Procter & Gamble on Friday reported quarterly earnings and revenue that topped analysts’ expectations, as volume for its products grew for the first time in a year.

But looking ahead, executives warned about uncertainty caused by the war with Iran, like the effects on the company’s input costs and consumer spending. P&G will not provide a forecast for fiscal 2027 until its next earnings report in July.

“I’m very happy that I don’t have to give guidance today [for fiscal 2027],” CFO Andre Schulten said on the company’s earnings conference call Friday. “Because what do we know what the world looks like three months from now, with what we know today?”

Despite that haziness, shares of the company rose more than 3% in morning trading.

Here’s what the company reported compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:

• Earnings per share: $1.59 adjusted vs. $1.56 expected
• Revenue: $21.24 billion vs. $20.5 billion expected

P&G reported fiscal third-quarter net income attributable to the company of $3.93 billion, or $1.63 per share, up from $3.78 billion, or $1.54 per share, a year earlier. Excluding restructuring costs and other items, the company earned $1.59 per share.

Net sales rose 7% to $21.24 billion. Organic sales, which strip out acquisitions, divestitures and currency, increased 3%.

P&G’s volume increased 2%, marking the first time in a year that it reported growing volume across the company. The metric excludes pricing, which makes it a more accurate reflection of demand than sales. Like many consumer companies, P&G has seen demand for its products shrink as shoppers try to spend less and stretch their laundry detergent and shampoo further.

“I would say, right now, the consumer in the U.S. is stable,” Schulten said on a call with media. “We see the bifurcation of the consumer segments continuing.”

Despite inflation fears, consumers haven’t started pantry loading toilet paper or paper towels yet, P&G said.

P&G’s beauty division, which includes Olay, Head & Shoulders and Pantene, was the star of the quarter, with 5% volume growth. P&G said it saw volume increases across its personal care, skin care and hair care categories.

The baby, feminine and family care segment saw volume increase 3%. The company saw higher demand for its diapers and family care products, which includes Bounty paper towels and Charmin toilet paper.

P&G’s fabric and home care division reported that volume rose 2% in the quarter, fueled by higher North American demand for its Tide detergent.

Grooming and health care were the two laggards of the portfolio. The grooming segment, which includes Gillette and Venus products, saw volume fall 2%. Health care, which houses Oral-B and Vicks, also reported that volume declined 2%.

The company reiterated its full-year forecast of sales growth between 1% and 5% and net earnings per share growth in the range of 1% to 6%.

“However, where we will land within those ranges has become more uncertain given the geopolitical dynamics in the Middle East,” Schulten said on the earnings call.

In the fiscal fourth quarter, P&G is projecting a $150 million hit from increased costs, largely driven by increased transportation costs stemming from higher fuel prices, Schulten said.

However, Schulten did say that if oil prices stay high, it would weigh on P&G’s profits. He told analysts that if the price of Brent crude oil stays around $100 per barrel, the company is projecting an annual after-tax headwind of $1 billion.

That increase in costs could lead to higher prices for consumers. However, P&G said it would likely avoid a straight price hike across its portfolio and instead focus those increases on premium products, mitigating any volume declines by leaning into the current K-shaped economy in which higher-spending consumers are doing better.

Plus, higher fuel prices would likely mean more budget-conscious shoppers.

“It’s unclear how much higher gasoline and energy costs will costs will impact near-term consumer spending in our categories,” Schulten said.

Correction: P&G reported adjusted EPS of $1.59. An earlier version of this story misstated the figure.

Mumbai: Valuations have been the big buzzword on Dalal Street for a while now but its suddenly gaining momentum. These days every conversation begins with the P/E ratio (price to earning ratio, which compares the current price of the share with its per share earnings) and ends with a loud proclamation that the valuations look ‘a bit stretched.’

However, many experts believe that looking at a ratio in isolation won’t help investors grasp the realities of the market and a higher valuation may not be the only deciding factor driving the market.

