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The rupee depreciated 6 paise to 90.62 against the US dollar in early trade on Wednesday as geopolitical tensions and dollar demand from importers weighed on investor sentiments. At the interbank foreign exchange market, the rupee opened at 90.56 against the US dollar, then lost some ground to touch 90.62, registering a loss of 6 paise over its previous close. In the initial trade, the rupee also touched 90.46 against the American currency. On Tuesday, the rupee pared initial losses and settled on a positive note, higher by 10 paise at 90.56 against the US dollar. Forex traders said that while markets initially welcomed the India-US trade deal, fresh concerns have emerged after the White House released its fact sheet. The fact sheet highlights key terms of the agreement, including that India will eliminate or reduce tariffs on all US industrial goods and a wide range of US food and agricultural products. This includes dried distillers' grains, red sorghum, tree nuts, and fresh and processed fruit. Certain pulses, soybean oil, wine and spirits, and additional products, and India has committed to buy more American products and purchase over USD 500 billion of US energy, information and communication technology, agricultural, coal, and other products. "The US document goes a step further than the February 6 joint statement by explicitly mentioning tariff reductions on additional American agricultural products, including certain pulses. This is a sensitive area for India - both politically and economically," CR Forex Advisors MD Amit Pabari said in a note. Pabari said, "In the near term, the 90.00-90.20 zone continues to act as a strong support for the rupee. As long as this area remains intact, USD/INR could slowly move higher, with the 91.00-91.20 range emerging as the next potential upside zone in the coming sessions." Meanwhile, the dollar index, which gauges the greenback's strength against a basket of six currencies, was trading 0.14 per cent lower at 96.66. Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, was trading 0.78 per cent higher at USD 69.34 per barrel in futures trade. For India, as a major oil-importing country, higher crude prices mean a heavier import bill. And a heavier import bill almost always translates into pressure on the rupee, even if the impact is gradual, Pabari said. On the domestic equity market front, Sensex rose 141.21 points to 84,415.13 in early trade, while Nifty advanced 51.95 points to 25,987.10. On Tuesday, foreign institutional Investors purchased equities worth Rs 69.45 crore, according to exchange data.

The United States has revised the fact sheet of the trade deal with India, making a few changes in the key terms of agreement in the formal document. The world's biggest economy has removed "pulses" from a list of American products on which it said India will eliminate or reduce tariffs, revising the statement to say "India will eliminate or reduce tariffs on all U.S. industrial goods and a wide range of U.S. food and agricultural products, including dried distillers’ grains (DDGs), red sorghum, tree nuts, fresh and processed fruit, soybean oil, wine and spirits, and additional products."The agriculture chapter of the trade agreement released by India mentioned that pulses remain fully protected as a highly-sensitive sector under an Exemption category.The White House has also revised the India-US trade deal fact sheet to say that India "intends" to buy more American products and purchase over $500 billion of energy, information and communication technology, coal, and other products from the US.Also read: India-US Trade Deal Fact Sheet: Beyond pulses and 'intent', there's another big change you may have missedIt had earlier said India "will purchase over $500 billion of U.S. energy, information and communication technology, agricultural, coal, and other products."The joint statement issued last week had also maintained that “India intends to purchase $500 billion of US energy products, aircraft and aircraft parts, precious metals, technology products, and coking coal over the next 5 years.”The trade deal, announced independently by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump, was later elaborated by both sides through a joint statement and fact sheet that listed the details of tariff measures and economic cooperation between the two nations.Another notable feature of the joint statement released on February 7 was the mention of an "interim agreement" implying that the countries are still negotiating a broader U.S.-India Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA).Trump slashed the 25% reciprocal tariff on India to 18%, also removing the additional 25% which was imposed citing New Delhi's purchase of Russian oil.Also read: India-US trade deal: Farmers may get cover as tariffs on certain American agri-related products to ease over 10 yearsWait, more revisions aheadAnother revision to the fact sheet included a change in the digital services tax imposed by India. The White House earlier stated that "India will remove its digital services taxes" and "committed to negotiate a robust set of bilateral digital trade rules that address discriminatory or burdensome practices and other barriers to digital trade."However, in the current version, America has dropped the claim "India will remove its digital services taxes" and retains only that "India committed to negotiate a robust set of bilateral digital trade rules."As per the joint statement, the trade partners committed to address discriminatory or burdensome practices and other barriers to digital trade and to set a clear pathway to achieve robust, ambitious, and mutually beneficial digital trade rules as part of the BTA.Agriculture: The key component of the fine printUnder the agreement, US and India have committed to provide each other preferential market access in sectors of respective interest on a sustained basis.The Indian government has said that tariffs on imports of several agricultural and intermediate products from America will be phased out over a period of up to 10 years under the pact, which will provide adequate adjustment space for domestic players.Under the agriculture chapter of the agreement, India revealed that this long transition period applies to products used by India’s food processing industry, which are sourced from multiple countries."Phased elimination of tariffs over up to ten years has been adopted for certain intermediate products used by India’s food processing industry and sourced from multiple countries. These include albumins; certain oils such as coconut oil, castor oil and cotton seed oil; hoofmeal; lard; stearin; modified starches; peptones and their derivatives; and plants and parts of plants etc. This extended timeline provides adequate adjustment space for domestic stakeholders," the Press Information Bureau said.Also read: India-US tariff deal is a 'humiliating' cave-in: Swaminathan AiyarIn an interview with ET, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said that the agreement protects all of India's sensitive interests and provides huge opportunities for our labour-intensive sectors."Our priority has been to safeguard farmers and vulnerable sectors even as we expand trade," he said in an address to the parliament last week.During a press briefing, Goyal said that the trade deal with US is a ‘farmers-first’ agreement. “We all know how PM Modi works for farmers and is worried about them. This is a farmers-first deal for India, protecting agriculture, dairy, and other key sectors," he said.America's take on agri-dealFollowing formal announcements of the US-India trade agreement by PM Modi and Trump, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooker Rollings thanked Trump for taking care of American farmers. In a post on X, he said that the deal will help export more American farm products to India’s massive market, lifting prices and pumping cash into rural America.

