Emerging stocks languished near a two-year low on Tuesday after Chinese shares took another beating.
Currencies, mired around multi-year lows, were pulled in different directions by the rising dollar and falling oil prices.
MSCI's emerging market stock index was flat after Chinese shares closed down 1.7 per cent with Beijing scrambling again to prop up markets whose wild fluctuations have heightened fears over China's financial stability.
After a plunge of more than 8 per cent in major indexes on Monday, Chinese regulators said they were prepared to buy shares, while the central bank injected cash into money markets and hinted at further monetary easing.
"It shows the limitations to what the authorities can achieve and raises concern about how they will manage the other challenges in the economy," UBS strategist Manik Narain said.

The West Bengal government has assured British investors that it has taken steps to bring down the labour strikes to zero levels, as it made a strong case for attracting investments.

"We are setting up systems in place.

"There has been a radical shift since 2010-11, when 7.6 lakh work days were lost [because of labour strikes].

"By 2013, the number of working days lost came down to zero.

"It takes time for mind-sets to change but please come to Bengal and we can assure very clear worker management processes," West Bengal's Finance Minister Amit Mitra said.

He was speaking at a gathering of British and Indian business delegates, organised by the UK India Business Council.

The minister also highlighted the state's 'transparent' process of e-services introduced at all levels, including tax collection, tenders and other areas of services.

Snapping its two-day winning run, gold prices plunged by Rs 190 to Rs 25,300 per 10 grams at the bullion market in the national capital as demand from jewellers and retailers at prevailing levels eased even as the precious metal strengthened overseas.
Silver followed suit and declined by Rs 150 to Rs 34,050 per kg on reduced offtake by industrial units and coin makers.            
Traders said fall in demand from jewellers and retailers at existing levels mainly pulled down the prices but a slightly better trend in global markets, limited the fall.
Globally, gold rose 0.4 per cent to $1,097.99 an ounce in Singapore as investors felt that the Federal Reserve would keep interest rates lower for longer.
Silver also rose 0.6 per cent to $14.64 an ounce.
In Delhi, gold of 99.9 and 99.5 per cent purity tumbled by Rs 190 each to Rs 25,300 and Rs 25,150 per ten grams, respectively.
The precious metal had gained Rs 440 in last two sessions.       

Country's largest mortgage lender HDFC Ltd on Tuesday said its consolidated net profit during the first quarter ended June, 2015-16, stood at Rs 2,204.29 crore (Rs 22.04 billion).
Its consolidated net profit during the April-June quarter of the previous fiscal was at Rs 1,872.90 crore (Rs 18.72 billion).
The company said the results were not comparable on account of certain dividend payments from HDFC Bank.
In the previous financial year, the Corporation (Housing Development Finance Corporation or HDFC Ltd) received dividend of Rs 269.35 crore (Rs 2.69 billion) from HDFC Bank in June 2014 and accordingly the income was accounted for in the first quarter, it said further.

Indian banks will continue to reel under the impact of bad loans in the current financial year, although new non-performing assets may decline, says a Moody's report.
"In our opinion, the Indian banks are unlikely to reduce their problem loan ratios in FY2016 but the new non-performing loans will probably decline," Moody's Investors Service said, based on findings of a poll.
State-owned banks have little capacity to improve their generally weak capital buffers through retained earnings as capital infusion, including from government, is likely to remain scarce, it said.
Bulk of the respondents, according to a poll result, are not expecting any significant improvement in the capital levels of the state-owned banks over the next two years.

Global gold demand shrank to its lowest level since 2009 in the second quarter as China poured funds into equities, which had promised better returns, and imports by India dropped to the lowest in five quarters, an industry report showed on Tuesday.   

Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, India's biggest carmaker by sales, said on Tuesday first-quarter net profit rose 56 per cent helped by lower costs, favourable foreign exchange rates and higher sales, but still missed bullish analyst estimates.   

Reserve Bank of India is likely to keep the benchmark repo rate unchanged at 7.25 per cent in its policy review meet next week, a DBS report says.
According to the global financial services firm, besides the impact on markets, the Central Bank would take cues from the US Federal Reserve this week for its rate trajectory.
"The RBI meets next on August 4 and we expect the benchmark Repo rate to be held unchanged at 7.25 per cent after cumulative 75 bps cuts since January 2015," DBS said in a research note on Tuesday.
The report noted that, if the official commentary signals a start to the US rate hiking cycle later this year, "it will affirm our expectations that the RBI will maintain a prolonged pause on the rates front".

