While many economists are saying the risk of an imminent recession has diminished since China and the United States agreed to lower tariffs earlier this week, JPMorgan Chase’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, is still penciling one in. “I wouldn’t take it off the table at this point,” Dimon said in a Bloomberg TV interview on Thursday at an annual conference the bank hosts in Paris. After the trade breakthrough from weekend talks in Geneva between Trump administration officials and Chinese government officials, JPMorgan economists lowered the risk of the US economy entering a recession to below 50% from 60% previously. Dimon said the agreement the US reached with China, which entailed the US lowering tariffs on most Chinese goods to a minimum of 30% from 145% and China lowering tariffs on most American goods to 10% from 125% for the next three months, was “the right thing to do.” “It obviously calms down the markets. That’s not the reason to do it, but the markets do vote, or something like that,” he said. After the deal was announced on Monday, US stocks surged, with the Dow closing nearly 1,200 points higher on that day. Now the index is just barely in negative territory for the year after it, along with other major indexes, fell sharply last month after President Donald Trump rolled out a slew of higher tariffs. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq, which had entered a bear market on April 4, closed up more than 20% earlier this week from its lowest point this year — exiting its bear market and marking the start of a new bull market. (A rise of 20% from a recent low generally marks a bull market.) The considerable volatility financial markets experienced over the past few months has benefited JPMorgan Chase because it resulted in higher trading volume, Dimon said. But that isn’t always the case when markets see big swings. “This one happened to be good. The next go around may not be so good,” he said. End of American exceptionalism? For decades, investors across the globe have flocked to invest in American financial assets, especially government-backed debt during times of heightened uncertainty because of the perceived stability. But there’s a looming question over whether the “American brand” has been tarnished due to the trade war Trump has picked, which has pushed investors to look abroad to other markets, such as Europe. Dimon challenged the notion that American companies have a leg up over foreign ones. “You do not have a divine right to success,” he said, before naming a slew of American businesses that have failed. “We shouldn’t assume it’s forever,” he said, referring to American exceptionalism. But at the same time, he pushed back at the view that America has lost its luster as a place to invest, saying: “If you were to take all of your money and put it in one country, it would still be America.” Dimon said during the Thursday interview that he does not see Trump regularly but speaks to “all of the folks there.” He also said he believes France’s President Emmanuel Macron “is one of the best political leaders on the planet today.”

Mother’s Day is busy season for American florists. But this year, there’s an added source of stress: President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs, which are raising the prices of some flowers and causing some wary shoppers to pull back on spending. “We have to charge more, and it’s definitely affecting sales — which I totally get,” Allison Krivachek of Hydrangea Bloom in Tiffin, Iowa, told CNN. “People just don’t have the disposable income they used to.” Eighty percent of all cut flowers sold in the United States are imported from Colombia, Canada or Ecuador, according to the US Department of Agriculture. The majority of those flowers come from Colombia and Ecuador, where year-round growing climates support the floral industry. Those countries now face tariffs making it more expensive for their products to enter the United States. And Mother’s Day spending has dropped 14% among US shoppers as many are scaling back due to tariffs and economic concerns, according to a LendingTree survey. America imported approximately $2.26 billion worth of fresh-cut flowers in 2024, with Colombia accounting for 60% of the market and Ecuador following with 25%, according to US Census Bureau data. Debra Prinzing, founder of the Slow Flowers Society and a leading advocate for American-grown flowers, said the US floral industry was built to rely on imports. “Don’t like it, but that’s just the reality,” Prinzing told CNN. “Ridiculously different,” is how Krivachek describes this year’s price hike. Flowers such as lisianthus have doubled in price, Krivachek said, and roses are up anywhere from 10% to 50% compared to last year. She believes the price hikes are higher than what would be reflected in a 10% tariff. “It’s just really weird that there’s been such a jump because the tariffs aren’t that much. And I don’t know if they’re raising their prices because of supply and demand,” she said. As a result, she’s raised the price of her most popular Mother’s Day arrangement from $100 to $125 this year. And despite efforts to be transparent with customers, demand has taken a hit. “We’re down quite a bit,” Krivachek said. “We’re down about 30% year-over-year on this Mother’s Day compared to other Mother’s Days.” Many customers are now buying flowers to craft their own arrangements, according to Krivachek. The Society of American Florists told CNN florists and wholesalers across the country are adapting to the new financial pressures — much like they did during the pandemic and other supply chain disruptions. “While tariffs and cost increases are not welcome developments, the floral industry is remarkably resilient,” the society told CNN in a statement. Florists are ordering products earlier, strengthening relationships with growers and wholesalers and planning further in advance to manage costs, the society said. While Krivachek has felt the pressure, she’s found ways to adjust, such as by sourcing from local flower farmers. “I’m still going to have to import flowers,” she said. “I’m in Iowa, so there’s not a lot of variety, especially with weddings. There’s certain flowers that only you can get from Ecuador and Colombia.”