‘‘Valuations matter in the long run, but it need not have an impact in the short run. This is because there is never a right valuation for a stock, as it is a highly individual call,’’ says Mukesh Dedhia, director, Ghalla & Bhansali Securities.

‘‘For example, a stock with a higher P/E may be moving ahead further as there is greater demand for the stock because of its higher earnings possibility. So, there is always a bit of confusion about the right valuation,’’ he adds.

‘‘If you look at the broader market, it is difficult to get a value pick. But if you are doing a bottom up method, you would still find many stocks in the market with the right valuation,’’ says Rajiv Thakkar, CEO, Parag Parikh Financial Advisory Services. Though he is a firm believer of value investing, he says looking at a ratio alone won’t be the right way to investing in a stock.

‘‘There are many things you have to consider. For example, you have to find out whether the growth rate is sustainable or how much capital is required to keep the growth. Sometimes, there would be volume growth, but the margins could be under pressure. There are a host of issues to consider, just looking at a ratio is not enough,’’ he adds.
Some experts also believe that the higher valuations could be justified if foreign investors continue to pump money into the stock market with the hope of better performance by Indian companies.

‘‘The current valuations doesn’t justify the long term growth potential of India. The market is trading 17 times the earnings potential in 2011 and around 13.8 times the earnings forecast for 2012. It even carry a premium of around 50% to other emerging markets and around 25% premium to other global markets,’’ says Devendra Nevgi, Founder & Principal Partner, Delta Global Partners. He believes that the premium can be justified if the foreign investors continue to bet on Indian stocks.

The Nifty started Wednesday’s trade on a rather timid note. As the underlying index was quietly drifting downwards, the futures started trading at a deeper discount of nearly 10 points.

It was the last hour of trade that saw better volumes and a sharp movement. The fall amid global uncertainties has brought the Nifty once again to the level of 5400. Even the participation seems to be a little scared, as Nifty futures ended the day’s trade with an addition of over a million shares in open interest indicating creation of hedges.

As far as stock futures are concerned, we are very near to the highest-ever open interest with 195 crore shares in open interest. With nearly 70% of the stocks still trading with a premium, the bias among participants seems to be upwards. This would create a bit of pressure on the market in case of any macro uncertainty.

As we are almost half way through to expiry, it makes sense to continue with long positions, but along with long puts simultaneously so that losses are capped, still keeping all the upside open.

On the options side, Nifty August series open interest put-call ratio is at 1:58, indicating a moderately bullish composition. Even the implied volatilities element of the options which indicate the assumption of the risk remains very low. This indicates we may not see a huge downside as far as the August expiry is concerned. With over 10 million shares in 5300 August Put, the Nifty may find support around the level of 5300.

We feel one can do a Nifty bear ratio spread to hedge trading longs, by buying 1 lot Nifty August 5400 PE & selling 2 lots of Nifty August 5300 PE.
This strategy accrues profit within the 5200 & 5400 range in case the Nifty ends up in this range on expiry. On the event the Nifty heads upwards to close above 5400, one can still have a cash inflow and no cost of hedging. The strategy does incur loss below 5200, which we feel shall hold good for the August expiry.

(Bhavin Desai is Manager (derivatives), Motilal Oswal Securities )

Indian funds have grabbed seven out of the top 10 spots in the league table of leading small-cap funds across Asia, thanks to some canny stock-picking amid growing investor appetite for cheap stocks with potential to deliver multi-bagger returns.

An analysis of nearly 300 Asian small-cap schemes shows DSP BlackRock Micro Cap Fund leading the charge, delivering an 82% return over the past year. Managed by Vinit Sambre, who has been with DSP BlackRock for a little over three years, this fund has also soundly beaten the 58% rise of BSE’s Small-Cap Index since August 2009. The 30-share benchmark Sensex has gained 20% during this period while the wider BSE 500 Index is up 27%.

The other six schemes — Sundaram BNP Paribas Select Small Cap, HSBC Small Cap, JPMorgan Smaller Companies, Franklin India Prima, Franklin India Smaller Companies and ING Vysya CUB — have given investors returns between 44% and 57% on a trailing 12-month basis. These schemes manage anywhere between `46 crore and `954 crore.

