Rise With Profit: US Election, FPI Outflow Continues, Royal Enfield's New EV Launch

Good morning!

This is the daily morning update from NDTV Profit. Over the next few minutes, I'll get you up to speed with everything you need to know at the start of your day.

If you would like to listen to this as a podcast, click here.

There's a great deal of attention going West today, towards the US Presidential elections, that will determine the course of the next four years in the world's largest economy and will take place later today. There are no favourites heading into voting day, with both candidates—Donald Trump and Kamala Harris—scrambling to get ahead on the last day. They were campaigning in Pennsylvania, one of the so-called swing states, which could vote either way, and which could determine the final victor.

The campaign has seen several twists and turns—there have been two assassination attempts and a felony conviction for Trump, and Vice President Kamala Harris found herself in the race very late, after President Joe Biden dropped out. More than $2.6 billion have been spent to sway voters since March, according to analytics firm AdImpact.

US stocks ended mostly lower, with the Dow losing a little over 250 points and the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq down about 0.3%. Don't forget that there's also a meeting of the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee this week too.

Back home, overseas investors remained net sellers of Indian equities for the 26th consecutive session yesterday, while domestic institutional investors turned net buyers after a session of selling. Foreign portfolio investors offloaded stocks with an approximate value of Rs 4,329.8 crore, according to provisional data from the National Stock Exchange. The DIIs bought stocks worth Rs 2,936.1 crore.

Equity markets in India ended lower, with the benchmarks losing over 1% each. It was a volatile day of trade but we ended significantly off the low point of the day.

Let's turn to other news now. In the automotive space, Suzuki Motor has unveiled its first electric car in Europe, becoming one of the last major carmakers to enter the EV market. Called the eVitara, the midsize SUV is based on the 'eVX' concept that was showcased at the 2023 Auto Expo in New Delhi. Production of the electric SUV will commence at Suzuki Motor's Gujarat factory in February 2025. The electric SUV is expected to go on sale in Europe, Japan and India by June.

And speaking of electric vehicles, Royal Enfield has unveiled its first production-ready electric motorcycle. It will be called the 'Flying Flea' and will sit as a separate brand within Royal Enfield and will include multiple EVs in the future.

In regulatory news, the Securities and Exchange Board of India raised caution over the rise of unauthorised virtual trading and gaming platforms that simulate stock trading using real stock price data. SEBI, in an advisory, warned that several online apps and web platforms are offering these services without proper registration, potentially misleading users by providing unapproved trading advice and virtual stock trading features.

We've been tracking consumption trends and there's been some concern about urban demand, but that's not visible from the data released by major e-commerce companies such as Amazon and Walmart-backed Flipkart. They've wrapped up their month-long festive season sales, clocking in over Rs 1 lakh crore worth of sales. This is largely driven by the sale of big ticket items including premium smartphones during the period.

As many as 65% smartphones bought during this year's festive season were purchased online, as compared to earlier estimate of 55%, according to data from Datum Intelligence.