TaithCymru will operate between Bangor and Carmarthen

A new north to south Wales coach service will launch in October.

Operating by Transport for Wales the new TaithCymru route will run two ways from Bangor to Carmarthen

The daily service, which will start on October 25th, will also stop at Caernarfon, Porthmadog, Dolgellau, Machynlleth, Aberystwyth and Aberaeron, cutting journey times by more than an hour.

TaithCymru is one of the Welsh Government’s 100-day commitments and forms part of its wider ambition to build a more integrated, multimodal public transport network across Wales.

Deputy Minister for Transport, Mark Hooper said: “I am delighted that we have delivered on our 100-day commitment to prepare to launch a new coach service linking the north and the south of Wales.

“Transport for Wales has worked at pace to deliver this scheme which I am pleased to announce will launch on 25 October.

“TaithCymru plays a vitally important role in connecting towns and communities, making it a quicker, easier and more reliable way to travel to access work, education, and leisure.

Lee Robinson, executive director for regional transport and integration at Transport for Wales, said:“TaithCymru represents a major step forward in improving connectivity between north and south Wales.

“This new service will provide faster, more convenient and more sustainable journeys, helping people access employment, education, healthcare and leisure opportunities while supporting our wider ambition of creating a truly integrated public transport network for Wales.

“TaithCymru is a great example of what can be achieved when we come together with a shared vision to improve transport for communities across the country.”

CLSA, in its latest note, highlighted that Q1 earnings were a mixed bag for Indian IT and global peers. Basic Excel math does imply that AI volumes could supersede deflation by FY30, taking USD revenue growth from low to mid-single digits, the international brokerage said.

Given long gestation time and limited potential upsides, CLSA downgraded its rating on the shares of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys and Tech Mahindra to ‘Hold’, and that on Wipro and Mphasis to ‘Underperform’, due to structural concerns.

CLSA revises target prices for TCS, Infosys

For Infosys, CLSA however hiked its target price to Rs 1,147 apiece from Rs 1,109 apiece. The latest target price implies around 3% upside potential from the heavyweight IT stock’s previous closing price of Rs 1,115 apiece.
It also hiked target price for TCS to Rs 2,326 apiece from Rs 2,165 apiece, implying 2% upside potential, while it reiterated a target price of Rs 1,634 per share for Tech Mahindra, implying 3% upside potential.

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CLSA sees 15% downside potential in Wipro shares

Wipro shares however faced a target price cut along with the rating downgrade to ‘Underperform’, with CLSA reducing its forecast to Rs 152 apiece from Rs 157 apiece. The latest target price implies 15% downside potential from the stock’s previous closing price of Rs 178 apiece.
CLSA meanwhile has a target price of Rs 2,113 apiece for the shares of Mphasis, implying over 13% downside potential.The international brokerage however sees mid-tier IT vendors in a better position to take advantage of these tectonic changes, with good quality management teams and execution. Hence, it reiterated its ‘High Conviction Outperform’ rating on Coforge and Persistent Systems. It also reiterated its ‘Outperform’ rating on LTI Mindtree and Hexaware Technologies.

Also read | Is market heading towards a big AI crash like the dot-com crisis? Here’s what European Central Bank predicts

How did IT stocks react?

IT stocks however bucked worries to snap a losing streak and trade in the green, despite an overall muted market sentiment favouring the bears. Nifty IT gained over 1% to cross 30,560 on Wednesday morning to emerge as the top sectoral gainer.

Coforge, Persistent Systems and HCL Tech shares jumped around 2% to lead gains, while LTI Mindtree, Infosys, and Wipro shares gained around 1% each. Mphasis, Tech Mahindra and TCS shares traded in the green with marginal gains.

IT stocks have seen sharp upswings and downswings recently. Earlier this year, the sector witnessed a sharp selloff after breakthroughs by AI startups fuelled concerns about potential disruption to the traditional IT services business model. Later, a sharp selloff in global tech leaders proved to be a blessing in disguise for Indian IT stocks, which emerged resilient amid the global tech rout.

Also read | Sensex falls 100 points, Nifty below 23,150 as market bleeds for 7th session. What lies ahead?

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)

The American dream of owning a home may be getting harder to achieve in some of the country’s biggest cities, but new data suggests it remains alive and well in parts of Texas and the Sun Belt.

According to WalletHub’s 2026 Best Real Estate Markets report released Wednesday, Frisco, Texas, took the top spot and was followed by neighboring McKinney, Texas. Murfreesboro, Tennessee; Durham, North Carolina; and Denton, Texas, rounded out the top five.

Other top 10 contenders include Cary, North Carolina; Madison, Wisconsin; Allen, Texas; Charlotte, North Carolina and Irvine, California.

“Texas and other Sun Belt markets dominate the top of the ranking, highlighting the combination of housing-market strength and helpful economic conditions found in many of these cities,” WalletHub writer and analyst Chip Lupo told Fox News Digital. “These markets tend to perform well across factors such as home-price appreciation, new housing construction, building-permit activity, affordability and job growth.”

