Scott Grannis was Chief Economist from 1989 to 2007 at Western Asset Management Company, a Pasadena-based manager of fixed-income funds for institutional investors around the globe. He was a member of Western’s Investment Strategy Committee, was responsible for developing the firm’s domestic and international outlook, and provided consultation and advice on investment and asset allocation strategies to CFOs, Treasurers, and pension fund managers. He specialized in analysis of Federal Reserve policy and interest rate forecasting, and spearheaded the firm’s research into Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS). Prior to joining Western Asset, he was Senior Economist at the Claremont Economics Institute, an economic forecasting and consulting service headed by John Rutledge, from 1980 to 1986. From 1986 to 1989, he was Principal at Leland O’Brien Rubinstein Associates, a financial services firm that specialized in sophisticated hedging strategies for institutional investors.

Visit his blog: Calafia Beach Pundit (https://scottgrannis.blogspot.com/)

SEOUL — South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI index tumbled 215.99 points, or 3.12%, to 6,696.96 as of 3:32 p.m. local time Monday, as Samsung Electronics shares plunged more than 8% following investor disappointment over the technology giant’s newly unveiled shareholder return plan.

The KOSPI’s decline extended a weaker session that began even before Samsung’s results reaction took hold. According to TradingKey, Japanese and South Korean stocks opened lower across the board Monday, weighed down by consolidation in U.S. technology stocks and broadly cautious market sentiment following overnight trading in the United States. The index initially fell 1.17% to 6,832.23 points at the open, with Samsung Electronics down 4.26% in early trading while SK Hynix bucked the broader trend, surging 3.58%.

The selloff deepened sharply as the session progressed. According to India.com’s coverage of Monday’s trading, Samsung Electronics plunged 8.35% after investors reacted negatively to the company’s latest shareholder return announcement, dragging the broader KOSPI down more than 3% for the day. SK Hynix, notably, continued to buck the broader semiconductor selloff, closing the session up 2.4%, even as the KOSDAQ, South Korea’s smaller technology-focused exchange, moved higher as investors rotated capital toward smaller technology, healthcare and growth stocks away from the large-cap chip sector.

The core driver of Monday’s decline traced directly back to Samsung’s own corporate announcement. According to India.com, the KOSPI came under heavy selling pressure as investors booked profits following the recent rally in South Korean chip stocks, with Samsung Electronics becoming the single largest source of pressure after its newly disclosed shareholder-return plan failed to meet expectations that had built up among investors in the days leading up to the announcement.

That reaction stands in sharp contrast to the anticipation that had built around Samsung’s expected capital return plan in the preceding days. Samsung had been widely expected to unveil a historic shareholder return package potentially exceeding 100 trillion won, following a similarly record-setting 40 trillion won buyback and cancellation program announced by rival chipmaker SK Hynix earlier in the month. The scale of that anticipation appears to have set a bar that Samsung’s actual announcement ultimately failed to clear in the eyes of many investors, prompting the sharp sell-the-news reaction that dragged the stock down more than 8% Monday.

Monday’s decline adds to what has already been an extraordinarily volatile year for the KOSPI, a market that has repeatedly whipsawed between record highs and sharp, sudden reversals throughout 2026. According to Yahoo Finance, the KOSPI’s volatility this year has already surpassed the level seen during the 2008 global financial crisis, when the index set its prior annual record of 26 sell-side sidecar trading halts. By late June alone, the exchange had already logged close to 30 sidecar activations and five circuit breakers for the year, with both figures already exceeding the full-year 2008 tally.

Much of that volatility has been concentrated in Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix specifically, given that the two chipmakers together account for roughly half of the KOSPI’s total market capitalization. That concentration means company-specific news from either firm, such as Monday’s shareholder return disappointment from Samsung, has an outsized ability to move the entire benchmark index in a single session, a dynamic that has played out repeatedly throughout the year.

The KOSPI’s broader trajectory in 2026 has been defined by dramatic swings tied to shifting sentiment around the durability of artificial intelligence-driven chip demand. According to Al Jazeera, the index suffered a steep selloff in late July, losing about $2.18 trillion in market value over a two-day span as investor enthusiasm for chipmakers cooled sharply amid reduced confidence in the sustainability of AI-related capital spending. Frank Benzimra, head of Asia equity strategy at Societe Generale in Hong Kong, described the difficulty of calling a bottom during that earlier episode. “If you look at what is falling in the market, it has been the stocks in which you have the most leverage,” Benzimra said at the time. “It’s very difficult to say when will this selloff end, but at the moment, it’s definitely not the trade where we want to be.” Despite that steep pullback, the KOSPI remained up 41.5% in U.S. dollar terms year-to-date at that point, making it the best-performing major global market for the year even after the correction.