Bill Gates is calling out fellow tech billionaire Elon Musk over cuts made to US government spending under his watch through the Department of Government Efficiency, saying the gutting of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) would lead to millions of deaths around the world. The warning comes after the Trump administration took steps to dismantle USAID and halt its foreign assistance mission, with Musk bragging about feeding the agency to the “woodchipper.” In the weeks since, many non-profits have grappled with canceled contracts or sporadic payments, although some have since been restored amid warnings from aid organizations about the potentially deadly consequences of cutting the funding. “When Elon went into government, if his thing really was about efficiency or using AI, you know, of course we need to make the government more efficient. If that’s what it had been, then it’s a praiseworthy thing to put his time and expertise (into),” Gates said in an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on Friday. “The fact that it turned into slashing these people, I didn’t expect that and some of that should be put back in place.” Gates added that the world is in a “global health emergency” because of spending cuts to health programs by the US and European governments. The full interview will air on Fareed Zakaria GPS on Sunday at 10 a.m. ET and 1 p.m. ET. The Microsoft cofounder’s comments come after he announced on Thursday plans to give away $200 billion — including “virtually all” of his personal wealth — through the Gates Foundation over the next 20 years before closing the organization, an acceleration of his previous spending plans. The decision was motivated in part, he said, by concerns that progress on improving global health is stagnating or even reversing. “I think if you show up and say, in two months, you can cut $2 trillion out of a $7 trillion budget, you’re not going to succeed,” Gates said. “So you go for the softest things and things that are overseas, that you can mischaracterize… people that he hasn’t spent any time with.” Gates criticized, for example, Musk’s false claim in February that the US government was spending $50 billion on condoms for Gaza, which Musk later admitted was incorrect. He also denounced Musk’s negative characterizations of USAID workers, whom Musk has previously called “radical lunatics” and “anti-American.” Gates called them “heroes.” “Other than the military, these are about as honorable and, you know, they’re the face of America to people who we want to be alive with us, and we want their health systems to be tracking potential pandemics,” Gates said. “Demonizing them is deeply unfair.” The Gates Foundation has spent more than $100 billion since its founding in 2000, partnering with government agencies and other nonprofits globally to tackle major health challenges. The organization’s work has included developing new vaccines, diagnostic tools and treatment delivery mechanisms to fight disease around the world. Gates said that while Musk is “a genius in some domains … in global health, it hasn’t been a focus.” He added: “If it was a modest cut and a challenge to be more efficient… I’m fine with that. But 80%, that’s going to be millions of deaths and it’s a mistake.” The comments followed an interview Gates gave to the Financial Times earlier this week, during which he accused Musk of “killing the world’s poorest children” with the government spending cuts. A representative for Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But it’s not the first time Musk and Gates have feuded over philanthropy. In 2022, Gates visited Musk in an effort to convince the Tesla CEO to increase his giving, but the meeting went sideways and afterwards Musk called Gates an “a-hole,” according to the Musk biography by Walter Isaacson, for which he spoke to both billionaires. In the interview with Zakaria, Gates also raised concerns about other White House actions, including President Donald Trump’s tariff policies. The widespread tariffs threaten to raise costs for US consumers and upend operations for American businesses, just as AI is already expected to shake up the job market and economy. “The big concern I have is we’ve created a lot of uncertainty,” Gates said. “If you’re going to build a new factory, you need to understand the policies for the next 20 years, not just the next two days or even four years.”