Four of these funds were launched during the peak of the previous bull run between January 2007 and March 2008, and investors in them have also had to endure a massive erosion in their initial investment in the downturn that followed.

Mutual fund tracking firm Value Research called the DSP fund as an impressive product in the entire “small-cap universe”, noting that the stocks held by it were “credible, known names and there is a marked absence of momentum in the portfolio”. The fund’s holding includes companies with a high return on equity and strong leadership niches in their industries.

Value Research CEO Dhirendra Kumar said the closed-ended nature of some of these funds helped them weather the market turbulence. “These funds did not face redemption pressures through the declining phase. This, in turn helped them invest for the longer term,” he said.The DSP fund became open-ended in June this year and fund manager Mr Sambre has kept nearly 10% of his `311-crore corpus in cash to meet potential redemptions and to latch onto any opportunity in the market.

There are 10 small-cap funds in India, which manage roughly `3,450 crore in stocks. These account for just 2% of the total AUM under equity schemes.

Market experts say that as many large-cap stocks became fully priced and relatively unattractive over the past year, the rally shifted to small caps. Stocks such as cooler maker Symphony and luggage maker VIP Industries have led the small-cap charge in the market. Ahmedabad-based Symphony has surged 830% while VIP has risen 548% in the past 12 months. In comparison, top two gainers on the Sensex — Tata Motors and Tata Consultancy Services — are up 135% and 61%, respectively.

“Many small caps with excellent businesses were trading at a pathetically low valuations — many were trading below book value and at dividend yields of 5-7%,” says Deven Choksey, chief executive officer at KR Choksey Shares & Securities. “They just got purchased heavily.”

Even though small-cap funds have delivered solid returns in the past one year, experts say that investors must be cautious and have just 10-15% of their equity exposure in such funds or companies. This is largely because of the volatile nature of their stock performance.

“Investors should have a strong stomach and the ability to

withstand substantial declines in such funds,” says Mr Kumar at Value Research.

The luxury market in Italy continues to serve as a global benchmark, thanks to a unique combination of tradition, craftsmanship, and innovation.

However, the sector is currently undergoing a period of significant transformation, driven by a profound shift in the purchasing habits of high-end customers. Communicating with this audience now requires a more sophisticated approach: it is no longer enough to simply highlight the product; brands must build experiences, meanings, and relationships.

In this article, we will explore the evolution of the luxury market and the modern marketing strategies for engaging with this new audience.

How has the luxury consumer changed?

According to recent analyses of high-net-worth individuals

(HNWIs)—those in the highest income brackets globally—the concept of luxury is gradually evolving toward more fluid forms that are less tied to traditional channels. This approach, often referred to as “non-linear luxury,” reflects a growing search for meaning, authenticity, and emotion. In fact, the contemporary consumer is no longer limited to purchasing exclusive goods but tends to prioritize intense and engaging experiences, both in the physical and digital worlds.

The focus is shifting increasingly toward sensations, the experiential dimension, and a brand’s ability to create deep, personalized connections. Simply highlighting a product’s features is no longer enough to attract consumers: it has become essential to build a value ecosystem that integrates storytelling, experience, and innovation.

New Generations and New Values

Purchasing decisions are increasingly driven by emotional factors. Luxury is becoming a means of self-expression rather than a status symbol. Brands must therefore craft authentic and relevant narratives. This concept is being driven primarily by Millennials and Gen Z, who are redefining the market by bringing new demands to the table:

• sustainability and social responsibility
• authenticity and transparency
• personalized experience

At the same time, the modern consumer is more aware and selective, and expects tailor-made products and services.

Omnichannel as the standard

Integration across channels has therefore become essential. Omnichannel enables a seamless and consistent experience, where digital and physical reinforce each other. In luxury, this means:

• continuity between boutiques and digital channels
• personalization across all touchpoints
• brand consistency in every interaction

Why Are Luxury Brands Focusing on Digital Marketing?