China will press its Supercomputer Skyeye-1, capable of a quadrillion computing operations per second, to support space exploration by the world's largest radio telescope being built in its Guizhou Province.
Assembly of the telescope, with a dish the size of 30 football fields and located deep in the mountains of Guizhou, has got underway, official media reported.
When it is completed in 2016, the 500-metre aperture spherical telescope will be the world's largest, overtaking Puerto Rico's Arecibo Observatory, which is only 300 metres in diameter, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
A radio signal as far as tens of billions of light years away could possibly be caught by the telescope, which will extend China's space tracking scope from moon's orbit to the outside edge of the solar system upon its completion next year.

The government will release a series of postal stamps on well-known singers, writers, freedom-fighters and painters and it also seeks designs of philatelic stamps through crowd sourcing.

The decision was taken by the philatelic advisory committee which met under the chairmanship of Communication and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Monday.

According to an official statement, it was also decided that ceremonial stamps issued so far may be made available in all post offices, and stamps with picture postcards may be released on tourist places such as Taj Mahal, Ajanta and Ellora, Belur Math, Khajuraho etc.

Union Bank of India , the nation's sixth-biggest state-run lender by assets, reported a smaller-than-expected 22 per cent fall in quarterly profit even as bad loans rose.   

Prospects of summer crops like rice, pulses and oilseeds are good in most parts of the country, barring some interior parts of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka, IMD chief said on Tuesday.

More than 50 per cent of the sowing of summer crops has been completed so far in this kharif season and farmers have taken up pulses, oilseeds and coarse cereals in a big way, as per the latest data of the Agriculture Ministry.

Sowing of kharif crops begins with the onset of southwest monsoon from June.

So far, there has been 4 per cent deficit rains in the country, while in July alone the rainfall deficiency was about 17 per cent, as per the Met Department.

Google is bidding adieu to Google Plus, an awkwardly named social network that the American search engine had launched four years ago hoping it would become a serious rival to Facebook.

Google has spent the last several months chopping up Google Plus's most useful pieces and making them separate services as it moves away from making Google Plus the central hub for all Google-related activity.

On Monday, the company announced its most drastic step for breaking up Google Plus.

Google has announced more sweeping changes for Google Plus over the next few months as it restructures network into two distinctly separate products: streams and photos.

Gold futures on Tuesday fell 0.33 per cent to Rs 24,816 per 10 grams as participants cut their bets amid a weak global trend.

Besides, profit-booking by speculators weighed on gold prices.

At Multi Commodity Exchange, gold prices for delivery in August fell Rs 83, or 0.33 per cent, to Rs 24,816 per 10 grams in business turnover of 369 lots.

Also, the metal for delivery in far-month October declined Rs 73, or 0.29 per cent, to Rs 25,045 per 10 grams in 48 lots.

Analysts attributed fall in prices to weak trend overseas where the precious metal declined to near five-year lows as investors weighed the prospects for a US interest rate rise with Federal Reserve policy makers scheduled to meet on Tuesday.

 

Indian jewellery firm Rajesh Exports is eyeing Australian markets in a bid to secure supply of gold for its empire after the company bought Switzerland-headquartered gold refinery Valcambi for $400 million.

"We are very very seriously looking . . . we have a lot of interest coming from (Australia], we have made a list of interesting assets there and we will be taking that forward," said Rajesh Mehta, the company's chairman.

Mehta had earlier expressed his interest in spending up to $700 million on Australian gold assets in a bid to secure supply of gold for his jewellery empire.

He said these plans would be resumed once the Valcambi transaction was completed. Valcambi was bought for $400 million (about Rs 2,560 crore) in an all-cash deal.

Local search engine Justdial on Tuesday reported 18 per cent increase in net profit at Rs 33.17 crore (Rs 331.7 million) for the quarter ended June 30, 2015.

The company had reported a net profit of Rs 28.11 crore (Rs 281.1 million) in the corresponding quarter a year ago, it said in a Bombay Stock Exchange filing.

Justdial's total income from operations grew by 24.87 per cent to Rs 168.62 crore (Rs 1.68 billion) in the quarter under review as against Rs 135.03 crore in year-ago period.

Its overall expenses stood at Rs 126.93 crore (Rs 1.26 billion), up 18.91 per cent as compared to Rs 106.74 crore (Rs 1.06 billion) in the first quarter of the previous fiscal.