices and undermined market efficiency,” Sebi said in its order. Accordingly, the regulator has prohibited Patel Wealth Advisors “from buying, selling or otherwise dealing in securities, directly or indirectly, in its proprietary account”.The order came after the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) had conducted an examination into the trading activities of Patel Wealth Advisors Private Limited (PWAPL) for the period of January 1, 2022 to January 31, 2025.

The Trump administration announced a flurry of measures to target PFAS contamination, but it stayed mum on whether it intends to uphold a Biden-era rule requiring utilities to remove the “forever chemicals” from the tap water of hundreds of millions of Americans. “I have long been concerned about PFAS and the efforts to help states and communities dealing with legacy contamination in their backyards,” said Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, in a statement. “This is just a start of the work we will do on PFAS to ensure Americans have the cleanest air, land, and water.” PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of chemicals linked to cancer and other diseases and are used widely in everyday products such as waterproof clothing and paper straws. The chemicals, which don’t break down easily in the environment, are also present in drinking water nationwide. According to the latest data from the E.P.A., as many as 158 million Americans have PFAS in their water. Last year, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. set the first limits on PFAS in drinking water. The rules effectively require municipal water systems to remove certain kinds of PFAS. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT But water utilities and chemical-industry groups filed suit saying the drinking water standards would be too costly. The Trump administration faces a May 12 deadline to decide whether to continue to defend the standards in court. On Monday, the E.P.A. announced measures to tackle PFAS contamination, including designating an official to lead the agency’s efforts on the chemicals, creating guidelines for how much PFAS factories could release in their wastewater, and engaging with Congress to come up with ways to hold polluters responsible. The E.P.A. also said it would determine a path forward to address PFAS contamination of fertilizer made from sewage sludge. Concerns have been growing over widespread contamination of American farmland from sludge fertilizer, also known as biosolids, containing dangerous levels of PFAS. Environmental groups said the E.P.A.’s plans lacked specifics, including whether the agency intended to defend the Biden-era drinking water standards in court. Among the only hints on what the Trump administration might do was a mention of the need to address “compliance challenges.” The Trump administration also faces a court deadline next month on whether it will continue to defend the designation of two types of PFAS as hazardous chemicals that must be cleaned up by polluters under the nation’s Superfund law, a measure also enacted by President Biden. “The key things that we actually want a direct answer on, they completely punt,” said Erik D. Olson, a senior strategist on drinking water and health at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. The E.P.A. also said that it will rely on science, Mr. Olson said, but does not mention that the agency plans to eliminate its scientific research arm and cut the overall agency budget by 65 percent. “On one hand, the E.P.A. says it’s going to do all this new work. But it’s also going to slash the budget and eliminate the scientists that would be responsible for doing the work,” he said. “I don’t see how this adds up.” The E.P.A. has also been cutting research grants to scientists studying how to prevent PFAS from accumulating in crops and the food chain. In a statement, an E.P.A. official said the agency was in the process of reviewing the Biden administration’s drinking water standards. The agency official did not comment on how the E.P.A. would proceed with the Superfund policy. Industry groups suing the agency over PFAS, including the American Water Works Association and National Association of Manufacturers, did not provide immediate comment. James L. Ferraro, an environmental attorney who represents several water utilities, said E.P.A.’s announcement “signals that the agency is mindful of the cost burdens PFAS regulations may impose, not just on industry, but also on public water systems.” Still the new measures felt “very preliminary,” he said. “We’ll see how this unfolds.” The E.P.A.’s announcement of steps to tackle PFAS comes as the administration is pursuing a broad effort to roll back the nation’s climate and environmental regulations. Still, polls have consistently shown that, compared to policies to tackle climate change, protecting clean water is popular regardless of politics. Even the White House has raised the alarm on PFAS, albeit in action against paper straws, saying that “scientists and regulators have had substantial concerns about PFAS chemicals for decades.”