Corporate Intelligence Brief · Friday, 28 August 2026
Sterlite technologies: 721% in 7 months on Rs 56 crore of profit
Edition No. 8 · 22 min read
Data as of 28 Aug 2026
• Sterlite Technologies' order book jumped 2.4x in one quarter to Rs. 18,618 crore, against a full-year FY26 profit of Rs. 56 crore.
• Amusement parks climbed fastest up the momentum rankings this month, & Imagicaaworld locked its 20% upper circuit.
• US jobless claims fell to 203,000, keeping a September Fed rate HIKE on the table ahead of Chair Warsh's Jackson Hole speech tonight.
Friday, 28 August 2026 · pre-open edition · overnight moves, fresh filings & what should matter in today's session
Snapshot · commodities, rates & macro
| Item | Level | Move | Note |
|---|
| Gold (spot) | $4,599.57/oz · MCX ~Rs. 1,59,154/10g | +0.2% | Up ~14% over the past month; fell 1.4% Wednesday on the hot US PCE inflation reading; everything now waits on Fed Chair Warsh's Jackson Hole speech tonight (7:30 pm IST) |
| Silver (spot) | $69.09/oz · MCX ~Rs. 2,41,648/kg | +0.1% | Riding the same debasement trade as gold; MCX silver rose 0.84% Thursday |
| Crude oil (Brent) | $86.93/bbl (WTI $81.36) | −1.0% | Fourth straight daily fall; Iran-Oman agreement on Strait of Hormuz waters raised de-escalation hopes, though Tehran cautions reopening needs more |
| US 10-year Treasury | 4.67% | +2 bps | The 30-year sits at 5.19%, near a 19-year high of 5.33% touched 18 August on inflation & US fiscal worries |
| India 10-year G-sec | ~6.85% | steady | Around an 8-week high after hawkish RBI minutes; Dy Gov Gupta sees no scope for further easing & even a possible hike case this fiscal year |
| US initial jobless claims (announced Thursday) | 203,000 | −4,000 w/w | Below the ~208k expected; the US labour market is still tight, which supports the case for a Fed HIKE (not cut); September hike odds roughly 35-40% |
| India macro released in the last 24 hours | None | n/a | Next up: Q1 FY27 GDP & April-July fiscal deficit, both due Monday, 31 August |
The big picture · a second day of decline at home, an AI-led rally abroad, & a new Fed chair speaks tonight
- Where we closed. The Nifty ended Thursday at 24,090.85, down 0.48%, & the Sensex at 76,933.59, down 0.70%, a second straight day of decline. Metals, PSU banks & cement led the fall, with HDFC Bank (more below), Hindalco & M&M the top Nifty losers. The Nifty Midcap slipped 0.10% while the Smallcap index actually added 0.09%, so the selling was concentrated in large caps.
- The odd 20 minutes at the close. Thursday was the first monthly derivatives expiry since the BSE introduced the Closing Auction Session (CAS) on 3 August. What is a closing auction? Instead of taking the last traded price, the exchange collects buy & sell orders for 20 minutes after 3:15 pm & discovers one closing price. During that window the Sensex's indicative price fell roughly 2,000 points, to 74,988, before recovering to close at 76,933. Traders blamed the new mechanism; SEBI chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey said the same evening there will be no changes to CAS. Expect broker chatter & possibly cautious index-fund behaviour around month-end closes until this settles.
- The flows behind the market. Foreign investors (FPIs) have now put in Rs. 27,186 crore in August, the biggest monthly inflow since September 2024 & the second straight positive month (July was Rs. 20,200 crore). One fund manager's explanation: money rotating out of the Korea-Taiwan "chip trade" into India within emerging markets. The other side of the coin: FPIs are still net sellers of Rs. 2.27 lakh crore in Indian equities in calendar 2026, so August is a repair, not a reversal. On Thursday itself FIIs sold Rs. 298 crore in cash while domestic institutions bought Rs. 4,977 crore.
