Representative image
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

The week ahead promises intense action on D-Street packed with domestic events, primary market buzz, corporate action, and some major global cues, which will keep investors busy as Indian equities navigate the first few weeks of 2026 with caution amid new geopolitical tensions. The ongoing December quarter results and listings will drive stock-specific action, while the US Federal Reserve policy verdict and the Economic Survey 2026 will be analysed for sector-specific trades.

The progress on India-US trade deal negotiations and Trump tariff rates are likely to influence movement in the domestic market this week. The India Energy Week 2026, to be conducted between Jan. 27-30, will reshape the global energy dialogue, according to India Inc experts. Trading activity of foreign investors would also influence the overall market trend.

ALSO READ: Stock Market Crash: Nifty Falls Near 25,000, Sensex Down Over 800 Points – Key Drivers Behind Decline

”Market direction in the coming week is likely to be driven by global macroeconomic signals and domestic fiscal expectations. Investors will closely track guidance from the Fed on the trajectory of interest rate cuts, while positioning may be influenced by anticipation surrounding the Union Budget, particularly any measures aimed at easing external trade pressures and supporting capital flows,” said Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Investments Limited.

”With the Q3 earnings season still underway, stock-specific movements are expected to remain prominent. Overall sentiment is likely to stay cautious, shaped by global developments, currency trends, and earnings outcomes, with selective opportunities emerging in segments supported by resilient domestic demand,” added Nair. Investors will also track rupee’s movement against the dollar.
 

Nifty bears drag index near 25,000 levels, Sensex ends 700 points down; RIL, Eternal top drags

For more stock market updates, visit: https://t.co/0baANpJ6jN pic.twitter.com/PedfyQYdxN

— NDTV Profit (@NDTVProfitIndia) January 23, 2026

Markets on Home Turf

Domestic equity benchmarks Sensex and Nifty witnessed widespread selloff and settled 1% lower on Friday, weighed down by widespread sell-off and the rupee hitting a record low against the US dollar. Besides, investors rushing to safe-haven assets and unabated foreign capital outflows in the absence of domestic triggers dampened investor confidence, traders said.

On a weekly basis, the BSE Sensex tumbled by 2,032.65 points, or 2.43%. The broader NSE Nifty also slumped by 645.7 points, or 2.51%. The rupee hit an all-time low of 92 on Friday and recovered marginally to provisionally settle at 91.88 against the dollar. Gold and silver prices rallied in global markets over Fed rate cut expectations.

ALSO READ: Davos 2026: AI Boom, Tariff Noise, To Donald Trump’s Gaza Peace Board – 10 Key Highlights From WEF

Q3 Results This Week

D-Street will respond to the blue-chip firms that declared their Q3 results in the weekend, such as Kotak Mahindra Bank, UltraTech Cement, and others. Starting from Jan. 26, a slew of companies will declare December quarter results during the week including Axis Bank, Asian Paints, Metro Brands, Maruti Suzuki India, Raymond, among several others.

US Federal Reserve

Jerome Powell-led US Federal Reserve will announce its upcoming monetary policy decision on Jan. 28, 2025, amid Wall Street’s expectations of a pause on the federal funds range. Notably, US President Donald Trump will likely announce the name of the next Fed Chairman this week, who will succeed Powell in May 2026, after the end of his term.

Economic Survey, Budget 2026, Auto Sales

The Economic Survey 2026-27 is scheduled to be tabled in Parliament on January 29, 2026, at 11 AM during the Budget Session. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will unveil Union Budget 2026 on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026. Due to the presentation of the budget, the Indian stock market will remain open for regular trading on Feb. 1.

Also, leading automakers will also delcare their monthly sales numbers on Feb. 1, which will trigger stock-specific action.

ALSO READ: Davos 2026: Geopolitics Or AI? RPG’s Anant Goenka Outlines India Inc’s Theme For 2026

Corporate Action & Primary Market

Several stocks such as Wipro, Persistent Systems, SRF, Jindal Stainless, Coforge, Mastek, among others will trade ex-dividend this week. The primary market also promises heated action as five new public issues will open for subscription in the mainboard segment, while three companies will get listed on BSE, NSE, after the conclusion of their IPO windows.

The previous Budget, presented in July 2024 after the Lok Sabha election, had accorded priority to employment and skill development, given the nature of the election mandate. The Finance Minister had announced a Prime Minister’s Package of five schemes and initiatives to facilitate job and internship opportunities for 4.1 crore youth over a five-year period with a central outlay of ₹2 lakh crore. However, the Budget speech delivered in Parliament on February 1, 2025, did not refer to the Prime Minister’s Package even once. The document on implementation of Budget 2024-25 announcements states that a “draft Cabinet note on Employment Linked Incentive scheme is under finalisation” and “several meetings have been held with the Ministry of Labour and CII to discuss the relationship between capital expenditure and employment generation”. In other words, the future of the scheme looks bleak.

Deflationary budget

The September 2024 report of the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) revealed that in 2023-24, the youth unemployment rate (for those aged 15-29 years) had increased to 10.2% and the unemployment rate among graduates was 13%. Time series data from the PLFS show that the share of the workforce engaged in regular or salaried employment in the post-pandemic period has shrunk, while the share engaged in agriculture and informal self-employment has risen.

