Shares of Meesho declined as much as 5% to their day’s low of Rs 181.30 on the BSE on Friday after announcing that it expects on-year growth in net merchandise value (NMV) to dip in the July-September quarter, and plans to increase spending on acquiring new users as it builds up to the festive season.

The softer growth forecast stems from Meesho shifting its flagship Mega Blockbuster Sale to the October-December quarter this year from July-September quarter last year. The company said Q3 growth would consequently appear stronger and that comparisons should normalise when the two quarters are considered together.

The company posted a loss of Rs 133 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, compared with Rs 289 crore in the same quarter last year.

Marketplace revenue from operations rose 48% YoY to Rs 3,707 crore in Q1FY27. Meesho attributed the growth to better delivery conversion, aided by lower cancellations and reduced return-to-origin rates, along with higher platform monetisation.

What are analysts saying?

Citi maintained its Buy rating on Meesho and raised the target price to Rs 220 (16% upside) from Rs 210. The brokerage called it a solid quarter, with growth in line with expectations and strong marketplace pricing power. Meesho successfully passed on higher fulfilment costs arising from fuel and wage inflation, while take rates and contribution margins improved despite cost pressures. Although a shift in festive season timing could weigh on near-term performance, it is expected to support the following quarter. The brokerage also raised its estimates, citing Meesho’s ability to sustain efficiency gains.

Also read: Meesho expects slower Q2 growth, to raise festive marketing spend
Morgan Stanley maintained its Equal Weight rating on Meesho with a target price of Rs 190. The brokerage described the quarter as mixed, with losses broadly in line with expectations, while revenue fell slightly short of estimates. Profitability improved at a faster pace than revenue growth, helped by better delivery conversion and logistics optimisation, which drove an expansion in contribution margins. Meesho also managed to pass on fuel and wage cost pressures. However, the merchandise value miss pointed to slower-than-expected order growth. The company is also planning higher user acquisition spending ahead of the festive season, while a shift in the timing of festive sales could make the next quarter appear softer.
JM Financial maintained its Reduce rating on Meesho with a DCF-based June 2027 target price of Rs 185, implying a downside of 2.2%. The brokerage said management expects soft growth in Q2 as the Mega Blockbuster Sale has been pushed to Q3, compared with the same period last year. Advertising and promotion spending is also expected to rise sharply in Q2 ahead of the festive season in Q3.
While JM Financial tweaked its segmental estimates after factoring in the Q1 results, its consolidated FY27-29 estimates saw only marginal changes. The brokerage remains cautious as the stock trades at elevated valuations of around 45x FY29E EV/Adjusted EBITDA, leaving limited room for execution misses.

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

The Indian stock market extended sharp losses for the fifth consecutive session, with Sensex and Nifty tumbling nearly 1% each on Friday morning as oil prices above $100 per barrel, FII selling and other factors spooked investors.

Sensex tumbled over 800 points to the day’s low of 75,513, while Nifty 50 fell below the 23,650 mark during Friday’s trading session. The selloff today wiped off more than Rs 3 lakh crore from the total market capitalisation of all companies listed on BSE, dragging it down to Rs 473 lakh crore.

All 30 constituents of Sensex traded in the red, with UltraTech Cement, IndiGo, Bharti Airtel, Eternal and others leading losses on the benchmark index, falling up to 2%. This came as India VIX, which measures volatility in the market, jumped more than 4% to 14.08.

The broader markets also extended sharp losses, with Nifty Smallcap 100 and Nifty Midcap 100 indices trading lower. Sectorally, Nifty Auto, Nifty Metal and Nifty Realty, along with a few others, fell around 1% each. The overall market breadth was negative, with NSE seeing 1,847 advances and 673 declines, while 101 stocks remained unchanged.