Even the biggest names in luxury—both Italian and international—with decades of history behind them, have realized that relying solely on brand reputation is no longer enough. The market is changing, customers are evolving, and digital has become an essential tool for staying connected with the public and offering something truly memorable. Thanks to websites crafted with meticulous attention to detail, dedicated apps, or customizable online experiences, brands can convey their identity in an authentic and unique way. It’s not just about selling a product, but about building a genuine connection with the customer, making the brand feel like a complete experience capable of conveying values, style, and personality. This is why many companies in the sector turn to expert digital marketing agencies in Italy, capable of combining creativity, technical expertise, and knowledge of the local market.

Communication Strategies for the High-End Audience

Communicating with a high-end audience today goes beyond simple product promotion. Luxury customers seek experiences, stories that engage them, and interactions that align with the brand’s values and identity. All of this can be summarized as follows: every touchpoint becomes an opportunity to strengthen the bond with the consumer and bring luxury to life in a memorable way. Below, we describe the main touchpoints in luxury marketing.

Advanced Storytelling and Contemporary Values

The brand narrative remains at the heart of every luxury marketing strategy, but historical storytelling alone is no longer enough. Brands must incorporate contemporary values, create content that resonates emotionally, and establish an authentic connection with the customer. In addition to telling the story of who you are, you must make the consumer feel like part of your world, offering an experience that aligns with your brand identity.

Immersive and interactive experiences

Exclusive events and in-person moments remain important, but digital offers unique opportunities: from websites that act as immersive digital “business cards”, as in the case of the Venetian brand Barovier&Toso, to interactive content that conveys the craftsmanship, tradition, and magic of the product through simple cursor interactions. Even big names like Aston Martin manage to convey sensations and historical values through images and website design, integrating innovation with classic storytelling. Beyond websites, virtual reality and interactive experiences further expand the possibilities: Gucci, Rolls-Royce, and Jaguar, for example, have experimented with immersive campaigns that transport the consumer directly into the brand’s world, transforming the online experience into something more than a simple digital visit.

Among these, Gucci’s “La Famiglia” campaign, developed in collaboration with Google Gemini, has transformed the brand’s traditional e-commerce site into a true narrative playground. Users can interact with symbolic stories and unique characters, experiencing the narrative firsthand and discovering the brand’s identity in an original, engaging, and surprising way.

Selective and high-quality digital marketing

In the luxury sector, it’s not about reaching as many people as possible, but about deeply engaging the right ones. Brands focus on top-tier editorial content, curated platforms, and collaborations with influencers who are truly aligned with their identity. Digital thus becomes a tool for reinforcing the brand’s uniqueness and building lasting connections, without ever compromising the exclusivity and sense of premium quality that defines luxury.

In conclusion, digital enables brands to reach new audience segments and manage targeted campaigns, without ever losing that sense of exclusivity that lies at the heart of luxury. For high-end brands, the goal goes beyond the use of standard tools like chatbots or generic influencers: the focus is on creating personalized and memorable experiences that strengthen the relationship with those who already know the brand and win over new customers in a natural and distinctive way.

British consumers have stopped being patient. The average UK adult now abandons a mobile app that takes longer than three seconds to load, watches streaming content across four separate subscriptions, and expects a customer service response within the hour rather than the working day.

The cumulative effect on the entertainment sector has been the most significant behavioural shift since the arrival of broadband, and operators across every vertical — from cinemas to casinos, from Spotify to Sky — have spent the past five years rebuilding their businesses around a consumer who will churn for five pence of friction.

According to Ofcom’s Online Nation research, UK adults now spend close to four hours a day online, the majority of it on mobile devices, with attention fragmented across a growing catalogue of competing services. The strategic lesson underneath this pattern is not really about technology. It is about retention economics, and it applies well beyond entertainment. Any UK business competing for discretionary consumer spend — a point explored in our ongoing coverage of UK consumer behaviour trends — is operating in the same environment, facing the same expectations, and learning the same lessons the hard way.