The index’s volatility has been punctuated by several historically significant single-session moves throughout 2026, including a plunge that saw the KOSPI fall below the 6,000 level in late July, dropping nearly 6% in a single session after SK Hynix’s second-quarter earnings missed consensus estimates and weakened broader expectations for shareholder returns across the chip sector, according to prior reporting from SBS. That earlier decline triggered both a sell sidecar and a circuit breaker on the same trading day, marking the first time in the Korea Exchange’s history that circuit breakers had been activated in both the KOSPI and KOSDAQ markets on consecutive days.

Despite Monday’s sharp pullback, the KOSPI remains up substantially over the trailing 12-month period, having posted extraordinary gains throughout 2025 and into 2026 driven by South Korea’s central role in the global AI and semiconductor supply chain. That longer-term rally has continued to attract both institutional and retail investor interest even as the index has repeatedly demonstrated its capacity for sudden, sharp reversals tied to company-specific catalysts, particularly those involving Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.

With Samsung’s shareholder return announcement now fully digested by the market and having triggered Monday’s sharp selloff, investors are likely to continue closely watching whether the stock stabilizes in the coming sessions or whether the disappointment continues to weigh on both Samsung shares and the broader KOSPI index heading into the final stretch of August trading, particularly given the index’s well-documented pattern of extreme volatility throughout the year.

Claudia Batten

[Foreign Language] Good morning. My name is Claudia Batten, and I’m the Chair of Serko. Thank you for joining us this morning. I’ll start with some important points.

Shareholders will be able to vote and ask questions during the meeting. You can send through your questions at any time through the online portal by using the Ask a Question button, and I would encourage you to do so as early as possible. This will allow us to answer these questions at the appropriate time of the meeting. I’ll provide you with further instructions as we progress. If you encounter any issues, please refer to the online portal guide or you can phone the help line on 0800-200-220. We will be using some slides during the meeting. You’ll be able to see these and follow along. They are also available on Serko’s website.

My fellow directors are either joining me here in person or are attending online. Relevant members of Serko’s executive team, management and staff are also in attendance, either online or physically. In particular, Shane Sampson, the Chief Financial Officer, is in attendance and will assist me in answering any shareholder questions. Finally, I’d like to welcome our external auditors, Deloitte; our lawyers, Russell McVeagh; and also the team from our share registrar, MUFG Pension & Market Services. They will help conduct the voting on the formal business later in the meeting and also act as scrutineer. The Company Secretary has confirmed to me that the Notice of Meeting has been sent to shareholders and other persons entitled to receive it on 27 July 2026. I confirm that the requirement for a quorum for this meeting of 3 shareholders has been met, and I declare the meeting open.

Shares of Hexaware Technologies rallied nearly 5% to Rs 559.25 during Monday’s trading session after brokerage firm Motilal Oswal reiterated its ‘Buy’ rating on the stock with a target price of Rs 720, implying an upside of around 35% from current levels.

The brokerage’s positive stance follows Hexaware’s Investor Day, where the IT services company outlined its artificial intelligence strategy centred around two key themes — ‘Zero Friction Enterprise’ and ‘AI for Business’.

According to Motilal Oswal, more than 50% of Hexaware’s revenue is now AI-infused. However, the brokerage remains more focused on how the company can create deeper, bottom-up differentiation within its AI-led business.

‘Zero License’ and Tokenomics Emerge as Key Themes

Among Hexaware’s six ‘Zero’ pillars, Zero License and tokenomics emerged as particularly interesting and differentiated areas, according to the brokerage.
The Zero License strategy aims to replace clients’ traditional SaaS spending with AI-native capabilities owned by Hexaware. Meanwhile, the company is experimenting with eight commercial models linked to AI token costs, including fixed-cost and gain-sharing structures.

Motilal Oswal noted that every new proposal from Hexaware now includes a token-based pricing option, highlighting the company’s efforts to develop new monetisation models around AI.

Growth Seen as Delayed, Not Lost

While Hexaware has lowered its CY26 revenue growth guidance, Motilal Oswal believes the weakness is largely a matter of timing rather than lost growth.The brokerage expects delayed deal ramp-ups, continued momentum in modernisation programmes, and healthy demand from the banking, healthcare, and manufacturing sectors to support a stronger exit from CY26 and provide a better base for CY27.

Motilal Oswal estimates constant-currency revenue growth of 6.4% in CY26 and 9.7% in CY27, driven by improving execution, large-account mining and expanding AI-led opportunities.

The company has also maintained its margin guidance despite continued investments in AI and talent.

With Motilal Oswal retaining its Rs 720 target, the brokerage sees significant room for further upside as Hexaware’s AI strategy, deal execution, and growth momentum gain traction.

