Daily Market News Update — (17th-18th June 2026)

Midnight News Update: 17-18 Jun 2026

Indian private banks appear to be taking the lead in the borrow-and-invest plan in FCNR(B) deposit schemes. With the FCNR(B) deposits likely to attract NRI money of $50-$70 billion, these private banks like HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, and IndusInd Bank are also exploring lien and SBLC-backed structures. The foreign banks have to fund the NRI clients of these private banks to leverage their investments in FCNR(B) deposits, and gain access to a premium client base of these banks. Being a back-to-back funding plan, with currency risk borne by RBI, the risks are fairly limited.

For the financial year FY26, India’s defence production touched an all-time high of ₹1.78 trillion. That is nearly 15.6% higher compared to FY25. Out of the defence output, ₹38,424 crore was defence exports in the year, which is nearly 22% of total defence output. Defence output and defence exports have gone up sharply over the last 10 years. In fact, since the pandemic fiscal year of FY21, defence output has more than doubled. The triggers for such growth has been greater reliance on in-sourcing of defence needs, and a big thrust to defence companies in India.

The National Financial Reporting Authority (NFRA) has launched an examination into the role of auditors of Rajesh Exports, after the inflated sales red-flagged by SEBI just 2 weeks back. According to SEBI, Rajesh Exports had overstated its sales by nearly ₹15 trillion over a period of 5 years, by reporting fictitious international sales, which had no transactions to support. The NFRA scrutiny could even lead to debarring of the auditors if they are found guilty of negligence, or a party to it. In recent years, NFRA has aggressively stepped up its enforcement against audit failures.

For the coming fiscal year, Jaguar Land Rover (part of Tata Motors), is betting big on the US market and is also exploring a tie up with Stellantis. JLR will also be launching a £1.70 billion efficiency program in the US, while backing EV launches in a big way. It is also planning region-specific strategies for various key markets across the world. JLR underlined that the growing concentration of wealth in the US was a classic test market case for luxury products. North American already accounts for 28% of the JLR market, and it also plans to prioritize supply to the region.

Even as the rainfall this year has been in deficit, what is more glaring is the wide regional disparities. Consider these. Regions like East Rajasthan and the Andamans have seen substantially excess rainfall (over 60% above normal). In regions like West Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Rayalaseema, the rainfall has been 20% to 60% above normal. However, regions like Eastern UP, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Telangana, and Madhya Pradesh saw deficient rainfall of -20% to -60% below normal. Deep deficits of over -70% were seen in Gujarat, Konkan, Vidarbha, Chhattisgarh, and Jharkhand.

ChatGPT, which had literally pioneered the AI assistant market in the world, appears to be losing market share. For the first time since the launch of ChatGPT, its share of the AI Assistant market has fallen to below 50%. This is largely due to the rapid rise and acceptance of the Google Gemini AI assistant as well as the Anthropic Claude AI assistant. Both these models learnt from the early mistakes of ChatGPT and made the interface more user-friendly. This is a market that is still evolving and the future will belong to the one who offers the most pointed permutations.

One of India’s leading consumer companies, Proctor & Gamble India has admitted that FMCG companies in India were facing dual pressures. On the one hand, the lower willingness of consumers to spend on FMCG products has led to a contraction in demand. That is where the new strategy of Shrinkflation appears to be working for many FMCG companies. The other bigger challenge is the spike in input costs, especially after the crude price spike caused supply chain constraints. The worry is that these pressures will remain long after the war is over.

Canada’s reputed sovereign investor, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), is making a big bet on the AI data centre space in India. CPPIB plans to invest close to C$1 billion into the India AI data centre business through a partnership with CtrlS Datacentres. Already, big guns like Amazon, Google, Reliance, and Adani group are sinking billions of dollars into this space. With the rise in big data and the attractive economics of setting up AI data centres in India, this is going to be a natural shift. CPPIB clearly wants to be a part of this big India AI data centre story.