US Stocks Continue Slide; Lupin In Focus On Last Trading Day Of 2024 | Rise With Profit

Good morning and thanks for listening in – this is the daily morning update from NDTV Profit and I’m Alex Mathew. Here’s everything you need to know at the start of the last day of 2024.

In the top global news, Chinese state-sponsored hackers breached the U.S. Treasury Department's computer security guardrails this month and stole documents in what Treasury called a "major incident". That’s according to a letter to lawmakers.

A Reuters report quoting the letter said that hackers gained access to a key used by the vendor to secure a cloud-based service used to remotely provide technical support for Treasury Departmental Offices (DO) end users. With access to the stolen key, the hackers were able to override the service’s security, remotely access certain Treasury workstations, and access certain unclassified documents maintained by those users.

In other major international news, a South Korean court has approved an arrest warrant for President Yoon Suk Yeol, who has been impeached and suspended from power over his decision to impose martial law on Dec. 3, according to investigating authorities.

The Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) confirmed the Seoul Western District Court approved the warrant requested by investigators examining Yoon's short-lived imposition of martial law.

In international markets, U.S. stocks continued their slide on the penultimate trading day of the year with the three benchmark indices losing a percent or more. The Australian benchmark was trading with cuts of half a percent last I checked.

The Reserve Bank of India is concerned about higher unsecured lending write-offs among private sector banks, based on the Financial Stability Report for December 2024. The gross non-performing ratio for unsecured lending was higher than the overall bad loan ratio for banks at 1.7%. The concerning trend, however, according to the RBI, is the sharp rise in write-offs, especially among private sector banks, which could be partly masking worsening asset quality in this segment and dilution in underwriting standards.

Despite a sharp improvement in risk metrics among banks in India, Reserve Bank of India said on Monday that some lenders continue to trend lower. In fact, three banks, forming 15 percent of total banking system assets, have been found to be deficient in three key risk indicators.

This is actually an improvement from the start of the current decade, when three-fourths out of 33 public and private sector banks analysed under the 'key risk indicators' framework were found deficient in three or more such indicators.

India's external debt reached $711.8 billion as of September 2024, marking a 4.3% increase from June 2024, according to data released by the Finance Ministry. At the end of September 2023, the external debt stood at $637.1 billion. By September 2024, the debt had risen by $29.6 billion compared to June 2024, as reported in India's Quarterly External Debt Report.

The Income Tax Department and a top DigiYatra official on Monday denied news reports of the platform's data being used to crack down on tax evaders. DigiYatra, as you know, is a contactless travel initiative that uses facial recognition to identify passengers at airports to reduce wait times, speed up processing, and make the process simpler. Digi Yatra Chief Executive Officer Suresh Khadakabhavi said facial authentication was decentralised under the platform and that privacy remained non-negotiable.

In corporate news, Lupin has said that it has acquired Huminsulin in India from Eli Lilly And Co in a move to expand its diabetes portfolio. The terms of the deal are not known. The Huminsulin series of products is used for the treatment of type 1 and type 2 diabetes mellitus to improve blood sugar control in both adults and children. The stock had ended higher by 4.5% in trade yesterday.

And finally, the Indian Space Research Organisation or ISRO launched the SpaDeX mission, or the Space Docking Experiment, via its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle yesterday from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh. The spacecraft has been launched into space on the PSLV-C60. With this key mission, ISRO intends to develop and demonstrate the technology required to dock and undock spacecraft in space.