Daily Market News Update — 16th-17th April 2026

Midnight News Update: 16-17 Apr 2026

In a bid to defend the rupee, the RBI has asked the oil marketing companies (OMCs) to stop buying spot dollars. Instead of buying spot dollars, RBI has asked them to tap a special credit line for their forex needs. This will reduce the pressure on the rupee. The Indian rupee has been hit by persistent FPI selling, shorting in the NDF market, and strong demand for dollars from OMCs. The credit line is being made available through SBI. These OMCs have also been asked to route all their dollar buying through SBI, rather than multiple banks, as that can reduce the market impact.

Amidst the rising losses of Air India and the recent tragedy of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner last year, the chief of Singapore Airlines will meet Tata Sons Chairman, N Chandrasekaran in Bombay House. Singapore Airlines has a 25.1% stake in Air India due to its stake in Vistara, which merged into Air India. Air India had approached the Tata group and Singapore Airlines for funds after losses doubled in FY26. Recently, Air India CEO had resigned from his position before the completion of his contract. Among other things, closure of Pakistani airspace also impacted Air India.

The bigger problem for Iran is not how long it can continue the war but how it can get access to the $100 billion of Iranian money that is lying in other countries. A big chunk of the funds are lying in banks in China, India, Qatar, and South Korea. These funds cannot be repatriated to Iran as that would come under the purview of sanctions. As part of the concessions, it is now believed that the US may defreeze a small part of these funds for Iran to use. Even a release of $6-8 billion would be of immense value for Iran as it needs to rebuild its infrastructure from ground up.

Wipro announced a ₹15,000 crore buyback of shares, with promoter group to participate in the buyback. The offer price of the buyback is at a 19% premium to the market price of Wipro. The promoter group, which holds 72.63% stake in Wipro, will participate in the buyback, especially with the new buyback rules in place. The buyback is likely to be completed in the first quarter of 2027. Wipro will buyback a total of 60 crore shares at a price of ₹250 per share, representing 5.7% of the paid-up capital. For Q4FY26, Revenues were up 2.8% and net profits up 12.2% sequentially.

For FY26; both credit growth and deposit growth were at a two-year high. While deposits grew at 13.47%, credit grew at 16.08%; indicating a 261-bps gap between the growth in credit and growth in deposits. With overseas borrowings expensive, there is a growing preference for domestic credit. However, the 261-bps gap indicates that banks would still have to rely on the short-term CD market to fill the funding gaps. That runs the risk of asset liability mismatch. During the year, the C/D ratio touched a high of 83.04%, but has tapered back to 81.44% after deposit growth picked up.

In a quarter where most low-cost brokers lost clients (as per NSE data), Angel One has reported stellar set of numbers. PAT grew 84% yoy at ₹320 crore for Q4FY26 while revenues were up 39% yoy at ₹1,467 crore. EBITDA margins were robust at 41.7% in Q4. Angel One saw a revival in orders at 43.1 crore orders in the quarter; which is a six-quarter high. The company has 3.74 clients and nearly 16.7% of the total demat accounts in India. Despite the higher STT on futures and options, derivative activity expanded, even as cash market activity was relatively subdued.

Maruti Suzuki appears to be gradually losing its market dominance with its market share falling by nearly 12 percentage points since 2020. The reason has been the rise in the utility vehicles segment, which now accounts for 67% of the Indian passenger car market, but Maruti has a market share of just 25% in that segment. The utility vehicles market is dominated by the likes of Tatas, Mahindra, Hyundai and others. Unless Maruti is able to crack the utility code, it will continue to lose market share. Its leadership is still in the small and mid-car segment only.

A joint venture of BPCL’s arm, will invest $2.8 billion in oil & gas production in Brazil. Currently, BPCL owns 65.4% stake in IBV Brasil Petrleo Ltda. A floating production storage and offloading vessel with the capacity to produce 1,20,000 barrels of oil condensate and to process 10 MCM of gas is planned. This is one more important step by India towards ensuring energy security in India. The lack of energy security was starkly exposed in recent months after the US attacked Iran; and Iran blocked the Straits of Hormuz. India is taking up energy security on a war footing.