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Anshul Saigal sees market resilience post-tariffs, urging investors to explore sectors like metals, textiles, CDMO, and infra amid global realignments, while avoiding tech due to weak earnings and high valuations.

Stock Market Today: Indian benchmark indices surged to levels unseen since January 6, fueled by robust earnings from banking giants like ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank. A weakening U.S. dollar and consistent foreign institutional investor inflows further bolstered market sentiment. Banking stocks spearheaded the rally, with the Nifty Bank index hitting a record high.

Kacholia acquired around a 1.2% stake in Concord Control during the fourth quarter, despite the stock falling over 30% this year.

DBS Bank India, under new CEO Rajat Verma, aims for significant growth, leveraging its parent company s investment and focusing on SME and corporate banking. The bank sees opportunities in specialized products like loan syndication and supply-chain financing, capitalizing on India s growing corporate needs.

India s insurance regulator, Irdai, has initiated a common empanelment process, tasking the General Insurance Council with onboarding hospitals. Insurers are engaging with eye and general hospitals, aiming for 4,000-5,000 general hospitals in the next few months. While some hospitals welcome standardized pricing, larger ones express reservations. Insurers are expected to negotiate treatment rates based on the PMJAY framework for cost-effectiveness.

The following day, purchasing manager indexes from Japan to Europe to the US will offer the first coordinated glimpse of manufacturing and services activity since Trump s global tariffs-now partly on hold-were unleashed on April 2. Business surveys from major economies are also on the calendar.

For a sample of 412 companies, excluding banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), three out of every four companies have earned returns over the past month and nearly half of them trade above their year-ago levels. However, 56% and 53% of them are still available at lower price-earnings (P/E) multiples compared with the three-year and five-year average valuations.

Equity market participants have had a roller coaster month so far, with Trump imposing reciprocal tariffs on all countries on April 2, including 26% on India, and then announcing a 90-day pause on tariffs just before its final implementation. Such moves have increased uncertainty in the markets world over.

Fidelity said it snapped up battered Chinese consumer stocks, betting the companies will benefit from government stimulus. MSCI Asia Pacific Consumer Staples Index has risen 5% since April 2, the best performance among 11 sectors .

To export, companies must be able to import machinery and other components and, right now, that is very difficult because of the bureaucracy involved in setting up businesses in India. So, this is an urgent requirement for India to address. If they ease the system, it will encourage global players like Apple to set up their own factories and manufacture in India.