- The overnight cue. The US rallied on Nvidia's results: S&P 500 +0.72% to 7,731, Nasdaq +1.57% to 26,541, though technology was the only advancing sector, which tells us how narrow the rally was. Asia is mixed this morning: Nikkei +0.6%, Kospi −1.2% on profit-taking in memory-chip names. GIFT Nifty points to a flat-to-slightly-negative open for India.
- Tonight's main event. Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, who took office in May, gives his first Jackson Hole keynote at 7:30 pm IST. Markets price roughly a one-in-three chance of a rate HIKE in September (after July US PCE inflation came in hot at 3.7% year on year) & better-than-even odds of a hike by December. A hawkish Warsh would push the dollar & bond yields up & pressure gold & emerging-market equities including India on Monday; a softer tone would do the reverse. Indian markets close before he speaks, so today's session trades partly blind.
Global & overnight markets · Nvidia carried Wall Street alone, & the bond market is pricing a hike, not a cut
- The US close. S&P 500 +0.72% to 7,730.99, Nasdaq +1.57% to 26,541.35 (the best day for both since 4 August), Dow at 53,569.44 (reported moves for the Dow ranged +0.2% to +0.7% across sources; the level is the better-corroborated figure). Technology was the only advancing S&P sector, so breadth was poor: strip out AI & the market fell.
- The Nvidia numbers, because they set the tone everywhere. Q2 FY27 revenue of $96.2 billion, up 106% year on year; earnings per share $2.22; data-centre revenue $89 billion, +117%; & a first-ever year-ahead forecast of ~70% revenue growth in FY2028 versus consensus of ~44%. Supply commitments (what Nvidia has contracted to buy from its own suppliers, mostly memory) more than doubled to $279 billion, which is simultaneously evidence of demand & a warning about memory-cost pressure on margins. The stock rose 8.7%. Separately, media reports say Nvidia has agreed to buy Hugging Face, the open-source AI model platform, for ~$12.9 billion; other outlets report the deal is not signed & could collapse, & neither company has confirmed.
- Other movers. Salesforce +11.2% on results; HP fell 7.1% as PC & printer shipments fell & memory-chip costs rose (the same memory inflation showing up on the cost side of hardware makers); Snowflake +4.9%.
- Rates & the Fed. US 10-year at 4.67%, 30-year at 5.19%. The 30-year touched 5.33% on 18 August, a 19-year high, on sticky inflation (July PCE +3.7% year on year) & fiscal concerns; a 25-year-high 30-year auction yield of 5.216% cleared on 13 August. Against that backdrop, the September FOMC is priced at roughly 35-40% probability of a HIKE & better-than-even odds of a hike by December (the exact odds move daily & differ across venues). That is the frame in which Warsh speaks tonight.
- Asia this morning. Nikkei +0.61% (~66,533), helped by SoftBank; Kospi −1.16% (~6,832) on profit-taking in Samsung, SK Hynix & Kioxia, exactly the "chip trade" rotation that the FPI-flows story above says India is benefiting from. A clean Hang Seng level for this morning was not available at writing time.
Macro · a quiet 24 hours before a loud Monday
- India released nothing material in the last 24 hours. The loaded date is Monday, 31 August: Q1 FY27 GDP & the April-July fiscal deficit. Estimates for GDP growth diverge unusually widely, from SBI Research's ~8% to private economists near 7% & a poll of economists flagging a possible four-quarter low on weak rains & services. The prior-year quarter grew 7.8%, so the base is demanding. One early signal already out: July core-sector growth slowed to 5.4% from 6.0% in June, though iron ore (+29.5%), cement (+13.1%) & electricity (+9.0%) stayed strong.
- One overlooked Indian release. The services Producer Price Index experiment showed service PPI inflation rising across key segments in Q1 FY27, led by air passenger services. Producer prices feed consumer services inflation with a lag, worth remembering when the RBI repeats that it sees no scope for easing.
- The US data. Initial jobless claims fell 4,000 to 203,000 (consensus ~208,000), continuing claims 1.778 million. Wednesday's second estimate kept Q2 GDP at +1.5% annualised. So: a slow-growing but fully-employed US economy with 3.7% inflation, which is precisely the mix that makes a hiking Fed thinkable.