Falling oil prices are helping U.S. tech stocks stay buoyant Tuesday.

The tech-focused Nasdaq Composite Index rose modestly in late trading, poised for a second straight record high. The Dow industrials slipped and the S&P 500 traded near flat. Brent crude futures edged lower, falling to roughly $100 a barrel after encouraging news about oil exports from the Middle East.

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IRVING, TEXAS — Mission Foods is unveiling two product innovations: protein chips and grain-free chips.

Mission’s protein chips are available in chile limon and jalapeño varieties, and the chips feature 10 grams of plant-based protein per serving.

The company’s grain-free chips are formulated with cassava flour, whole chia seeds and avocado oil. Varieties include sea salt and hint of lime.

“Protein and fiber are two things people are trying to get more of, and snacks are a great place to do it,” said Sathish Mohanraju, vice president of sales and marketing for Mission Foods.

The chips are available at Kroger locations nationwide, and the company expects to add further retail availability.  

WALTHAM, MASS. — Welch’s is launching a line of fruit spreads formulated with simple ingredients.

Welch’s Simply Natural Fruit Spreads contain five ingredients and are sweetened with cane sugar and honey. The product is free from high-fructose corn syrup, artificial flavors, colors and preservatives, according to the company.

The fruit spreads are available in concord grape and strawberry flavors.

“Welch’s has had a place in family routines for generations, but today’s parents expect more from the foods they put on the table,” said Andrew Hartshorn, chief brand and innovation officer at Welch’s. “Simply Natural reflects that shift with five simple ingredients, including a touch of real honey, in a fruit spread families already know and love.”

The spreads are available at retailers nationwide.

The Liberal Democrats will fight the next general election on a promise to cut taxes for millions of workers, Sir Ed Davey has said in a speech to his party conference.

The Lib Dem leader said that if he gained power, he would raise the annual tax-free personal allowance to £15,000.

He would also raise the 40p income tax threshold from £50,270 to £56,000, in a £17bn package funded by the economic boost he says would come from the UK rejoining the EU single market and customs union.

He claimed the plan would mean a £680 cut for “most taxpayers” but it would not come into full effect until the fifth year of a Lib Dem government – potentially up to eight years away.

The announcement was greeted with sustained applause by Lib Dem MPs and activists in the Brighton conference centre.

The £12,570 income tax allowance was frozen by the Conservatives in 2021, resulting in more people being dragged into paying the tax, and Labour has so far resisted calls from trade unions and some of its MPs to unfreeze it.

The Lib Dems said they would raise the threshold to £15,000 a year, and increase the starting point for paying employee National Insurance (NI) to the same level.

At their conference earlier this month, Reform UK promised to increase the income tax personal allowance to £15,000 within 100 days if they won power.

Sir Ed told the Lib Dem faithful “the difference between us and Reform” is that “their tax cut is paid for through cruelty.”

He said “Reform’s figures show they’d pay for it by ripping £22bn of crucial support away from disabled people.”

Under the Lib Dem plan, based on research by think tank Frontier Economics, external, the economic boost from rejoining the single market would allow the party to spend £17bn on tax cuts by the end of the next Parliament.

The party says it would unfreeze personal allowances in the second year of a Lib Dem government, allowing them to rise with inflation, before bringing in big tax cuts in year five when the economic benefits of closer trading with the EU had kicked in.

However, the move would depend on the party being able to negotiate a closer trading arrangement with the EU in just 12 months.

Stuart Adam, of the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank, told BBC Verify the Lib Dem package would cost “much more” than the £17bn quoted by the party.

Reform has estimated that its policy, to raise the starting threshold to £15,000 just for income tax, would cost £21bn by the fifth year.

The Lib Dems say their policy would be funded by an extra £27bn from its plans for a “growth and defence pact” with the EU.

DoorDash has agreed to pay a $131.5m (£99m) settlement to New York City regulators after the food delivery giant admitted failing to compensate thousands of workers correctly or on time.

“Simply put, we screwed up,” DoorDash said. “Our mistakes meant some Dashers were underpaid or paid late.”

The agreement with the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection follows a city investigation into wage violations, with a significant share of the payout addressing how DoorDash calculates compensation for the time delivery drivers spend waiting for orders.

The settlement marks another chapter in an ongoing battle between so-called gig economy platforms and municipal leaders.

The likes of Uber Eats and Grubhub have repeatedly clashed with city officials over tipping laws, minimum wages and data-sharing requirements.

San Francisco-based DoorDash blamed “complex” changes to the minimum wage in New York state introduced in 2023.

Under the landmark minimum pay standard for app-based delivery workers, wages differ depending on the county, tipping and how many people work for the employer.

DoorDash also cited technical glitches and multi-stop delivery routes for causing the firm to underpay workers or delay wages.

The company said: “While these mistakes weren’t intentional, that doesn’t make them okay.”

DoorDash said local workers earn roughly $30 per active hour on average. It said it has now patched the software bugs responsible for the mistakes.

The business said the errors hit roughly 264,000 workers, though it insisted the issues affected under 1% of overall local transactions.

Systemic errors caused around $6.6m wages to never reach workers at all, and another $5.7m arrived days or weeks late.