The latest Economic Survey also shows that average real earnings of self-employed male workers in India fell from ₹9,454 in 2017-18 to ₹8,591 in 2023-24. The monthly real wages of regular/salaried male workers also fell from an average of ₹12,665 in 2017-18 to ₹11,858 in 2023-24. Surplus labour inundating the job market, combined with high food inflation, have severely squeezed the real incomes and livelihoods of an overwhelming majority of India’s workforce. For a Finance Minister to overlook this is disingenuous.

The advanced estimates of GDP have already projected a decline of the real GDP growth rate to 6.4% in 2024-25 from 8.2% last year. In keeping with this, there is a slowdown in the Centre’s net tax revenues in 2024-25. With the Finance Minister keen on adhering to the fiscal consolidation path, the axe has fallen on government expenditure. Total expenditure is now likely to be over ₹1 lakh crore short of Budget Estimates (BE), with capital expenditure falling short of the target by over ₹92,000 crore.

Public expenditure on rural and urban development, agriculture, education, food subsidy, energy, transport, and health are all being axed. Among centrally sponsored schemes, the Revised Estimates (RE) for the Jal Jeevan Mission and Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (both rural and urban) show declines of ₹47,469 crore and ₹38,575 crore, respectively, from their BE. The expenditure on MGNREGA was cut in the BE itself by ₹3,654 crore from the previous year. Such deep cuts in budgeted capital and welfare expenditures would have a dampening effect on investment and consumption, especially in rural areas.

The Finance Minister has sought to counterbalance the deflationary impact of these expenditure cuts by enhancing the annual rebate for income tax payers from ₹7 lakh to ₹12 lakh from 2025-26. Data from the Income Tax Department show that only around 2.8 crore individuals had paid positive taxes in the assessment year 2023-24, out of the 7.54 crore filing income tax returns. The income tax relief for next year would therefore go to 2.8 crore individuals, who form only around 22% of India’s salaried workforce. For the rest who are faced with dwindling real incomes, there is nothing on offer.

The Finance Minister has estimated the revenue foregone on account of the income tax rebate to be ₹1 lakh crore. Instead, a cut of a similar magnitude in indirect taxes, such as the exorbitant excise duties on fuel or the central GST rates on mass consumption goods, could have provided relief to the entire class of working people. It is well known that the consumption propensity of wage earners is higher than that of the profit earners.

The average daily wage rate actually received by a MGNREGA worker (as per data provided by Ministry of Rural Development dashboard) has increased from ₹200.71 in 2019-20 to ₹252.31 in 2024-25. The national floor level minimum wage for unskilled workers in agriculture, in contrast, has been set at ₹452 in 2024-25. A well deserved, substantial hike in the MGNREGA wages in the Union Budget alongside an increase in rural development outlays would have led to increased consumption demand in the rural areas. The consumption effect of income tax breaks, in contrast, would be far more limited and concentrated in urban areas.

Running out of ideas

The latest Economic Survey cites a private sector research report to show how the after tax profit-to-GDP ratio of Nifty 500 companies surged from 2.1% in 2020-21 to 4.8% in 2023-24. While the deep corporate tax cut of September 2019 played a vital role in this profit surge, it has neither translated into higher levels of private corporate investment, nor employment generation.

Yet, the Union Budget has relied upon another tax break, this time for income tax payers, to inject demand into the economy, even while cutting capital and welfare expenditures to compress the fiscal deficit. This is unlikely to generate higher levels of economic growth and employment and raise the living standards of the vast majority of the working people. It is evident that the government has run out of ideas on the economic front.

Prasenjit Bose is an economist and activist

The Shahid Beheshti Port at Chabahar connects Mumbai to Eurasia via the International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC), reducing transport costs and time, leading to a 43% increase in vessel traffic and a 34% rise in container traffic for the financial year 2023-24, according to the Economic Survey released on Friday.

Similarly, Sittwe Port in Myanmar built as part of the Kaladan multi-modal transport project, offers an “alternative route to Northeastern States, reducing transport costs between Kolkata and Mizoram,” the survey noted referring to international linkages in the maritime sector.

Also Read | India, Iran sign 10-year contract for Chabahar port operation

“India is enhancing waterway connectivity to the Northeast by developing waterways in Bangladesh and funding 80% of the ₹305 crore project. India is also investing ₹1,010 crore to improve the Brahmaputra and Barak rivers and the Indo-Bangladesh Protocol route,” the Economic Survey said on the efforts to boost inland waterways also involving neighbouring countries.

In May 2024, eight years after concluding the general framework of cooperation on Chabahar Port, India and Iran signed a 10-year Long Term Agreement for its operation. Under the agreement between Indian Ports Global Limited (IPGL) of India and the Port and Maritime Organisation (PMO) of Iran, IPGL will invest approximately $120 million in equipping the port and India has also offered a credit window equivalent to $250 million for mutually identified projects aimed at improving Chabahar-related infrastructure.

