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The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Thursday proposed tightening margin rules for a trading strategy in single-stock derivatives.Under the proposal, the benefit of offsetting positions across different expiries will not be available on the day of expiry for singlestock derivative contracts expiring that day.The review follows feedback from market participants flagging potential risks arising from calendar-spread benefits on expiry days for single-stock contracts. A calendar spread is when a trader holds the same stock’s derivatives with two different expiry dates, which lowers margin because the positions offset each other. The risk appears on expiry day when the near-month contract expires and the hedge no longer exists. This leaves the trader exposed to one-way moves on the remaining position.“It is clarified that the existing margin calculations for calendar-spread positions shall remain unchanged for calendar-spread positions involving all expiries other than the contracts expiring on a given day,” Sebi said in a circular. The new rule will take effect three months from the date of the circular.Currently, for index derivatives, calendar-spread benefits are already unavailable on the day of expiry for contracts maturing that day.Sebi said the proposal would align the treatment of calendar spreads in single-stock derivatives with that of index derivatives and give trading members sufficient time either to bring in additional margin on expiry day or roll over positions.“In the absence of such formulation, there remains a risk of sudden increase in margin on the day following expiry of one leg of the calendar-spread position, with limited recourse available to trading members in case of margin shortfall or an open leg showing significant adverse price movement,” it added.

Mumbai : Atechnical glitch at National Securities Depository (NSDL) resulted in a delay in settlement of trades executed over the past three days. Shares bought by several investors associated with the depository since Tuesday are yet to reflect in their demat accounts, preventing them from selling those holdings, said officials at multiple brokerages on Thursday.The likely cause is a technical disruption inside NSDL that affected its ability to process inter-depository transfers with its bigger rival, CDSL. Since several trading settlements often require securities to move across the two depositories––a routine process, any snag in NSDL’s inter-depository routing hinders the credit of shares to individual client demat accounts.As a result, securities have been credited to broker pool accounts but have not been allocated to end-investor demat accounts, leaving clients temporarily unable to trade those holdings, sources said.“This was not some isolated case; clients of all broking firms face issues because of the issue in inter-depository transfer emanating from NSDL,” said the chief of a brokerage on condition of anonymity.While brokers did not report similar settlement delays at rival depository CDSL, NSDL is understood to have moved to its Disaster Recovery (DR) site to address the issue. The exact reason behind the snag at NSDL could not be ascertained. Email queries to NSDL remained unanswered until press time.India’s equity settlement process follows a T+1 cycle. After trades are completed on the exchange, the clearing corporation settles them the next day before 10:30 am by collecting securities and funds from brokers and releasing payouts by the afternoon, around 3:30 pm. After this, depositories credit shares to investors’ demat accounts.This week, the technical disruption at NSDL delayed this final step.“Due to a glitch on NSDL’s end, inter-depository transfer of shares has been impacted, due to which brokers were unable to complete pay-ins to clearing corporations,” said the chief operating officer of a retail brokerage who did not want to be named. “Clearing corporations have transferred some shares from CDSL to the brokers’ CDSL Pool account, which ideally should have gone directly to customers’ Demat accounts. NSDL was unable to do BOD (Beginning Of Day) of its systems to the next working day until this afternoon, due to which operations have been delayed.”BOD is the depository’s opening snapshot of the investors’ demat account. If shares aren’t there at the start of the day, investors can’t use or sell them that day.

Two back-to-back events—the union budget, and the finalisation of the India-US trade deal—have put the spotlight on various stocks and sectors that are poised to benefit. Here are the top 15 high conviction stock ideas from leading brokerages following the key events this week. These stocks are forecast to return 10-37% from here.127963676

NEW DELHI: India and the US are expected to finalise and sign a joint statement on the first part of the proposed bilateral trade agreement (BTA) in four-five days and aim to conclude a formal, legally binding pact by midMarch, commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal said Thursday.“India and the US are having a meaningful dialogue. The first tranche of the BTA is almost ready. We will finalise and sign the joint statement in fourfive days. Based on the joint statement, the next leg of the partnership will start,” Goyal said.The formal agreement is being drafted, a process that may take a month or a month and a half. “We plan to sign the formal agreement by mid-March,” he said. The minister ruled out any investment commitments in the pact.The US will slash tariffs on India to 18% from 50% after the joint statement is signed virtually on the first part of the BTA. Washington will issue an executive order to implement the lower tariffs on India a day or two after the joint statement. “Indian tariff reductions (will happen) only after a legal agreement,” said commerce secretary Rajesh Agrawal. Indian tariffs are most favoured nation (MFN) levies and US import duties are executive tariffs, he said.A Key Milestone“We hope to do things fast because there are further concessions that we will get after the legal agreement,” Goyal said.Also Read: India sets sail to add more trade muscle as it signs FTA terms with Gulf Cooperation CouncilPrime Minister Narendra Modi and US president Donald Trump announced the trade deal on Monday. This had been preceded by longdrawn negotiations and marred by Trump’s decision to slap 50% tariffs on Indian goods in August, half of that being a penalty for buying Russian oil that’s also being dropped.“Out of friendship and respect for Prime Minister Modi and, as per his request, effective immediately, we agreed to a Trade Deal between the United States and India, whereby the United States will charge a reduced Reciprocal Tariff, lowering it from 25% to 18%,” Trump had said in his post on Truth Social Monday.127952022Modi had welcomed the move.“Delighted that Made in India products will now have a reduced tariff of 18%,” he posted on X on Monday.“When two large economies and the world’s largest democracies work together, it benefits our people and unlocks immense opportunities for mutually beneficial cooperation.”'US-India trade deal in final stages', says Jaishankar; expected to be completed 'soon'Calling the accord a milestone, Goyal said India has already entered into a record eight trade agreements, and the first part of the BTA with the US will soon become the ninth.The US is India’s largest export destination. India exported goods worth $86.5 billion to the US in FY25 while importing goods worth $45.6 billion.$500 BILLION PURCHASESPurchases of US goods worth $500 billion, which Trump had mentioned in his posts, exclude agriculture, Indian officials said.The minister said to meet the $500 billion bilateral trade target as set out in February 2025, India will certainly need to step up exports and sourcing.The US is expected to emerge as a major supplier with a 25% share in India’s estimated procurement of $2 trillion in five years of oil, LPG, LNG, aircraft, smartphones, laptops, semiconductor components and data centre equipment. India currently buys $300 billion of these products annually from several countries.Given India’s rapid growth pace, the country will need large volumes of energy, data centre equipment, and ICT (information and communication technology) products, Goyal said.“Our steel capacity will double from today's 140 million tonnes to about 300 million tonnes in the next few years,” Goyal said. “And therefore, when we estimated what we will need from the US, we came to a figure of at least $500 billion. We can clearly see before our eyes the potential that we can procure from the US over the next five years.”India’s aircraft orders could account for a big chunk.“Orders placed on Boeing, and yet to be placed but ready, are nearly $70-80 billion. If you add the engines and other spare parts, it will probably cost $100 billion,” Goyal said, while pointing out that the budget had announced substantial concessions for data centres.