Long-delayed next Air Force One jets from Boeing might now be delivered by 2027 — in time for President Donald Trump to use them, according to a top Air Force official. While that’s still years behind the original delivery date of 2022, it’s one to two years earlier than Boeing had most recently predicted. Trump has expressed anger at the delays, and he reportedly had been looking at buying a different jet to use on an interim basis. News of the potential 2027 delivery came Wednesday from Darlene Costello, the Air Force’s acting acquisitions chief, who testified before the House Armed Service Committee about recent negotiations between the Air Force and Boeing. “I would not necessarily guarantee that date, but they are proposing to bring it in ’27, if we can come to agreement on the requirement changes,” Costello said. She was referring to contract requirements that are being loosened to get to that earlier date – such as the Air Force “relieving” Boeing of some of the top-clearance security requirements for workers performing work on the aircraft, which has been blamed for some of the delays. Boeing said it had no comment on Costello’s testimony. Keeping Trump and the Air Force happy is critical for Boeing, which gets 42% of its revenue from US government contracts, according to its most recent filing. Boeing’s $3.9 billion contract to replace the two Air Force One jets has become an expensive and embarrassing albatross. Boeing has reported losses totaling $2.5 billion already on the program, known as VC-25B, since it agreed to be responsible for what has become soaring cost overruns. There are multiple reasons for the delay in delivery. After signing the original contract in 2017, Boeing began refurbishing two 747 jets in February 2020 that it had built for another customer but never delivered because of that customer’s bankruptcy — a process that in hindsight probably was more expensive and time consuming than if it had built from scratch. And the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, which started just weeks after Boeing began refurbishing the planes, caused significant additional delays. Current jets used by six different presidents The two jets now in use, which have the code letters VC-25A and carry the Air Force One designation when the president is on board, have been in service for nearly 35 years, starting during the term of President George H.W. Bush. Replacing the planes has long been a priority for Trump. “I’m not happy with the fact that it’s taken so long,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One in February. “There’s no excuse for it.” He said he wouldn’t turn to Boeing’s European rival Airbus, but would consider buying a used 747 and having a different company refurbish it for use as Air Force One. Soon after those comments Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg told investors that he is “all in” on trying to speed up the delivery and praised suggestions made by Elon Musk, who visited the Texas facility where the work is being done in December on Trump’s behalf. “The president is clearly not happy with the delivery timing,” Ortberg said at that time. “He’s made that well known. Elon Musk is actually helping us a lot in working through the requirements… to try to help us get the things that are non-value-added constraints out of the way, so we can move faster and the president those airplanes.” Even before Trump took office for the first time in 2017, he complained about the cost of the Boeing contract and threatened to cancel an existing deal. In February 2018 he negotiated the current contract for two of the jets, which saved the Air Force $1.4 billion over the previous deal, the White House said at the time. He had requested that the aircraft be delivered by 2021. The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the situation, reported last week that the government has commissioned defense contractor L3Harris to overhaul a Boeing 747 formerly used by the Qatari government, with the aim to have it in service by this fall as an Air Force One jet. But that contract has not been announced by the government, and Costello was not asked about it during the hearing. The challenge is not the basic jet, but what it takes to turn a run-of-the-mill Boeing 747 into the flying communications and command post fit for the president of the United States, said Richard Aboulafia, managing director at AeroDynamic Advisory, an aerospace consulting firm. They are supposed to be able to fly and protect its occupants from missile attack or even the shock waves of a nuclear blast. “You can have a jet anytime,” he said. “But it takes a great deal of work to have encrypted communications and manage the military and federal government from anywhere around the world in any circumstance.”

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.

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%.

