Trump Holds Off Tariffs, Finance Secretary On GST Rationalisation, Tata Chemicals Q3 Loss | Rise With Profit
NDTV Profit Podcast: From developments on the trade war to Finance and Revenue Secretary's views on GST rationalisation, here is everything you need to know at the start of your day.
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This is the daily morning update from NDTV Profit. Here’s everything you need to know at the start of your day.
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The big talking point this morning is once again an update on the Trump administration. US President Donald Trump has suspended the threat to raise tariffs on Mexico and Canada by 25%, agreeing to a 30-day pause. The tariffs were supposed to kick in at midnight. The pause is in return for concessions on border and crime enforcement with the two neighbouring countries.
Both Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said they had agreed to bolster border enforcement efforts in response to Trump's demand to crack down on immigration and drug smuggling, according to a Reuters report.
No such deal has emerged for China — on which, across-the-board tariffs of 10% are set to take effect a few hours from now. Trump wants China to stem the trade of fentanyl. China has called fentanyl America's problem and said it would challenge the tariffs at the World Trade Organization and take other countermeasures, but also left the door open for talks.
Wall Street ended lower overnight, but pared some losses after it became known that the imposition of tariffs would be delayed. The Dow lost only about 120 points, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq closed lower by 0.8% and 1.2% respectively. In the Asia Pacific region, the three early risers have started strongly positive. Crude prices dropped, too, and as of this morning, were trading at below $76 to the barrel.
Initial indications are for a marginal uptick at the start of trade for us here in India.
In news back home, Finance and Revenue Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey has said that the rationalisation of rates under the goods and services tax regime is an exercise that needs to be carried out. Addressing a FICCI event on Monday, Pandey said that there is "hope that we can carry out rationalisation in GST as well." His comments came in the backdrop of reduction of income tax rates and restructuring of tax slabs, as announced in the Union Budget 2025 on Saturday.
In other news, Sapna Govind Rao, a minority shareholder holding 500 shares in Religare Enterprises Ltd., has made an appeal against a single-judge order in the Delhi High Court, which shot down an offer by US-based businessman Danny Gaekwad to buy a significant stake in the company. The court is likely to hear the case on Wednesday. Earlier, the High Court judge had refused to stay Religare’s Annual General Meeting and had termed the Gaekwad offer infructuous.
For his part, Gaekwad has written letters to Securities and Exchange Board of India as well as the Reserve Bank of India, seeking exemptions to submit a bid against the Burman family for the majority stake in Religare Enterprises.
In earnings, Tata Chemicals reported a surprise loss in the third quarter of this financial year, missing analysts' estimates. The company posted a loss of Rs 53 crore for the quarter ended December, compared to a profit of Rs 158 crore in the same quarter of the previous fiscal. Analysts had expected a profit of Rs 191-crore.
The company attributed the underperformance to lower soda ash pricing across geographies and higher fixed cost in the US, due to plant production outage during the quarter.
Power Grid Corp.'s consolidated net profit fell 4.13% in the third quarter of the current financial year, missing analysts' estimates. The state-run power transmission major posted a profit of Rs 3,861.6 crore in comparison to Rs 4,028.5 crore in the year-ago period, according to an exchange filing on Monday. Analysts tracked by Bloomberg had set a consensus estimate of Rs 4,031 crore.
