Indian benchmark indices are likely to open with notable gains as global markets staged a pullback. SGX Nifty futures were quoting higher higher at 16,500 on the Singapore Exchange hinting at a positive start for Dalal Street. Thereafter, the RBI policy meet outcome is likely to dictate the market trend for the remainder of the day. “The focus will be on MPC’s meeting outcome on Wednesday amid the expectation of a further rate hike. Besides, their outlook on growth and inflation holds importance. On the index front, the bias would again turn negative below 16,300 else consolidation would continue with the upper band at the 16500-16700 zone,” said Ajit Mishra, VP – Research, Religare Broking.

Stocks in focus on 8 June, Wednesday

HDFC Bank: HDFC Bank on Tuesday announced a 0.35% increase in lending rate. The hike, which came a day ahead of the RBI’s scheduled policy review, is the second such move from the lender in as many months, taking the cumulative hike to up to 0.60%. The lender increased its Marginal Cost of funding based Lending Rate by 0.35%. The one-year MCLR, on which a bulk of consumer loans are pegged, will be 7.85?ter the newest review as against 7.50?rlier. The overnight MCLR will be 7.50% against 7.15%, while the three-year MCLR will be 8.05% compared with 7.70%.

SBI: State Bank of India (SBI) has appointed Alok Kumar Choudhary as its new Managing Director (MD) with effect from June 7, 2022. He has replaced former MD Ashwani Bhatia, who took charge as the whole-time member of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). Apart from Choudhary, SBI with this appointment will have 4 MDs – CS Setty, MD in charge of retail banking; Swaminathan Janakiraman, MD in charge of stressed assets, risk and compliance; and Ashwini Kumar Tewari, MD in charge of international banking – led by the chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara.

Reliance, Future Group: Amazon has warned Future Group promoters against sale of the company’s supply chain and logistics businesses to Reliance Industries (RIL) in a fresh transaction. In a letter addressed to Kishore Biyani and other family members who are classified as promoters, Amazon has said the transfer of the supply chain and logistics businesses were part of the transaction struck by the board of directors of Future Retail with RIL on August 29, 2020, and was subsequently put on hold by the Singapore emergency arbitrator. Further, the transaction was struck down in April by the creditors of Future Retail, hence any move to sell these assets to RIL now would be nothing but a ‘fraudulent move’, like the company handing over 835 of its stores to Reliance Retail, it said.

RITES: RITES signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Grands Trains DU Senegal (GTS-S.A), a railroad company of Senegal, on technical cooperation in the railway sector. The MoU aims to enable technical cooperation in the fields of rail transportation, supply of rolling stock, railway infrastructure development, including dedicated freight corridors and passenger stations, modernization of workshops, IT solutions for railway operations, and up-gradation of signalling, telecommunication, and rail monitoring systems.

Punjab National Bank (PNB): The board of Punjab National Bank has approved an investment of Rs 500 crore by participating in the rights issue of PNB Housing Finance. The investment by state-owned lender in its housing finance arm will help PNB in maintaining its shareholding at 30 per cent or below and retain its status as a promoter, the bank said in an exchange filing.