• HDFC Bank became the third Indian company to cross the mark of $100 billion in terms of market capitalization
• Earlier, Reliance Industries and TCS were the companies that are already in the $100 billion market cap club

• Jet has been in the midst of a massive cash crunch and that has led to many planes grounded in India
• The rejig will involve PE funds and Etihad increasing the stake in Jet and Naresh Goyal ceding control of the airline

• The bid by founding promoters of Mindtree came after L&T Infotech was in an advanced stage to take over Mindtree
• Mindtree may use the buyback route to make the acquisition of Mindtree more expensive for the potential buyer

• In its order, the NCLAT upheld the order of the NCLT Ahmadabad bench to let Arcelor Mittal be the buyer
• The NCLAT has also asked the Committee of Creditors to give a better deal for the operational creditors of Essar Steel

• The flaw in the design of the 737 MAX came to light after the cash of the Ethiopian Airlines
• India has already asked all 737 Max flights to be grounded and it is expected to cost Boeing $7.5 billion for rectification

• The lower trade deficit was driven by a rise in exports supported by a sharp fall in imports on weak oil prices
• This sharp fall in the trade deficit will benefit the rupee and will also ensure that full-year trade deficit is below $200 bn

• RCOM had sought Rs.260 crore out of the refund money to pay as compensation to Ericsson of Sweden
• However, SBI had objected to this decision of giving special privilege to an operational credit at the cost of banks

• Equity markets saw the sharpest rally in FII flows leading the Nifty and the Sensex to the best rally in four months
• Sharp FII flows were driven by greater political certainty, earnings expectations, and improved liquidity conditions

• The sharp rally in the Nifty and Sensex was driven by aggressive buying by FIIs even as domestics sold
• After the surgical strikes, the winds are expected to be favorable for the ruling NDA, which is seen as a positive

• The stake in the pipeline transportation business will be bought by an InvIT floated by Canadian investors

This will help the Mukesh Ambani group to substantially reduce its private debt

• This stakeholding will be an outcome of the proposed merger of Gruh Finance into Bandhan Bank
• HDFC had sought an approach to own 14.96% but NBFCs are only permitted to hold up to 9.9% in private banks

• This marked the highest outflows from balanced funds in a month during the last 10 years
• According to experts, these negative flows were due to a combination of reclassification and mis-selling

• This is the fourth time that China has stood up to protect the interest of Pakistan and shield a terrorist
• However, in a show of solidarity, France has agreed to freeze the bank accounts and properties of Masood Azhar

• The Fed may have to soon take a decision on unwinding its $4 trillion bonds portfolio, though fresh purchases have ceased
• An unwinding of the bond portfolio would imply a sharp liquidity crunch across the world as liquidity gets sucked in

• The strength in the rupee has been largely driven by the sharp surge in FII inflows to the tune of $5 billion since Feb-20th
• Exporters have also shown greater willingness to bring in the dollars and lower trade deficit will also help

• CPI inflation came in at 2.57% and WPI inflation at 2.93%; sharply higher than market estimates
• Higher inflation was largely driven by a bounce in food inflation even as core inflation remained sticky

• This sharply lower than the 7.5% in Jan-18 and was largely driven by weak manufacturing data
• A weak IIP growth combined with reasonable inflation does make case for the RBI to cut rates on April 04^th

• Embassy group of Mumbai will launch this REIT with the support of Blackstone of the US
• Pre-offer bids have been quite strong from institutions and it will be the first REITS in India

• Swap bonds will be issued worth $5 billion on 26^th March and will exchange bank dollars for rupees
• This will prevent the rupee from appreciating sharply and also infuse rupee liquidity depressing short term yields

• This was a major positive considering the outflows in debt fund flow and sharp fall in equity fund flows
• SIPs are retail infusion into equity / ELSS funds and there are more than 2 crore SIPs active in India today

• Stocks like SBI, NTPC, Bharat Electronics were among the preferred stocks of large mutual funds
• The interest in PSUs was driven by higher dividend yields and also a turnaround in PSU banking stocks