CALIFORNIA LOSES FORTUNE 500 CROWN TO TEXAS AS BILLIONAIRE TAX THREAT LOOMS

“Nearly 47% of the housing units in Frisco, the No. 1 market overall, were built between 2010 and 2024 … McKinney, ranked No. 2, has a 40% new-home rate, the 10th-highest building-permit activity and one of the best job growth rates,” Lupo said.

Texas cities consistently ranked in the top 10 spots for the best real estate markets in America, according to new WalletHub data. (Getty Images)

“By comparison, many large coastal markets rank considerably lower overall, including New York at No. 231, Los Angeles at No. 237 and San Francisco at No. 273. Their relatively weak rankings reflect a combination of housing-market challenges and poor affordability and economic-environment scores,” he continued.

The study weighs underlying housing-market health and market trajectory more heavily than affordability alone in ranking the 300 U.S. cities, with cities needing a combination of healthy housing fundamentals and economic conditions that could support homeowners over the longer term to rank highly.

“Taxes are certainly part of the equation, but the ranking points more broadly to the combination of housing conditions and economic strength rather than taxes alone,” Lupo said.

McKinney, Texas, took the No. 2 spot for America’s best real estate markets. (Getty Images)

“By contrast, major coastal markets rank far lower. Those markets may offer high incomes and economic opportunity, but their housing costs can make it much harder for residents to translate those opportunities into homeownership. The biggest, most popular cities are on everyone’s radar,” he said, “so their housing markets have been competitive for a long time, and they continue to be. The entry point is therefore more expensive, and there might not be as much room for growth.”

“The contrast with expensive coastal cities is less about simply building more homes and more about whether housing supply can keep pace with demand. When new construction consistently falls behind population and job growth, affordability pressures become much harder to overcome,” Lupo said.

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Bourbon Street in New Orleans’ famed French Quarter neighborhood. (Getty Images)

New Orleans ranked last in the report, followed by Baltimore. Lupo said this is a “warning sign” that goes beyond home prices.

“Homeowners shouldn’t assume further deterioration is inevitable, but these rankings are a reason to be cautious,” he said. “Markets with weak housing fundamentals can experience slower home-price growth, weaker market activity and greater difficulty attracting buyers, which can make it harder for homeowners to build equity or sell quickly.”

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The lack of a clear AI exposure remains the key concern for Indian equities, with weak growth emerging as the next most important risk, according to the survey, which showed 32% of the respondents were net underweight on the nation. Lack of reforms and high valuations also emerged as reasons for the bearish outlook on Asia’s fourth-largest equity market.

In contrast, sentiment improved for Indonesia, with 27% of the fund managers saying they were net underweight on the market, compared with 32% in July. Taiwan and Japan remain investors’ most preferred regions. A total of 98 panellists with $272 billion of assets responded to the survey’s questions between Aug 7 and Aug 13.

Bloomberg

The survey findings align with a decline in Indian stocks over the past two weeks despite an improving earnings outlook, suggesting investors remain wary of the market even as its fundamentals strengthen.
Global funds have purchased more than $4 billion in local stocks this quarter — the most among regional emerging markets — after record outflows in the first half of the year, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Earnings for benchmark NSE Nifty 50 members jumped 18% from last year in the most recent three-month period, ahead of Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd.’s estimate of 10% growth.

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Indian stocks were last termed the least preferred in the BofA poll in May, as the country faced pressure on growth from rising energy costs following the US-Iran war that triggered a rally in global crude oil prices. With no sign of progress toward resolving the conflict, energy prices are climbing again, weighing on investor sentiment.
While the Nifty 50 has jumped 8% from a recent low in March, it remains the second-worst performing major market in Asia this year, having lost 8%. It’s on track to snap a historic run of 10 straight years of annual gains.Meanwhile, the improvement in sentiment for Indonesia reflects the more than 20% rally in the benchmark Jakarta Composite Index from a June low, following the central bank’s measures to stabilise the currency and fading fears of a downgrade to frontier-market status by MSCI Inc.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views, and opinions given by experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times.)

Priced in the range of Rs 271-Rs 285 per share, the Rs 302-crore IPO was a fresh issue of Rs 93 crore and an offer for sale (OFS) of 73.20 lakh equity shares worth around Rs 209 crore.

Investor interest was already evident ahead of the IPO, with the company raising Rs 90.48 crore from anchor investors. It allotted 31.75 lakh equity shares at Rs 285 apiece to marquee investors, including Tata AIA Life Insurance Company, PineBridge Global Funds, Amicorp Capital (Mauritius) Ltd, WhiteOak Capital and Bandhan Mutual Fund.

Also Read | Stellar Start! Behari Lal Engineering shares list at 63% premium over IPO price

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What brokerages are saying
SBI Securities assigned a Subscribe rating on the stock post-listing. “Robust listing gains indicate that there is strong investor appetite, with investors willing to add the stock at a premium to the issue price,” said Sunny Agrawal, Head of Fundamental Research at SBI Securities. The brokerage maintains its positive stance on the company.
“Fresh investment is advisable with a Buy-on-Dips strategy,” he said, adding that investors looking for a “listing pop” could book profits over the next 2-3 days.
“At the IPO price, the issue was valued at a reasonable 18.7x FY26 P/E, well below the peer average of 31x for names such as AIA Engineering, Steelcast and Vardhman Special Steels,” said Shivani Nyati, Head of Wealth at Swastika Investmart.