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 boom in artificial intelligence, a pressing need for more data centers and the energy transition story — particularly in transportation — are all spurring demand for electricity, and the existing power infrastructure is struggling to keep up. Businesses are facing five to eight-year wait times to connect to Europe’s ageing and strained electricity grids, experts told CNBC, as the emergence of new areas of demand drives an unprecedented rise in permit requests for power. According to the IEA, at least 1,500 gigawatts of global clean energy projects have been stopped or delayed because of a lack of grid connections and about $700 billion of grid investment is needed for countries to meet their green goals. Data centers, the large facilities that house servers for computing processes and often require huge amounts of power, are the “primary director” of that growing competition to connect to the grid, said Diego Hernandez Diaz, partner at McKinsey. He told CNBC that clients have quoted wait times of up to eight years to connect to the grid. “There are certain transmission system operators in Europe, that are already facing two, three or more folks all attempting to interconnect to the same node at the same time. ... There is a literal queue within individual connection points to see who gets to connect first,” he explained. Hernandez, whose work focuses on electro-intensive industries, said that over the last 18 months, nearly all of his work has focused on data centers, a sector that he expects to grow at an annual compound growth rate of 20% over the next six years. Demand for the facilities required to train large language models (LLMs) is expected to continue its exponential increase as tech giants race to dominate in AI. Energy management firm Schneider Electric warned in a January report that Europe faces a looming power crunch, with three to five-year waiting lists for grid connections in energy-constrained regions. “It’s kind of a race,” Steven Carlini, chief advocate of AI and data centers at Schneider Electric, told CNBC. “You have all these companies that are trying to deploy as much capacity as they can. But it’s constrained by the number of GPUs [graphics processing units] and the available power and the permitting.” “We’re going from a situation where you have one application or two applications [to connect to the grid] per year, in some countries, to 1,000,” Carlini said. It’s not just the amount of investment needed — but also the speed with which it can be deployed — which will be key to addressing the issue, McKinsey’s Diaz said. He also pointed to the growing complexity of the work of high-voltage grid operators and the example of Germany, which needs to go from building 400 kilometers of power lines a year to 2,000 kilometers. Diaz sees the competition to connect to the grid “either maintaining or intensifying” in 2025. Jerome Fournier, vice president of innovation at subsea cable manufacturer Nexans, said his firm has a “huge” order backlog in the range of seven-to-10 billion euros ($7.28 billion-$10.40 billion). Nexans’ cables are used to transmit electricity generated by wind and solar farms, and to supply power to homes and businesses. “Everybody’s considering: do we still have some room in our plans to manufacture other projects?” he said. Fournier told CNBC that firms like Nexans should also keep slots available for smaller projects such as interconnections for offshore wind turbines. “You’ve got to have the right balance between the load of the plans, the profitability and this type of electrification,” he said. A new power ecosystem Power constraints are leading data center operators to evolve their own “ecosystem of power backup,” according to Schneider Electric’s Carlini. In the future, data centers are expected to be at the center of that grid ecosystem, particularly if they are able to generate their own power with small modular reactors — mini nuclear reactors that produce electricity. Battery storage and strategic charging are also becoming increasingly important, Carlini said. These systems allow for the temporary storage of energy from the power grid to provide extra backup. The CEO of power solutions provider AVK, Ben Pritchard, said some European countries are facing large, 100-megawatt grid connection requests of a size that they’ve never seen before. He advocates for transition-linked energy solutions such as the use of microgrids, which are a separate islanded power system. In Norway, they’re trialing flexible connection agreements where customers limit their connection to the grid based on certain conditions, Beatrice Petrovich, senior energy and climate analyst at think tank Ember, highlighted. This allows them to adjust their energy usage depending on how the grid is faring at certain times. Ember also called for the implementation of rules on what it calls “anticipatory” grid investments. These would allow electricity grid operators to plan in a forward-looking way, taking into account the market trends of key technologies, such as growth in renewables and battery storage, Petrovich explained. Countries that move forward with improving legislation on enabling firms to have a fully decarbonized energy stack will be the “winner of the race,” putting forward a more “friendly ecosystem” around data centers, AVK’s Pritchard said. Ultimately, a bottleneck in the grid “encourages people to think differently, and when people are encouraged to think differently, they’re more open to different solutions. That, I think, is teeing up for the market to shift quite significantly,” said Pritchard. Modest EU growth Despite a growing need for power from some new and developing industries, Europe is still lagging behind the rest of the world when it comes to growth in power demand. High electricity prices and operational costs are hampering overall demand in the region, leading to a more fragmented market. The International Energy Agency (IEA) this month hailed the rise of a “new Age of electricity,” as it upped its forecasts for global demand, predicting growth of 3.9% for 2025-2027 — the fastest pace of growth in recent years. The forecasts for Europe are more modest, however. Following two years of sharp declines in power demand, the region saw an increase of just 1% in 2024, according to a January report from energy think tank Ember. “2024 marks a turning point for electricity demand,” said Ember’s Petrovich, one of the authors of their report. “What we saw is the first rebound — even if it was a small rebound after many years of decline — it was widespread across the block.” McKinsey’s Diaz explained that since the energy crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent sanctions, electricity prices have settled around 60 to 80 euros per megawatt hour. This is still 50-100% more expensive than prices seen in the previous two decades, however. As a result, costs for consumers have soared, leading to signs of a deceleration in demand for heat pumps and electric vehicles, he said. Diaz added that for manufacturers in Europe, the energy requirements “tower above those of any other geography in the world, it’s not only potentially more expensive, but even potentially more challenging,” Hernandez said. The “unprecedented” growth in data centers is “helping the overall curve ever so slightly, but everything else is fighting against it,” Hernandez said.