The retention calculus has inverted

For most of the twentieth century, consumer businesses grew by acquiring new customers. Retention mattered, but it was a secondary metric. The assumption was that a reasonable product and a competent experience would keep most customers in place, and marketing spend was directed at the top of the funnel.

The digital shift inverted this. Customer acquisition costs across UK consumer categories have risen sharply, driven by Meta and Google ad inflation, data protection constraints that have narrowed targeting precision, and market saturation in most verticals. At the same time, switching costs for consumers have collapsed — comparison tools, portable accounts, and one-tap sign-ups mean that leaving one provider for another is now a three-minute decision rather than a three-week one.

The commercial consequence is that retention is now the primary growth lever in most UK entertainment businesses. The streaming cohort — Netflix, Disney+, Spotify, DAZN, Sky — spend materially more on product and personalisation than on acquisition marketing. Licensed UK gambling operators, arguably the sector under the heaviest retention pressure given that regulation continuously reduces their acquisition toolkit, have quietly become some of the most sophisticated customer-experience engineers in the British consumer economy. Independent review sites evaluating the best online roulette UK platforms publish detailed breakdowns of how these operators structure onboarding, retention mechanics, and responsible-play architecture — and the patterns on display are the result of a decade of forced innovation under regulatory pressure no other UK consumer sector has yet faced.

What high-retention entertainment businesses are doing differently

Three patterns recur across the most successful UK operators, regardless of vertical.

First, they have moved decisively to mobile-first product design. This is more than responsive layouts. It means rebuilding core flows — registration, payment, content discovery, support — around the reality that the majority of sessions now originate on a handset, often in short bursts of attention during commutes, breaks, or the half-hour between putting children to bed and falling asleep. Products designed for a desktop user with uninterrupted time fail silently in this environment. The operators winning are those who have redesigned their funnels assuming the user has forty seconds, one thumb, and an imperfect 4G signal.

Second, they have invested heavily in personalisation infrastructure. The old model — segment the audience into five or six personas and serve each a different homepage — is dead. Modern personalisation operates at the individual session level, adjusting content surfacing, messaging tone, promotional offers, and even interface complexity based on behavioural signals gathered in real time. Spotify’s weekly playlists, Netflix’s thumbnail variations, and the dynamic landing pages used by leading gambling operators are all manifestations of the same underlying investment in behavioural data infrastructure.

Third, they have shortened the feedback loop between product and commercial teams. Traditional consumer businesses release product updates quarterly and measure success in pooled cohort data. The high-retention operators run continuous experimentation programmes, A/B testing hundreds of changes per month with commercial KPIs visible to product teams in near-real time. The strategic effect is that product decisions stop being bets and start being iterations.

Regulation is not the enemy of retention

The shift above has happened simultaneously with a regulatory environment that has become substantially more demanding across UK consumer sectors. Financial services has the FCA’s Consumer Duty. Online platforms have the Online Safety Act. Gambling has a continuously tightening regime under the Gambling Commission’s LCCP framework. Food delivery faces evolving gig-economy rules. Even retail is navigating expanded product safety, digital markets, and advertising standards obligations.

The operators coping best with this compression have learned a counterintuitive lesson. Regulation is not the enemy of retention, and in some cases improves it. A customer who trusts the operator to handle their data well, flag risks honestly, and resolve complaints quickly is a customer who stays. The regulatory frameworks force the kind of customer-centric behaviours that sophisticated retention teams were trying to instil anyway. The businesses struggling are those that treated compliance as a cost centre rather than a product investment, and now find themselves retrofitting trust into a product architecture built for extraction.

This is particularly visible in gambling, where the regulatory envelope has tightened every year since 2020 — advertising restrictions, feature bans on auto-spin and turbo play, deposit thresholds triggering affordability checks, and a broader cultural expectation of demonstrable consumer care. Operators who responded by rebuilding their product around responsible engagement rather than maximised session length have retained customer bases that their more aggressive competitors have bled.

