Rupee makes a comeback 🥵
Adani Q3 profit skyrockets, India’s helicopter boost, and Space meets AI.
🗓️ Morning, folks! ☀️
Sensex and Nifty surged to their biggest single-day gains since May 12, 2025, after the US-India trade deal lifted market sentiment.
💡 Spotlight: Trade truce sparks cheer across export sectors 🤝
India’s export-heavy sectors are set to gain after a long-awaited India-US trade deal cut tariffs on Indian goods to 18% from 25%.
Textiles, seafood, auto ancillaries, engineering goods, chemicals, and gems & jewellery are leading the rally, with Indo Count Industries, Avanti Feeds and Gokaldas Exports up nearly 20%, while Kitex, Welspun India, UPL, SRF and Jubilant Ingrevia also rose.
IT could see a sentiment boost, and consumer exporters like LT Foods, Tata Consumer and KRBL are also poised to benefit.
Let’s hit it!
1 Big thing: Adani Q3 profit soars 96x 🥵
Adani Enterprises posted a bumper set of Q3 numbers, and the market wasted no time cheering it on. The company’s profit shot up a staggering 96 times, and the stock jumped 10.3% by the end of the day.
By the numbers:
Net profit: at ₹5,627 cr vs ₹58 cr
Revenue: up 8.6% YoY at ₹24,819.6 cr vs ₹22,848 cr
The how: the biggest boost came from a one-time gain of ₹5,632 crore. This happened after the company sold part of its stake in its consumer goods business, which it runs with Singapore-based Wilmar. That single deal did most of the heavy lifting for profits this quarter.
Strong performance in the airport and renewable energy businesses helped make up for weak demand in coal trading, which is one of the company’s older businesses.
Execution was another bright spot. Adani Enterprises started operations at the Navi Mumbai airport in less than five years after acquiring the project. It also finished two road projects on time and opened a new integrated terminal at Guwahati airport.
2. Adani, Italy’s Leonardo back India helicopters 🚁
Adani Group and Italian aerospace major Leonardo are teaming up to build an integrated helicopter manufacturing ecosystem in India.
Leonardo is an Italian aerospace and defence company that builds helicopters, aircraft, defence electronics, and security systems.
The deets: the partnership will serve the Indian Armed Forces. The focus will be on Leonardo’s AW169M and AW109 TrekkerM helicopters, with local manufacturing and supply chains.
These are multi-role military helicopters, built for transport, surveillance, medical evacuation, and high-altitude operations.
Why it matters: India needs these platforms urgently due to low helicopter density, tough terrain across borders and islands, and projected demand for 1,000+ helicopters over the next decade. Leonardo stands out for its willingness to localise manufacturing and transfer know-how with India.
3. Advent’s big bet on Aditya Birla Housing 🏠
Aditya Birla Housing Finance raised ₹2,750 crore in growth capital from Advent International.
The deets: the deal values ABHFL at ₹19,250 crore post-money. After the infusion, Aditya Birla Capital will hold nearly 85.7%, while Advent International will own 14.3%.
What Advent gets: with fast loan growth and very low bad loans, Aditya Birla Housing gives Advent a chance to grow steadily, while riding India’s long-term demand for homes.
Advent gets a capital-efficient entry into retail lending, with governance comfort from the Birla Group, and optionality for exits via IPO or strategic sale in the future.
Big picture: affordable housing finance stocks have outperformed the broader market, clearly beating the Sensex over the past year. That outperformance signals strong investor confidence in housing lenders as home loan demand stays resilient despite market volatility.
4. Musk takes AI to space 🚀
Elon Musk has merged SpaceX with his AI startup xAI, creating what Bloomberg calls the world’s most valuable private company, valued at around $1.25 trillion.
Musk says the future of AI needs far more power and computing than Earth can realistically provide. His solution is space-based data centres, powered by satellites instead of land-based facilities.
In his words:
“Global electricity demand for AI simply cannot be met with terrestrial solutions… without imposing hardship on communities and the environment.”
The why: xAI is burning nearly $1 billion a month, while SpaceX earns up to 80% of its revenue from Starlink launches. Combining the two creates a built-in loop. AI needs satellites, satellites need launches, and SpaceX provides both.
5. Electric buses get funding push 💰
Drivn secured commitments of up to $80 million from Nomura to grow its electric bus and truck business in India.
In simple terms, Drivn buys electric buses and trucks and leases them to operators, while handling charging, battery management, and fleet operations end to end.
The deets: the company aims to support the Phase 1 rollout of nearly 1,000 electric buses and trucks for inter-city travel and heavy transport, the parts of the market that burn the most fuel today.
Bottomline: this also fits India’s bigger EV goal of 30% of all vehicle sales being electric by 2030. India is still behind the world, but it is catching up. Our EV adoption went from about one-fifth of the global level in 2020 to over two-fifth in 2024.
While we are on fundraises 💰,
Bain Capital-backed Dhoot Transmission is gearing up for the markets, having filed papers with regulator SEBI to raise about $250 million.
The company makes a wide range of everyday-but-essential components, like wiring systems, switches, sensors, cables, and battery packs, that go into cars and household appliances.
6. Inside India’s manufacturing workforce 📊
India’s factory floors show a sharp gender divide, with women heavily concentrated in a few labour-intensive sectors.
Tobacco (93%) and apparel (65%) are dominated by women, while textiles are close to parity but their presence drops steeply beyond these segments.
In contrast, men overwhelmingly dominate higher-tech and capital-intensive industries like electronics (86%), electrical equipment (88%), and food processing (77%).
This highlights how most women workers remain clustered in low-tech manufacturing, despite the sector employing millions overall.
7. Stock that kept us interested 🚀
1. Order rush lifts KEC International ↗️
KEC International bagged ₹1,020 crore worth of new orders across multiple businesses.
KEC International is a major global Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) company, specialising in end-to-end solutions for infrastructure projects.
Here’s the breakdown of all the orders won:
the civil arm won an order to build a multi-speciality hospital for a healthcare player in Central India.
the transportation arm secured an order to construct a railway siding, a private rail link connecting an industrial facility to the main railway network, in Central India.
the T&D business bagged multiple high-voltage cabling orders (220 kV and 132 kV) from an eastern India steel producer.
the US arm received a supply order for transmission towers, hardware and poles.
the cables & conductors business won orders for supplying various cables and conductors in India and overseas.
What this means for the company: the new orders will help KEC expand its presence in hospital projects and add an important transportation win. This also strengthens its order book, taking year-to-date order wins to about ₹20,300 crore.
What else are we snackin’ 🍿
⚡ Rupee rallies: the rupee rose to a three-week high on optimism over an India-US trade deal, marking its biggest single-day gain in over three years.
📈 Bulls charge: the India-US trade deal sparked a strong Tuesday rally, with BSE-listed companies gaining ₹20 lakh crore in market capitalisation.
🛢️Russia responds: Russia said there has been no communication from India about stopping oil purchases, responding to Trump’s claim after the US trade deal.
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