Budget 2026 is a business-as-usual exercise that increases some outlays, announces some new schemes, corrects some duty perversions, contains the fiscal deficit, and undertakes to devolve resources recommended by the Finance Commission to states. It gets a thumbs up by normal standards.But these are not normal times. We are experiencing what Mark Carney at Davos called a rupture in the global order. Trump has demolished old certainties about geopolitical alliances and enmities. No erstwhile US ally - European, West Asian or Asian - can count on Marines rushing to their rescue in the event of hostilities that, just a year ago, would have triggered intervention by the world's most powerful military. Every nation is scrambling to enhance its capacity to defend itself.While never an ally of the US, India had grown accustomed to considering itself a partner, not just formally in a grouping like Quad but in a comprehensive campaign, in general, to pre-empt any military adventurism by China in the Indo-Pacific. India's rise as an economic and military power is widely understood as a necessary condition to keep China's rise peaceful. Trump has ploughed such assumptions deep underground.Russia has been a reliable source of support. But Russia is beholden to China, for supplying critical inputs to its war against Ukraine. China has consistently dragged its feet over settling the border dispute with India, builds up and arms Pakistan as a convenient force multiplier, and engages with India's other neighbours in South Asia to neutralise them, if not turn them against India.India has to build up its strategic capacity, double-quick: buy and build arms, rid its communications and weapons systems of dependence on Chinese electronics, create a satellite constellation in low-Earth orbit to monitor developments on the ground, spot and lock in on targets, and supply vital battlefield communications, including to drones used by individual soldiers or patrol units.Simultaneously, there is strategic and economic challenge from AI. It's essential for commercial entities to develop AI applications that ride on foundation models from Western tech firms, and even open-source models available from China. But AI is increasingly used for military purposes. For that, India cannot rely on any model that can be withheld or corrupted by an external agent. India must develop its own.AI is a product of the computing capacity derived    from armies of high-speed, parallel processing chips housed in data centres, and programming. India has neither. But it has the potential to create both.India's semiconductor missions are ridiculous. The only reason to build chips in India, rather than import them, is to shield ourselves from weaponised technology access of the kind the US has used against China. That purpose is not served by handing over billions of dollars to foreign chip companies to set up low-end fabs in India. That money is better spent on developing our own chip-making ecosystem.A thought-through semiconductor mission would start with identifying every single element of the chip-making ecosystem, assemblies in each one of them, sub-assemblies and components. Fund five startups to develop every single item in this array, ranging from extreme ultraviolet lithography machines, lenses used to focus the laser to etch grooves on silicon wafers, to the kit to deposit vaporised metal in grooves and clean up afterwards.Not all of them will deliver. Some funds would be swallowed by the well-connected. But in this process of reinventing the wheel, India would create indigenous capability to keep innovating beyond the existing frontiers in this field.Can India do this? China has. Foreign companies have set up high-end R&D centres in their GCCs in India, employing Indian talent. What prevents Indian enterprise from doing this? Only the missing vision, courage and funding. Instead of luring foreign chip companies to set up shop in India, let GoI lure Indian tech talent working at the cutting edge in many parts of the world, to lead startups that would deliver Indian AI.All this calls for large amounts of money, which cannot be found by business-as-usual budgets. Given the strategic imperative, extraordinary measures have to be taken. GoI must draw back from its populist trespass into state subjects, and mindless subsidies, such as that for urea, which depresses nutrient use efficiency and inhibits the spread of complex fertilisers.It must put an end to the ethanol-blending farce, which only serves to reduce the crop under oilseeds and increase prices of maize, chicken feed, eggs and chicken. More than half of ethanol is derived from grain, including rice, all grown with subsidised, energy-intensive water and fertiliser.When Lal Bahadur Shastri called on people to hand over their gold to finance the war thrust upon India, Indians responded. India today faces a similar existential crisis. Indians will respond with sacrifice - provided it is shared by all sections, and funds are utilised wisely.Reorienting the budget is politics, not economics. It calls for political courage, honesty of purpose, and articulate engagement with the public. Is that too much to expect?