She added that the listing of one of India’s leading metal-roll manufacturers, with a 10–11.5% domestic market share, at a 63% premium to the issue price pushed its market capitalisation to around Rs 1,937 crore.

“Investors who got allotment could book partial profits amid the listing-day strength,” she said, adding that those with a longer-term view can hold the stock with a stop-loss of Rs 380.

Use of IPO proceeds

The company plans to use the proceeds from the fresh issue to purchase and install equipment and machinery, including computers and peripherals, along with related civil work at its manufacturing facilities. The funds will also be used to install rooftop solar panels at both facilities, repay or prepay certain borrowings, and meet general corporate purposes.

About Behari Lal Engineering

Incorporated in 1995, Behari Lal Engineering is an integrated iron and steel manufacturer specialising in precision-engineered components such as metal rolls, engineering castings, alloy steel products, forging ingots and forged shafts.

As of March 31, 2026, the company had served 1,825 domestic and international customers, including Amba Shakti Industries, BMW Industries, Shyam Metallics and Energy, Laxcon Steels, MSP Steel & Power, Jai Balaji Industries, Propel Industries and Metso India.

Its manufacturing operations span two units in Mandi Gobindgarh, Punjab, with an order book of Rs 178.57 crore as of May 31, 2026.

Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group has raised its stake in Hugo Boss to almost 48 per cent after 17.6 per cent of the German fashion house’s investors accepted its takeover offer, the retailer said in a brief stock exchange statement – a holding that tightens its grip on the brand but falls short of majority control.

The Sports Direct owner launched a £1.7 billion offer for Hugo Boss at €38 per share, part of a run of deals that has also included the acquisition of Harvey Nichols, the luxury department store chain, and a takeover offer for Accent Group, the Australian owner of The Athlete’s Foot shoe brand.

Frasers has spent several years building its position in Hugo Boss, which it stocks in its Flannels and Frasers shops, and stepping up efforts to exert influence over the brand. That campaign has included threatening to vote against future dividend payments and successfully pushing for a seat on the label’s supervisory board for Michael Murray, the Frasers chief executive and Ashley’s son-in-law.

Analysts described the offer as low, voluntary and lacking a minimum acceptance threshold, suggesting the group was “seeking optionality rather than necessarily full control”. Submitting a voluntary offer allowed Frasers to build its stake beyond 30 per cent without triggering the mandatory bid required under German takeover rules once an investor crosses that threshold.

Ashley may yet need more than 50 per cent. Sources told the Times in July that Frasers was laying the groundwork for Murray to be installed as chief executive of Hugo Boss, a move that would follow a playbook the retailer has deployed before.

The Hugo Boss board had urged shareholders to reject the €38 per share bid, which it said undervalued the brand and was “inadequate from a financial point of view”.

Founded in 1924, Hugo Boss is the largest premium fashion house in Germany, with global sales topping €4.2 billion. The company is in the midst of a turnaround as it contends with brand confusion, a global decline in demand for formalwear and a wider slowdown in the clothing market.

The enlarged stake forms part of Ashley’s long-running effort to push Frasers upmarket from its roots selling discounted sportswear through Sports Direct. Last week the group secured a reported £40 million deal to acquire Harvey Nichols, which it hopes will help expand its relationships with luxury brands including Moncler, Burberry and Gucci. Frasers also disclosed in July that it had increased its holding in Burberry to 4.2 per cent, making it the third-largest shareholder in the company. Ashley stepped down as chief executive of Frasers in 2022 but remains its majority shareholder.

Frasers shares rose 2 per cent, or 16p, to 811p on Tuesday, giving the group a market value of roughly £3.5 billion. The stock is up about 22 per cent this year, despite the retailer withholding annual financial guidance last month because of the takeover offers for Hugo Boss and Accent Group.

Profit before tax rose 38.9 per cent to £527.8 million in the year to April, largely on a £117.7 million increase in premiums from strategic investments, of which the Hugo Boss and Accent stakes contributed nearly £50 million.

Charles Allen, senior retail industry analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, said: “Frasers Group’s Harvey Nichols acquisition and enlarged Hugo Boss stake give it a chance to demonstrate operating discipline at two troubled retailers and reset investor perceptions.

“Its low valuation, operational consistency and focus on cashflow remain strengths, while the extent of its involvement in Hugo Boss will test strategic intent.”

Amy Ingham

Amy Ingham is a reporter at Business Matters, covering UK business news with a focus on breaking news, business policy, late payments and insolvency. She joined the magazine in 2026 after completing the NCTJ Diploma in Journalism at Harlow College’s journalism school. Her recent reporting includes British Steel’s nationalisation and its impact on SME suppliers, the decline in late payments by large firms, and Insolvency Service director disqualifications. Reach her at aingham@cbmeg.co.uk.

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