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President Donald Trump on Tuesday said the U.S. will reject what he called a “globalist scheme” to control artificial intelligence (AI) and emphasized the importance of the U.S. winning the race in emerging tech.

The president made the remarks in an address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York City.

“The United States also totally rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme to control for the artificial intelligence being spoken of so much now,” Trump said, adding that he thinks AI should be referred to instead as “superintelligence” (SI).

“Whoever wins AI, you have to remember this, and now I say whoever wins SI, whoever wins superintelligence, wins. That’s the group that wins,” Trump said. “We’re leading now over China by a lot and everyone else. We’re going to keep it that way. We’re going to keep it very straight and very strong.”

NVIDIA’S JENSEN HUANG REJECTS AI DOOMSDAY FEARS: ‘2030 IS NOT GOING TO BE THE END OF THE WORLD’

“I’m not going to stifle growth of something that will be bigger than the industrial revolution, many say bigger than the industrial revolution or the internet itself,” Trump said, adding that the U.S. “will be very careful” and the Department of Justice will help oversee the industry.

“We will only encourage superintelligence. We’re going to encourage it, not rein it in. We’re going to watch it closely through the Department of Justice,” Trump said.

TECH POWER PLAYERS LAND SEAT AT TABLE FOR HIGH-STAKES DINNER WITH TRUMP, XI

“The United States leads the world in superintelligence and will continue to do so safely and responsibly. Americans have never been a nation that retreats from a frontier or shrinks from a challenge, no matter how great or how daunting that challenge may be,” Trump said.

DUBAI — Iran has offered to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days if the United States eases military pressure and lifts its blockade on Iranian ports, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Tuesday, raising hopes for renewed diplomacy after nearly seven months of conflict in the Middle East even as violence continued along the strait itself.

The proposal, reportedly communicated to Washington through mediators, comes as Iran’s delegation to the United Nations General Assembly arrived in New York this week with what officials described as full authority to revive diplomatic talks with the United States. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian departed Tehran for New York on Tuesday morning, though he is not expected to meet directly with U.S. officials during the trip.

A senior Iranian official laid out the conditions Tehran is seeking before any reopening could take place. “The US needs to announce that it wants to resolve the issue diplomatically, make that official, and then agree on a timeline for how the process will move forward,” the official told Reuters. Iran had previously outlined seven separate conditions for restarting broader talks with Washington, including the lifting of the naval blockade on its ports and the unfreezing of Iranian financial assets held abroad.

The offer follows a tense weekend in which Iran’s military central command said it had been informed the United States was preparing to restart military operations with support from regional countries, warning that any renewed offensive would prompt Tehran to retaliate “without limitations and considerations.” That warning underscored how quickly the situation along the strait could escalate further even as this week’s diplomatic overture opened a potential path toward de-escalation.

Financial markets reacted quickly to the reports of Iran’s offer. Oil prices fell sharply, with Brent crude dropping below $99 a barrel, down more than 3.5% from the day’s earlier high, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude declined 2.25%. The moves reflected easing concern among traders that the seven-month disruption to global oil supply routed through the strait could be nearing some form of resolution, even though the proposal remains conditional and unconfirmed by the United States.

Despite the diplomatic opening, violence along the strait itself continued unabated in the days immediately preceding the offer. Iran struck another tanker on September 21, injuring two seafarers, according to the Maritime Executive, which cited reporting from the U.K. Maritime Trade Operations center. The vessel was identified as the LR Stephanie, a 72,825-deadweight-ton crude oil tanker registered in the Isle of Man. U.S. Central Command issued its own update the same day asserting that oil continues to move through the strait and that, in the command’s words, “momentum is building” toward normalized traffic, a characterization that stood in tension with Iran’s continued assertion of control over the waterway.

Shipping data compiled by different trackers has painted a somewhat inconsistent picture of just how much traffic is currently moving through the strait. Kpler data cited by Reuters showed only 17 vessels transited the strait over the weekend, down sharply from 37 the week before, with just one very large crude carrier and two refined product tankers making the crossing on Sunday. A separate tracking service, UA.NEWS, reported 12 vessels crossed the strait over the same weekend period, while IMF PortWatch data showed just eight transits recorded on September 13, compared with a pre-crisis daily baseline of roughly 85 vessels. The discrepancies among these figures reflect the difficulty of establishing a single authoritative count of traffic through the strait amid the ongoing crisis, though all available data points to traffic remaining dramatically below normal levels regardless of the exact figure used.

Additional maritime incidents were reported in the 24 hours before Tuesday’s diplomatic news broke. Maritime publications gCaptain and TradeWinds News reported that two seafarers were injured when tankers were struck by unidentified projectiles in the strait, without any party claiming responsibility for the attack. Separately, UKMTO reported that a liquefied petroleum gas tanker sustained damage from debris tied to unidentified projectiles in the same waterway. An unverified, single-source claim from Iranian outlet Pars Today asserted that an advanced reconnaissance drone had been destroyed over the strait, though that report could not be independently confirmed.