Technical Indicators

From a technical perspective, Hexaware Technologies is trading above 7 out of 8 key simple moving averages (SMAs), indicating a broadly positive trend. The stock’s 14-day RSI stands at 40.6. While this remains below the neutral 50 mark, it is well above the oversold zone of 30, suggesting the stock is not currently in technically oversold territory.

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

Shares of Urban Company extended their gains on Monday, rallying another 7% to hit their highest level in nearly 11 months after a bullish brokerage call and a legal development involving Kent RO.

Kent RO agreed to remove advertisements and social media content that allegedly made false and misleading claims about the company’s Native water purifiers.

Urban Company shares jumped to Rs 169.47 apiece, the highest level seen by the stock since early October, 2025. Shares of the company have now gained over 16% in just two sessions, after a sharp 9% rally on Friday.

Kent RO to pull down content about Urban Company’s water purifiers

Urban Company filed a defamation suit before the Delhi High Court against Kent RO Systems over advertisements and social media content that allegedly made false and misleading claims about its Native water purifiers.
In an exchange filing released on Sunday, Urban Company said that it filed the suit on August 11, alleging that Kent RO’s advertising campaign targeted the two-year filter life and two-year service life features offered on its Native M0, M1, M2, M1 Pro and M2 Pro water purifiers. “Kent RO’s advertisements falsely stated that the 2-year filter life and 2-year service life feature of Native water purifiers, amongst other things, is a “marketing gimmick” and that using Native water purifiers is “unsafe” and “risky” for consumers,” it added.

Kent RO told the court that it would pull down the advertisements that were the subject of the suit and would not run other advertisements or promotional content making the same or similar claims about water purifiers offering a two-year filter life or two-year no-servicing feature that would disparage Urban Company.
Also read | Urban Company sues Kent RO over ‘unsafe’, ‘risky’ water purifier ads; company to pull down ‘offending’ content

Emkay Research initiates Buy call on Urban Company share price

Emkay Research initiated coverage on Urban Company shares with a ‘Buy’ call and a target price of Rs 190 apiece, implying nearly 20% upside potential from the stock’s previous closing price of Rs 158.60 apiece on NSE.

The brokerage noted that the company is the leader of India’s online home services market, whose large total addressable market (TAM) and highly unorganized nature provide the company with a long growth runway. Increasing demand density in micromarkets is driving consumer satisfaction as well as partner wages, thereby reinforcing the flywheel, it added.

While analysts remain concerned about Urban Company’s InstaHelp foray, given the upfront cash burn, Emkay Research believes this is the right playbook to improve platform stickiness and drive cross-sell. The company has the opportunity to capture a large TAM and increase frequency of platform use, which should create a sticky business, it added.

“Considering the company is incubating InstaHelp and Native, and international business profitability is suboptimal, we expect UC to turn profitable only in FY30,” the brokerage concluded.

Urban Company share price

After hitting a record high of Rs 201.18 apiece in September last year, Urban Company shares more than halved to hit a record low of Rs 100.70 apiece in March this year. The stock has however sharply recovered more than 68% since then to trade at Rs 169.47 apiece today.

Urban Company shares have gained over 16% in one week and around 30% in a month, overall gaining more than 28% in 2026 so far. Its market capitalisation currently stands at around Rs 25,952 crore.

Also read | Buy, Sell or Hold? Morgan Stanley maintains buy on Vishal Mega Mart; Emkay Global initiates coverage on Urban Company

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

Shares of Fascinate Textiles Ltd. made a weak debut on the NSE SME platform on August 24, 2026, listing at Rs 120.80 per share, at a 20% discount to the IPO issue price of Rs 151. The stock weakened further after listing, touching an intraday low of Rs 114.80.

The muted debut came despite the company’s IPO receiving a positive response during the subscription period.

The IPO was open for subscription from August 11 to August 19, 2026, and was subscribed 1.48 times overall. The retail portion was subscribed 1.37 times, while the Non-Institutional Investors (NII) category was subscribed 1.06 times. The Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIB) portion saw significantly stronger demand, with the issue subscribed 22.74 times.

Despite the subscription interest, the stock made a weak debut, opening well below its issue price.

The Rs 64.83 crore IPO comprised a fresh issue of 35 lakh shares worth Rs 52.21 crore and an offer for sale (OFS) of 8 lakh shares worth Rs 12.62 crore.

The company had fixed the IPO price band at Rs 142–151 per share

Objects of the issue

Fascinate Textiles plans to deploy the net IPO proceeds primarily towards expanding its manufacturing capacity, funding working capital requirements and reducing its debt burden.The company has allocated Rs 12.40 crore towards capital expenditure for setting up an additional manufacturing facility, Rs 19.03 crore for working capital requirements and Rs 2.68 crore for the prepayment or repayment, either partially or fully, of certain secured and unsecured borrowings.

The balance proceeds will be used for general corporate purposes and issue-related expenses. Overall, the proposed fund utilisation is aimed at supporting the company’s capacity expansion plans, strengthening its operational requirements and improving its financial position.

