Daily Market News Update — 28th-29th April 2026

Midnight News Update: 28-29 Apr 2026

In an unexpected blow to the OPEC, the UAE decided to walk out of the OPEC and the OPEC Plus. For over 5 decades, the OPEC has been a powerful oil cartel in setting prices, but of late its clout has been reducing as other countries like the US, Russia, China, Mexico, Brazil etc have rapidly scaled up their oil & gas output. UAE has been unhappy in the past about the excessive influence that Saudi Arabia had on the OPEC. Trump has often accused the OPEC of rigging oil prices. UAE has been one of the long-time members of the OPEC and its exit could goad others too.

Eternal (Zomato) reported 71% sequential growth in net profits in Q4 to ₹174 crore. YOY growth in revenues was 196% to ₹17,292 crore in the fourth quarter. It is positive that Eternal has been able to report sustained profits despite the pressure from losses made by Blinkit. For FY26 as a whole, Eternal reported 169% growth in revenues at ₹54,364 crore. Blinkit unit saw revenues growing almost 8-fold over the previous year as it shifted to the inventory ownership model. Its dark store count nearly doubled to 2,243 stores in the fourth quarter of FY26.

Along expected lines, IIP growth for March came in at a 5-month low of 4.1%. Both, manufacturing and power were a drag on the overall IIP numbers. Interestingly, the full-year IIP growth for FY26 also settled at 4.1%. February 2026 IIP growth was revised lower from 5.2% to 5.1%. For March 2026, the power sector saw tepid growth at 0.8%. Manufacturing was slightly disappointing at 4.3%, but it must be seen in the background of the supply chain constraints caused by the war in the Middle East. Most experts were pegging March 2026 IIP at as low as 1.5%.

In a tough month, Ultratech surprised the street with a 5.5% fall in fuel costs. This ensured that operating profit per tonne improved by 10.3% in Q4FY26. Cement price realizations were almost flat in the quarter, so profit gains came from better cost management. Ultratech is the largest cement player in India with annual capacity of more than 200 million tonnes. For Q4FY26, Ultratech also saw its freight and forwarding expenses fall by 1%. The company benefited from an expansion of its renewable energy usage, which went up from 13.9% to 20.4% yoy for grey cement.

With SEBI allowing equity funds to add gold to a threshold, Bandhan AMC has taken the initiative to add gold and silver to some of its equity funds. Equity funds can now invest small quantities in gold ETFs, silver ETFs, REITs, INVITs etc as per SEBI guidelines. In equity funds, the exposure to gold and silver will purely be opportunistic rather than being part of allocation as in the case of hybrid funds. Funds will also be allowed to initiate covered calls against their holdings to improve sources of revenues for the fund. It just helps fund managers to better manage their portfolio risk.

The IPO of OneEMI Technologies (Kissht) will open for subscription on 30-April and close on 05-May. The IPO price band has been fixed in the range of ₹162-₹171. The IPO will comprise of a fresh issue of ₹850 crore and an offer for sale (OFS) of ₹76 crore leading to an overall IPO size of ₹926 crore. The IPO is being lead-managed by JM Financial, HSBC Securities, Nuvama Wealth, SBI Caps, and Centrum Capital. The minimum lot size for the IPO will be 87 shares with a minimum lot value of ₹14,887 crore. The IPO process will be used to fund the growth of its subsidiary.

Large cap funds have disappointed in the last 10 years with only 13% of the large-cap schemes managing to generate alpha for investors. In fact, out of 23 large cap schemes with more than 10 years existence, only 3 schemes have managed to generate alpha. The situation looked better when you shift from regular plans to direct plans, indicating that the outperformance is coming largely from lower costs than due to the skills of the fund managers. Large AMCs were among the key outperformers as their large AUM size helped to reduce the TER costs substantially.

Maruti Suzuki has lined up capital expenditure of ₹14,000 crore in FY27 as it gears up for capacity expansion. There was not much choice with existing facilities already running at 100% capacity utilization. Maruti will be adding 2 production lines at Kharkhoda in Haryana and Hansalpur in Gujarat with total production capacity of 5 lakh units annually. This will help meet the demand for small cars. This is the highest ever capex that Maruti Suzuki has lined up in any year. In the light of GST cuts last year, auto demand surged and most auto companies have a backlog of orders.