Daily Market News Update — 07th-08th July 2026

Midnight News Update: 07-08 Jul 2026

Oil prices spiked by 5% as the US launched fresh attacks on Iran, after the latter fired shots at ships passing through the Straits of Hormuz. This puts the already fragile peace in the Middle East at risk. At the same time, the US also revoked the oil sanctions waiver granted to Iran. Both Qatar and Saudi Arabia blamed Iran for the attacks on their vessels. Iran, meanwhile, has denied carrying out any deliberate attacks on tankers in the Straits of Hormuz. Meanwhile, Russian Urals are already at $10/bbl discount to the market, and that is likely to benefit Indian importers.

The fitness platform, Cult.Fit, has filed DRHP with SEBI for its proposed IPO. The IPO will comprise of a fresh issue of ₹950 crore, and an offer for sale (OFS) of 17.8 crore shares. The company plans to use fresh funds to expand its client base, repay debt, and invest in its subsidiaries. The IPO will be lead-managed by Axis Capital, Goldman Sachs India, Jefferies India, JM Financial, and Morgan Stanley. Cult.Fit is also looking at a pre-IPO placement of around ₹190 crore. Cult.Fit offers fitness and lifestyle products and services. It operates fitness centres chain in Bengaluru.

According to FADA, retail sales of electrical vehicles (EVs) touched an all-time high of 3,06,220 units with record EV penetration of 12%. The EV surge was led by two-wheelers, where the shift to green technologies is a lot simpler and seamless. Nearly 65% of the EV sales were 2-wheelers. However, Electrical passenger vehicles (PVs) doubled yoy to 31,823 units, electrical 3-wheelers saw sales of 77,448 units while Electric CVs saw sales of 3,214 units. Even CVs have grown more than 2.5X yoy. What is interesting is that this growth came despite monsoon worries this year.

Yotta Data Services, the data centre vertical of Hiranandani group, has raised $150 million for AI infrastructure expansion. The funds were raised at a valuation of $3.9 billion. Yotta plans to expand its AI cloud capacity significantly. India is seen as the next big frontier for data storage and services, and Yotta is also positioning itself in sovereign cloud and managed service offerings. Promoters have not diluted any stake in this fund raising. India contributes to bulk of global data accretion, but has played a minor role in data storage. That dichotomy is being addressed now.

According to the ACMA, the auto component industry has grown 12.7% in FY26, but in the process it has triggered a trade deficit of $1.37 billion. Imports outpaced exports driven by demand for advanced tech and EV parts amid the geopolitical headwinds. Total sales recorded by these auto component companies stood at ₹7,60,000 crore. For FY26, while exports grew 5% at $24 billion, the imports grew 13% to $25.4 billion. Not surprisingly, China’s share in India’s auto component imports went up from 32% to 36% in FY26. Exports to Europe saw robust growth.

With foreign shareholding in Swiggy falling to below 50%, its majority Indian ownership could come as a boon to Swiggy. As an Indian company, Swiggy can now shift to the inventory-led Instamart model, which is not possible as long as it is a foreign company. The inventory-led model helps to improve margins, offers better price control, and smooth supply chain management. The foreign ownership has just fallen to 49.76%, fully-diluted. In addition, Swiggy must also show that it is owned and controlled by resident Indian citizens, through its board and governance structure.

For June 2026, non-life insurance premiums spiked 17% yoy to ₹27,145 crore. Growth was led by standalone health insurance, which grew premiums at 31% for June. Private general insurers accounted for around half these premium flows, with PSU insurers accounting for the balance. In the private insurer space, ICICI Lombard is the largest in terms of gross premiums, followed by HDFC Ergo and SBI General, in that order. Ironically, India’s insurance penetration still remains well below the global benchmarks, despite the rapid expansion of insurance demand post-COVID.

Central banks continue to buy gold as a safe haven currency and to reduce their dependence on holding dollars. The risks have become prominent after the US blocked Russian funds following the Ukraine war. Indian gold holding value has nearly doubled in the last 2 years and currently valued at $116 billion. As a share of forex reserves, gold has gone from 12% to 17% in this year. It is not just India, but central banks of Russia, Turkey, China, and Poland have been buying gold aggressively. Between 2015 and 2026, RBI gold reserves are up 58% from 558 tonnes to 881 tonnes.