Financial performance: Strong growth in FY26

Fascinate Textiles reported a strong improvement in its financial performance during FY26. Total income surged 94%, nearly doubling from Rs 60.28 crore in FY25 to Rs 117.23 crore in FY26.

The company’s profitability witnessed even stronger growth, with Profit After Tax (PAT) jumping 159% from Rs 5.81 crore in FY25 to Rs 15.07 crore in FY26. The sharp rise in both revenue and profit highlights the company’s strong growth momentum during the year.

About Fascinate Textiles Ltd.

Established in February 2017, Fascinate Textiles Limited is engaged in the manufacturing of ready-made garments for men, women and children, with a particular focus on children’s apparel.

Its product portfolio includes T-shirts, joggers, vests, leggings, shorts, infant wear and other garments catering to various age groups and market segments. The company is ISO 9001:2015 certified, reflecting its focus on quality standards and efficient manufacturing processes.

Fascinate Textiles operates its own manufacturing facility in Barasat, North 24 Parganas, West Bengal, where its key production activities are carried out.

As of March 31, 2026, the company had a total workforce of 254 employees, comprising 106 permanent employees and 148 contractual employees.

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

Shares of sugar companies, including Balrampur Chini Mills, Dhampur Sugar, Dalmia Bharat Sugar, Shree Renuka Sugars and EID Parry, rallied up to 11% as sugar prices climbed sharply amid tight inventories and supply concerns. Prices have risen from around Rs 41-42 per kg in the quarter to above Rs 50 per kg.

In today’s session, Balrampur Chini Mills gained over 3% to Rs 752 on the BSE, while Dhampur Sugar Mills gained 8% to Rs 200 per share. Uttam Sugar gained 11% to Rs 359 per share. Triveni Engineering shares rose 4% to Rs 306, while Eid Parry gained over 4% to Rs 831.

What’s behind the sharp rise?

1.) Festive period – India’s sugar demand usually surges from August to November as the country celebrates festivals like Ganesh Chaturthi, Dussehra and Diwali, which leads to heightened demand for sweets, biscuits and other confectionery items.

Also read: Sugar production hit by Red Rot disease, El Nino; govt taking measures: Pralhad Joshi

Last month, the government ordered dealers to hold sugar stocks for no more than 30 days in a bid to bolster supplies. However, sugar prices have risen 10% over the past month to record highs, with analysts expecting them to remain elevated for at least the next three months. Meanwhile, patchy rains and dry weather have hit sugarcane output, further supporting prices.

2.) Supply worries – A key trigger behind the sugar price spike is the worsening supply outlook in Brazil, the world’s largest sugar producer. The country has warned of a delay in the harvest amid adverse weather conditions. Adding to uncertainty, Brazil has suspended its bi-weekly harvest and production reports, leaving investors with limited visibility on the supply situation.
The shift towards ethanol is further intensifying concerns over a potential sugar supply crunch.In June, 58% of Brazil’s cane juice was diverted towards ethanol, given that it is likely to be more profitable than sugar. Brazil has also raised its mandatory ethanol blending target to 32% in July from 30% in June, significantly higher than the 25-27% mix seen just months earlier.

Supply concerns are not limited to Brazil. Intense heatwaves and El Nino conditions across the EU and the UK have added to fears of tighter supplies, with sugar output from the region trimmed to 14.98 million tonnes. In Asia, Thailand, the world’s third-largest sugar producer, has cut its projected output by 15.6% to 9.5 million tonnes. India, the world’s second-largest sugar producer after Brazil, is also projecting lower sugar production. Authorities are physically verifying mill volumes to enforce strict hoarding limits.

Global deficit estimates are also pointing towards a tighter market. Green Pool has projected a global sugar deficit of 3.3 million tonnes, while StoneX has estimated the shortfall at 1.7 million tonnes. The International Sugar Organisation has forecast a deficit of 0.26 million tonnes.

Read more: No ethanol link, decline in sugarcane production and stockpiling driving up sugar price: Experts

With production concerns mounting across major sugar-producing regions and global benchmark prices continuing to climb, the supply outlook has emerged as the key factor driving the sharp move in sugar prices.

Government tightens sugar curbs

The government halved the stockholding limit for bulk sugar consumers to 15 days, intensifying efforts to contain record prices just as festive demand begins to build. The move announced late Wednesday was followed by an order requiring sugar mills to report sales, buyers, and price levels during August 17 to 19, as ex-mill prices surged about ₹10 a kg, or 20%, in the past four to five days.

New Delhi is tightening market scrutiny amid concerns over hoarding and an acute squeeze in supplies ahead of the August-November festive season, while assessing whether imports are needed to ease the shortage, industry executives told ET.

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

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