Live engagement as the new differentiator

The newest competitive frontier across UK entertainment is live, interactive content — and the strategic reasoning behind it is worth understanding even for businesses that will never livestream anything.

Passive content is increasingly commoditised. Every major streaming service has roughly the same library of prestige drama. Every bookmaker has roughly the same Premier League markets. Every music service has roughly the same fifty million tracks. Differentiating on catalogue is almost impossible at scale, and pricing power collapses accordingly.

Live, interactive engagement breaks this parity. A live dealer roulette table, a Peloton class with a real instructor, a Twitch stream with chat, a live podcast recording with audience questions — these experiences cannot be commoditised because each one is genuinely unique, time-bounded, and shared with other participants. The product becomes the moment, not the content, and the moment cannot be replicated by a competitor the following Tuesday.

The implications generalise. Any UK consumer business whose product could plausibly be delivered as a live or interactive experience should be investigating that option, because the retention premium on live engagement consistently exceeds the cost of producing it. Retail has learned this through shoppable livestreams. Fitness has learned it through class formats. Entertainment, broadly defined, is the next category where this lesson will compound.

The lesson for the broader UK economy

The UK entertainment sector is, in one respect, a preview of what every consumer-facing UK business will face within three to five years. The same acquisition cost pressure, the same mobile-first expectations, the same personalisation arms race, the same regulatory compression, and the same shift toward live and interactive formats will reach retail, financial services, hospitality, professional services, and beyond. The sectors that adapt earliest will retain margin. The sectors that treat the shift as a temporary disruption will lose it.

The strategic insight is simple and uncomfortable. The British consumer is not becoming more demanding because consumers have changed — the underlying psychology is the same as it ever was. They are becoming more demanding because the operators who set the benchmark in their daily digital lives have raised it to a level that other sectors will be measured against whether they like it or not. A utility company is now being compared, implicitly, to Monzo. A law firm is being compared to Gumtree. A specialist retailer is being compared to Amazon.

The entertainment sector got here first because the pressure hit first. The rest of the UK economy is catching up to the same conversation, and the operators watching closely are the ones who will survive it.

MUMBAI: A trading combination involving Nifty options is gaining prominence among savvy trading desks of institutional investors. The strategy, known as calendar spread, where traders simultaneously sell options contracts in the current month and purchase in the next month, is being recommended by brokers to institutional clients, who see sharp moves in Nifty options’ implied volatility — a key component of options pricing — in September.

“There is scope for money to be made by selling current month vols (implied volatility) and buying September vols,” said Girish Patil, manager-derivatives, Antique Stockbroking. In this spread strategy, traders use the premium they receive by selling the current series to part-finance the cost of buying options in the next month. “With only a few more days for the August series expiry, vols are unlikely to jump in this series,” Patil said.

Futures and options contracts for the August series will expire on 26th while the September series will expire on 30th next month.

Options sellers, who pocket the premium from the buyer, prefer fewer trading days in a trading month because of time value — another key aspect of options pricing. Time value of options decays closer to expiry of contracts, resulting in limited movements in options prices.

Selling Nifty 5500 calls options in the August series and buying the same contract in the September series is a good strategy in this kind of a market, said Shailesh Kadam, AVP-derivatives, PINC Research.

“This strategy bets that the Nifty will be range-bound and will not move above 5500 in the August series, while the undertone is positive next month,” Kadam said.
In the past one month, the Nifty has largely moved in a tight band between 5350 and 5450, resulting in the volatility index — a measure of traders’ expectations of near-term risks in the market — moving in the 15-20% band, the lowest range since January 2008. This indicates traders are comfortable about the market levels in the near-term.

Brokers said that options traders have struggled to make money, of late, in the absence of sharp index movements. “Vol buyers (buyers of options) have lost their money, while sellers don’t have the courage to sell vols at such low levels,” said the head of derivatives at an institutional broking house. “So, unless there is a sharp move, calendar spread appears to be the best strategy,” he said.