Polling was underway on Wednesday in elections to 116 municipalities and seven municipal corporations in Telangana, a three-way contest between the ruling Congress, and opposition parties, BJP and BRS.Polling began at 7 am and would continue till 5 pm. A total of 52.17 lakh voters, including 25.50 lakh men and 26.67 lakh women, are eligible to cast their votes. The Telangana State Election Commission said 10,719 candidates are contesting for 2,569 wards in 116 municipalities. In the seven municipal corporations, 2,225 candidates are in the fray across 412 wards. The SEC has said over 41,000 polling personnel have been deployed, and 16,382 ballot boxes would be used for the election. Counting of votes is scheduled for February 13. After a major success in the gram panchayat elections in December last year, the ruling Congress aims to consolidate its position as the dominant player in state politics, while the BJP hopes to emerge as a credible alternative to both the Congress and the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS). Having suffered setbacks in the 2023 assembly polls and 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BRS came up with a decent performance in the gram panchayat polls and is keen to make substantial gains in the municipal elections to reverse its fortunes in the state. Observing that the Congress government has implemented several welfare programmes, including the distribution of fine variety rice under the public distribution system (PDS), the Arogya Sri health scheme, free travel for women in state-run buses, and LPG cylinders for the poor at Rs 500, Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy on Monday promised to prepare master plans for the development of every municipality.

The S&P 500 ​and the Nasdaq closed lower on Tuesday while the Dow edged up to its third record close in a row, as investors digested disappointing retail sales figures and waited for a key labor market report. The S&P 500 communication services sector was the market's weakest sector, weighed down by Alphabet shares, which fell 1.8% after Google's parent said it sold bonds worth $20 billion.The announcement played in to investor ‌worries about the amount of ⁠money technology ⁠companies say they must spend to support the artificial-intelligence boom, with Amazon, Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft collectively set to spend hundreds of billions in 2026 as they race for AI dominance. Meanwhile, U.S. retail sales unexpectedly stalled in ​December as households scaled back spending on vehicles and other big-ticket items, suggesting a slower growth path for consumer spending and the economy heading into the new year. The flat reading ​compared with economists' estimates for 0.4% growth. Trader hopes edged up for a more dovish Federal Reserve with the probability of a one-notch April rate cut up to 36.9% from 32.2% on Monday, according to CME Group's FedWatch tool. Markets still expect, however, that the central bank will keep rates on hold until June, when President Donald Trump's ​Fed chair nominee, Kevin Warsh, would take charge if approved by the U.S. Senate.Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist ⁠at Janney Montgomery Scott, ‌described the disappointing retail data as "bad news is good news," particularly for rate-sensitive industry indexes such as utilities and real estate , ​which were leading the ​benchmark's sector gainers.But the strategist pointed to caution ahead of the delayed but closely watched nonfarm payrolls report, due on Wednesday."In ⁠anticipation of the jobs report, nobody wants to get too far above their risk budget in ​the event the number does cause some consternation," said Luschini. Potentially adding some angst was White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett's ​comment on Monday that U.S. job gains could be lower in the coming months because of slower labor force growth and higher productivity due to AI gains.The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 52.27 points, or 0.10%, to 50,188.14, after hitting an intraday record high earlier in the day. The S&P 500 lost 23.01 points, or 0.33%, to 6,941.81 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 136.20 points, or 0.59%, to 23,102.47.With the S&P 500 narrowly missing a return to its late January record close on Monday, Janney's Luschini said: "When a security or an index reapproaches a high level again there's often some hesitation, some contention that has to take place before it can break through that peak again." Gains ‌of more than 2% in stocks such as Walt Disney and Home Depot helped push up the blue-chip Dow, countering declines in shares including Coca-Cola, which finished down 1.5% after missing Wall Street estimates for fourth-quarter revenue.In other individual stocks, Datadog jumped 13.7% and led S&P 500 ​percentage gainers on the ​day after the cloud-based monitoring and analytics platform ⁠beat quarterly estimates. In the consumer discretionary sector, Marriott closed up 8.5% for its biggest daily gain since April after also hitting a record high. The hotel chain projected a 35% jump in fees from co-branded credit cards, as affluent travelers splurge on luxury vacations. Shares of S&P Global slumped 9.7%, making it the biggest loser in the S&P 500 ​after forecasting 2026 profit below analysts' estimates. Peers Moody's and MSCI also fell. Spotify shares soared 14.7% after the audio-streaming platform forecast first-quarter earnings above expectations, benefiting from strong user growth and price hikes.Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.47-to-1 ratio on the NYSE where there were 795 new highs and 65 new lows. On the Nasdaq, 2,276 stocks rose and 2,447 fell as declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 1.08-to-1 ratio.The S&P 500 posted 72 new 52-week highs and 11 new lows while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 105 new highs and 107 new lows.On U.S. exchanges, 17.89 billion shares changed hands compared with the 20.68 billion-share moving average for the last 20 sessions.