The crisis has also continued spreading to a second critical waterway. Iran-aligned Houthi forces in Yemen recently seized Perim Island in the Red Sea, tightening their control over the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, another essential chokepoint for global oil shipments and a key alternative route Saudi Arabia has relied on to bypass the Strait of Hormuz via its East-West pipeline. Houthi-linked media claimed a Saudi airstrike killed six people in the Yemeni port city of Mokha, though that claim has not been independently verified. In response to the expanding Houthi threat, the United Kingdom has reportedly agreed to support Saudi Arabia’s defense with Royal Air Force air-to-air refueling support for Saudi aircraft, an arrangement U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham said would remain in place for a matter of weeks and be kept under continuous review.

With Iran’s proposal now before Washington and reportedly under discussion through diplomatic channels in New York, the coming days are likely to determine whether the seven-month crisis moves toward a negotiated resolution or continues along the same pattern of intermittent attacks and disputed claims that has defined the standoff since it began in late February.

Wires and cable stocks recently saw a sharp downturn after UltraTech entered the segment, with Polycab being one of the top losers and falling 17% from its June peak, but Jefferies remains bullish on the stock and sees 33% upside potential.

The international brokerage hosted Polycab’s management at the Jefferies India Forum 2026, following which it maintained its ‘Buy’ call and a target price of Rs 11,100 apiece, implying around 33% upside potential from the stock’s previous closing price of Rs 8,369.50 apiece.

Jefferies, in its note, highlighted that the cables and wires market is estimated to grow at 11-12% CAGR, while Polycab targets outperforming the overall market by 1.5 times, aided by a focus on new areas, products, customers, and growing wallet share with customers. Power is estimated to account for 40-45% of the company’s cables and wires demand, with power generation, renewable energy, and T&D network being the key drivers.

Despite the recent sharp surge in copper prices, Polycab is not yet witnessing any major demand disruption due to price hikes. Copper prices have jumped more than 43% YoY in Q2 FY27 so far. Demand from verticals like power, mobility, industry, infra and emerging spaces is growing at a healthy pace. The housing market remains healthy. Wires account for 70% of demand in this sector, the international brokerage noted. It estimates the company to post more than 20% sales CAGR over FY27-29.

Also read | Wires & cables face a new challenge: How Ultravolt’s big push could reshape India’s cable market

Polycab retains double-digit volume growth guidance

Polycab has retained double-digit volume growth guidance for most quarters in the next two to three years, Jefferies said, adding that the over 18% YoY volume growth in FY26 was higher than most peers. While underlying demand trends in the cables and wires market stay strong, the Q2-Q3 FY26 volume base of LY appears high, the international brokerage noted.
“Also, while copper volatility is passed on, it may impact channel stocking in the near-term. Generally, channel stocks up on inventory at the end of every quarter depending on the price outlook for the next few months. We factor cables and wires sales growth to moderate over FY26-29,” it added.Meanwhile, in the paints industry, while it is easier to launch SKUs and ancillary products to expand sales, this model is not similar to cables and wires, especially the former, Jefferies said. It added that the lower operating margin in cables and wires is not sustainable in the long term, and competition may be unable to undercut prices for long.

“Polycab has a higher share of cables than wires in its sales mix. Wires require minimal certification and have lower barriers to entry. Whereas cables, especially EHV, special applications, etc., require certifications for usage and durability, which have longer gestation periods. LV & MV cables require other standard certifications,” Jefferies said, adding that scale and distribution are key moats for Polycab.

The company has the capability to track and fulfil inventory of dealers within a day’s time, giving an edge over competition, and its 11-13% cables and wires operating margin guidance factors in all sensitivities, including competition, Jefferies said.

The international brokerage estimates the company to post FY26-29 PAT CAGR of over 22%, led by volume growth and firming FMEG margin. It retained its capex estimate at Rs 14-15 billion per annum over FY26-29. Amid the Ultravolt launch, Jefferies noted that Polycab is down 17% from the June peak, now trading at 35x one-year forward PE, which is 7% below its historical five-year average. However, key risks to Jefferies’ estimates include higher competition, demand slowdown and sharp copper volatility.

Also read | Wires on fire: Why UltraTech’s Rs 1,800 crore Ultravolt bet wiped out Rs 21,500 crore in 2 days

Polycab share price

Polycab shares have fallen around 7% in a month. The stock saw the sharpest market value erosion earlier this month after UltraTech entered into the wires and cables business. The stock has gained 3% in a week and 9% so far in 2026.

In the longer term, the stock delivered 63% returns over three years and more than 248% in five years.

Disclaimer: This article has been written by Debaroti Adhikary, who is not a SEBI-registered Research Analyst or an Investment Adviser. Debaroti Adhikary and his/her ‘relative(s)’ (as defined under Section 2(77) of the Companies Act, 2013) do not hold any financial interest in the companies mentioned in this article as of the date of publication. The views/recommendations mentioned in this article, wherever applicable, are those of the respective SEBI-registered Research Analyst/brokerage and have been reproduced/reported with due attribution. They should not be construed as the views or recommendations of The Economic Times Digital or the journalist. Readers are advised to consider the original research report and make their investment decisions based on their own assessment. Brokerage disclaimers here.