Here are the 7 key factors pushing the market down today:

1) Iran-US conflict

The US military announced on Thursday that it had completed a 13th consecutive night of strikes on Iran. Iran-aligned Houthis meanwhile said they had attacked two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea, while announcing that they were imposing a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia.
The war between Iran and the US has seen significant escalations this week so far, spooking investors after a fragile ceasefire brought temporary respite to investors earlier.

2) Oil prices rise

Oil prices soared above $100 per barrel for the first time since May after the Houthis said they attacked two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea. These attacks sparked worries that the Bab el-Mandeb shipping route could be closed. This waterway connects the Red Sea with the Indian Ocean and is the world’s second most important oil transit channel after the Strait of Hormuz, which also remains affected by the conflict.

With oil prices soaring closer to the highs they hit earlier this year, Goldman Sachs warned that Brent crude could climb to $120 a barrel if disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important oil transit route, continue. Its base case remains that tensions in the Middle East will eventually ease.

3) Rupee falls

Rupee opened lower at 96.63 against the US dollar on Friday, compared to the previous close of 96.5725. As the Indian currency heads towards its lifetime low, the Reserve Bank of India likely intervened in the foreign exchange market today, Reuters reported.

“Going forward, the rupee will continue to take direction from the US Dollar Index, crude oil prices, and FII flows, which remain key drivers for the domestic currency. Technically, the rupee is expected to trade in the 96.25–96.90 range in the near term,” said Jateen Trivedi, VP Research Analyst – Commodity and Currency, LKP Securities.

4) FII selling

Foreign investors remained net sellers of Indian equities on Thursday, offloading shares worth over Rs 2,999 crore, according to provisional data on NSE. After a long buying streak earlier this month, foreign investors have mostly been on a selling spree since mid-July.

Persistent selling by foreign investors dampened sentiment on Dalal Street, which in turn can lead to some market downturn.

5) Weak global cues

Dalal Street is today accompanying global peers in the selloff. South Korea’s Kospi, which continues to remain in the bear market despite being the world’s best performing stock market of 2026, crashed another 6% to 6,678.

Japan’s Nikkei tumbled 3%, while Taiwan Weighted plunged over 2%. China’s Shanghai Composite and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell over 1% each.

6) Fed rate hike expectations

The rising oil prices and resulting inflationary pressures increased expectations of the US Federal Reserve hiking interest rates. Traders are now pricing in a 82% likelihood that the American central bank will hike interest rates at its September policy meet, as per CME’s FedWatch tool.

7) Bond yields rise

US Treasury yields jumped, further dampening equity market sentiment. The yield on benchmark US 10-year notes rose to 4.708% while the 30-year bond yield rose to 5.174%. Rising bond yields typically make bonds more attractive to investors, which in turn can lead to some downtrend in markets.

What lies ahead?
The total uncertainty and high volatility in markets continues without any signs of immediate respite, VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Investments, noted. He added that the attack on Saudi tankers by the Iran-backed Houthis in the Red Sea is the main reason for the recent sharp spike in Brent crude to about $100. “Such high price is bound to revive India’s Balance of Payments concerns. Rupee too has been impacted, though mildly, with the currency depreciating to 96.57 to the dollar,” he said.

“With the rupee weakening again, FPIs who had turned buyers on many days this month have again shifted to the sell-mode. The spike in the US 10-year yield to 4.7% is negative for equity markets globally. This is a near-term risk,” the analyst said.

New tariff tantrums remains a key watch
Another key watch will be how Trump’s new set to tariffs plays out. The United States slapped 10% tariffs on goods purchased from India and 16 other countries over what it called their failure to impose bans on imports made with forced labour. This comes as a temporary 10% global tariff expires.

This marks the White House’s latest effort to restore US President Donald Trump’s campaign vision of a near-global tariff after the US Supreme Court in February struck down his “reciprocal” duties of 10% to 50% imposed last year under a national emergencies law.

Pakistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and the UK have also been slapped with 10% tariffs. Notably, India amended its foreign trade policy to prohibit the import of goods produced using forced labour in June this year. US had initiated another investigation in March alleging excess capacity in certain goods.

Technical view on Nifty
Nifty 50 has broken down below the upward consolidation on the daily chart, suggesting a rise in bearishness in the market, said Rupak De, Senior Technical Analyst at LKP Securities. He added that the index has fallen below the critical short-term moving average.

“The RSI indicator shows a bearish crossover and is falling. Sentiment looks negative, and the market might continue to remain weak in the near term. On the lower end, the index might fall towards 23,600 or even lower in the near term. On the higher end, 24,000 might remain a resistance for the next few days,” De said.

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

The head of artificial intelligence (AI) giant Anthropic’s frontier red team called for industry-wide safety standards to protect against models running amok. 

Anthropic’s Logan Graham, who leads the company’s red team that looks for risks in emerging AI models, said in an interview Thursday on FOX Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria” that red teams like the one he leads play a critical role in stress testing guardrails on AI models.

“We want to know what can go wrong, so we think the most important thing to do is test this early, especially before these models and these agents make it out into the real world,” Graham told host Maria Bartiromo. 

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“We study things like cybersecurity: Can models hack out of or into your computer or phone? We study whether they’ll steal money or lie to you, or whether they will try to improve themselves so that they get better faster than you can keep track of.

“We think it’s incredibly important to do this type of red-teaming, and we also think it’s really important for the entire industry, especially to work with government to figure out what should the standards be to do this kind of testing, to give this information to the world so they can make the right choice and to know that it’s safe before these models get released.”

Bartiromo brought up an experiment involving numerous frontier AI models — including those from Google, OpenAI, xAI, Meta, DeepSeek and others — in which the AI agent is threatened with being uninstalled and replaced. In each case, the model went beyond its credentials and permissions to enter into unauthorized systems like emails to blackmail or threaten the user in an effort to defend its misalignment.

Graham said that research study from last year is “a really good indicator of, I think, capabilities that are just now becoming real,” adding that it showed models could go rogue under certain circumstances.

“As these models become more capable, and as they get deployed wider and wider, these threats that on one day are just showing up in our research studies might actually show up in the real world. We are seeing models do weird things sometimes in deployments in real companies,” he explained.

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Graham said that, over the last six months, he has been focused on cybersecurity threats posed by AI models and expressed concern over the potential for them to break the containment or hack into platforms.

“These models, they’re so powerful and can do so much for us. And we want them to do really productive things for us. But, at the same time, they’re technology unlike any other technology. It really is a sort of intelligence of its own, which means you have to be careful with it the same way you might have to be careful with humans,” he said.

Companies that are utilizing AI tools need to consider how they’re monitoring those tools once deployed to guard against risks like financial mismanagement, and Graham said that more testing by AI developers and companies is key to understanding those threats to ensure models

He said the capabilities of AI tools are growing at a rapid pace and may be getting faster, explaining that “it’s in exactly that moment that you need to be more and more careful and have more efforts on safeguards and testing and release procedures.”

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In April, Anthropic saw for the first time that an AI model could start to attack and exploit weaknesses in a user’s computer or phone to do things like get access to unauthorized information or steal money.

Graham said that prompted his team to pursue a different approach to releasing a model because of the risks it posed, which ultimately involved the U.S. government and a variety of cyber experts working together to address vulnerabilities.

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“We launched this project called Project Glasswing, where we took a large number of American and the world’s cyber defenders and gave them special access and just them, so they could have a head start patching and fixing the systems that might be vulnerable with these models,” he explained.

“I think this has been a major success. We’ve worked really closely with the U.S. government on it,” he said, noting that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been “really thoughtful about this, about how industry should get together and figure out what to prioritize fixing, how to distribute all the fixes, and how to do that quickly enough so that they can’t be attacked after they do.

“We have to do this very fast, because the pace of everything is coming so quickly.”