Another maritime route, the Chennai-Vladivostok eastern maritime corridor has also become operational and is carrying oil, food and machines, as reported by The Hindu earlier.

Also Read | Amid raging fighting in Myanmar, 100th shipment from India reaches Sittwe port

Gratified to see the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways trailblazing with a remarkable 76% capital expenditure up to November 2024 for the financial year 2024-25 as per Economic Survey 2024-25, Union Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal said on the Survey. As a result of the transformational initiatives, the Minister was happy about the exceptional rate of capacity enhancement in ports from 3 Million Metric Tonne Per Annum (MMTPA) during April to November (FY24) to 21 MTPA during the same period this financial year as per the Economic Survey 2024-25, he stated.

By 2047, India targets a port handling capacity of 10,000 million metric tonne per annum, leveraging strategic trade routes through initiatives like the India-Middle East Economic Corridor (IMEEC) and the INSTC, Mr. Sonowal had said in November.

The survey listed out key initiatives as part of this which include, Harit Nauka guidelines launched in January 2024 which aim to turn 1,000 inland vessels over the next 10 years; cargo promotion scheme to incentivise cargo owners to switch from rail and road to inland waterways; river cruise tourism which saw 82,587 passengers on day cruises by October 2024 and a five-fold increase in night cruise passengers to 11,431 in FY24 compared to FY19; Jal Marg Vikas project on National Waterway-1 which enhances cargo transport on the Ganga-Bhagirathi-Hooghly river system, achieving 65% physical progress with a revised cost of ₹5,061.15 crore and Jal Marg Vikas project-II which includes the construction of community jetties and navigation improvements with 49 out of 60 approved community jetties already commissioned.

Explained | Reinvigorating the Chabahar port 

“Port capacity improved significantly in FY25, leading to improvements in operational efficiency and reduction in average container turnaround time. On waterway transport connectivity, the Sagarmala programme aims to harness India’s coastline and waterways fully, improving logistics efficiency. Progress under the programme highlights the highest project completion rates in port modernisation and port-led industrialisation,” the survey said on the overall shipping sector. This is followed by advancements in port connectivity, coastal community development, coastal shipping, and inland water transport.

In this regard, the survey noted that the Union government approved 98 Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects, including 23 captive projects, worth around ₹69,800 crore, excluding Vadhavan Port Project with a PPP investment of ₹38,000 crore. Currently, 56 projects valued at ₹41,480 crore are operational, increasing port capacity by 550 MTPA , it added.

Image used for representative purpose only.
| Photo Credit: G.N. RAO

The country’s higher education system ranks among the largest globally with 4.33 crore students enrolled in 2021-22, a 26.5% increase from 3.42 crore in 2014-15. The Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) for the 18–23 age group also increased from 23.7% to 28.4% during this same period. “To achieve the government’s goal of increasing GER to 50% by 2035 in higher education, there is a need to double the educational network and infrastructure,” the Economic Survey tabled in Parliament stated on Friday (January 31, 2025).

Also Read | Challenge of school education is to maintain retention rates: Economic Survey

The survey, citing government records, said the number of Indian Institutes of Technology increased from 16 in 2014 to 23 in 2023, while Indian Institutes of Management grew from 13 in 2014 to 20 in 2023. “Similarly, medical colleges experienced remarkable growth, increasing from 387 in 2013-14 to 780 in 2024-25. Universities have also seen substantial expansion, rising from 723 in 2014 to 1,213 in 2024, registering a growth of 59.6%. Total Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) increased by 13.8% from 51,534 in 2014-15 to 58,643 in 2022-23,” it added.

Elaborating on the National Education Policy (NEP), implemented in 2020, the survey added that by 2040, all higher education institutes are to become multidisciplinary institutions. “The measures to achieve this aim include greater opportunities for outstanding public education; scholarships by private/philanthropic universities for disadvantaged and underprivileged students; online education and Open Distance Learning (ODL); and all infrastructure and learning materials accessible and available to learners with disabilities. The policy calls for making ‘India a global knowledge superpower’,” it said.

Also Read | Economic Survey calls for doubling education infrastructure to achieve NEP goal

On the higher education regulators, the University Grants Commission and the All India Council for Technical Education, the survey said there are over 50 regulations addressing different aspects of education and research. “However, this approach does not fully align with the ‘light but tight’ regulatory model envisioned by the NEP,” the survey added. It suggested that it should be explicitly stated that compliance with regulations beyond the minimum accreditation requirements (proposed in NEP) is voluntary. “Such compliance will be desired by institutions wishing to signal their capability and credibility,” it said.

Chief Economic Advisor V. Anantha Nageswaran during a press conference on Economic Survey 2024-25, in New Delhi on Friday.
| Photo Credit: ANI

India’s equity market has rapidly grown particularly after the pandemic, but its debt market remains undercapitalised, according to the Economic Survey for 2024-25 tabled in Parliament on Friday.

Corporate bond issuances in India for the period April to December 2024 rose to ₹7.3 lakh crore, with an average monthly issuance of ₹0.8 lakh crore as against ₹0.66 lakh crore during the same period the earlier year. