News Wrap | Sensex & Nifty Gain; Insurance Stocks Slip on GST Decision | September 10, 2024

First, a quick roundup of Asian equities – Key stock markets in the region ended the day higher. Investors reacted to August trade data from China, where exports grew faster than expectations. So, China's Shanghai Composite and Hong Kong's Hang Seng were up two-tenths of a per cent each. Japan's Nikkei, though, closed lower for the session.

Turning to domestic markets - In India, the Sensex and the Nifty closed off the day's highs but still gained almost half a per cent each. The Sensex closed just below the 82,000 mark and the Nifty ended the day above 25,000. Of the fifty constituents of the Nifty, 34 gained while 16 slipped on Tuesday. Pharma major Divi's Lab was the star of the day with over five per cent surge.

In stock-specific action, private insurance majors HDFC Life and SBI Life slipped in Tuesday's trade. The insurance counters were down after the GST Council deferred the decision on removing GST on insurance products. Announcing the council's decision on Monday, September 9, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that a new Group of Ministers will look into the issues of GST on medical insurance and will submit its report by October end. Based on that report, the GST Council will take a call on the matter at its November meeting.

In the regulatory space – The Congress has levelled a fresh set of allegations against SEBI Chief Madhabi Puri Buch, this time targeting her husband, Dhaval Buch. The party claimed Dhaval Buch received 4.78 crore rupees as "income in a personal capacity" from the Mahindra Group between 2019 and 2021. However, the Mahindra Group denied the allegations, calling them "false and misleading". The group said that Dhaval Buch, who retired from Unilever in 2019, was hired solely for his expertise in supply chain management.

Shifting focus to some global headlines – Apple has received a huge blow hours after it launched iPhone 16. The top court of the European Union has reconfirmed an order by the European Commission to Ireland, asking the country to recover around 14.4 billion dollars in back taxes from Apple. In 2016, the European Commission had ordered Ireland to do so after it found Apple guilty of receiving illegal tax benefits.

Apple is not the only tech giant having tax troubles in the EU – the European bloc's top court has also upheld a 2.6 billion dollar fine against Google. The case dates back to 2017, when the European Union accused the search giant of abusing its dominant position by prioritising Google Shopping links in searches.

With that, it's a wrap on this edition of the Business Hook News Wrap podcast. We will be back tomorrow with more from the world of business and equities. You can also watch our in-depth coverage of big business stories on the Business Hook YouTube channel.