Daily Market News Update — 29th-30th July 2026

Midnight News Update: 29-30 Jul 2026

A government appointed panel proposed sweeping changes to the airport tariff framework to make it less rigid. It will allow airports to offer price incentives to attract airlines and proposes to move from an item-wise tariff regime to a 3-category framework. Currently, each airport service like landing, parking, UDF, aerobridge charges etc are regulated. Going ahead; regulation will be around landing & parking, UDF, and other airport services. Once the regulatory ceiling is defined, airport operator will have the flexibility to structure. This will help ease-of-doing business.

Amid fears of supply chain disruption of fertilizers during the Kharif season, the government has affirmed that fertilizer sales and stocks were adequate for Kharif 2026. Till date, farmers have bought 17 MT of Urea and 4 MT of NPK fertilizers; against annual usage of 38 MT. The current stocks are sufficient to take care of the balance. Even as the West Asia crisis had started, India had been early to diversify its fertilizer procurement, giving them a headstart for the Kharif season. A small gap may still be left, which can easily be met through imports of fertilizers.

NTPC plans to invest close to ₹17,00,000 crore by FY37 to boost its power capacity to 250 GW. From its current capacity of 91 GW, NTPC plans to expand capacity to 150 GW by FY32 and then to 250 GW by FY37. NTPC also confirmed that capital allocation would gradually move from coal-fired generation to renewable energy, storage systems, and nuclear energy. However, thermal power will continue to be a crucial part of its portfolio in future too. By FY37, about 6 GW of capacity will be accounted for by nuclear power. NTPC is one of the key MahaNavratnas of India .

With falling employee count, leading IT companies in India have seen boost to labour productivity. Q1 saw staff productivity get a boost of 3.3% as TCS, Infosys, HCL Tech, and Tech Mahindra logged productivity gains. With falling staff numbers, there has been a consistent rise in staff productivity over last four quarters. For Q1FY27, IT companies earned an average of $13,435 per employee, against $13,010 last year. If you look 4-years back, the average revenue per employee was just $11,865. HCL leads the tech pack on productivity metrics, followed by Infosys.

ICRA has warned that with the rapid growth in gold loans, we could see a gradual rise in gold loan NPAs. The overall gold loan market is expected to grow 30% annually, but lenders are gradually shifting to the EMI model, which could increase risk of NPAs. This is a structural shift from the bullet payment scheme. The gold loan market is likely to touch ₹30 trillion by the year 2028, making it a very substantive portion of the lending portfolio of banks. In this period, the market share of NBFCs is also expected to rise to 23%, although banks will remain the dominant players.

While the surge in FCNR(B) deposits reduces the dependence on CD market, it raises cost of funds for banks and squeezes profit margins. Overseas rates are lower and lending spreads are thin, so banks like HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank will be impacted. The bigger challenge is deploying high-cost FCNR(B) funds profitably. Effective funding cost for banks can exceed 6.5%-7.0% once swap and insurance costs are factored. There has been a surge of FCNR(B) deposits at $32 billion, with a likely target of $90 billion. The focus shifts to whether Kevin Warsh raises Fed rates on 29-July.

M&M plans to streamline its business model by selling its trucks/bus division to SML Mahindra. This sale will be done for a consideration of ₹525 crore, as part of its CV overhaul. This is being executed on a slump-sale basis; with all assets, liabilities, personnel, and licenses transferred to SML Mahindra. The transaction will be closed by January 2027, subject to regulatory approvals. About a year back, M&M had acquired 58.97% stake in SML Isuzu. The overall business is likely to gain from economies of scale, broader product portfolio and wider market coverage.

Despite the supply chain constraints hitting the paints industry, Asian Paints reported 40% higher net profits for Q1FY27 at ₹1,539 crore. Raw material costs were higher by 36% in the quarter, but this was offset by a 12% fall in employee costs and 10% fall in other expenses. For the quarter, Asian Paints reported 18% higher revenues from operations at ₹10,542 crore. The boost to profits was achieved by Asian Paints through a combination of cost controls and targeted price hikes. EBITDA for Q1 was 33.5% up at ₹2,169 crore, and much better than street estimates.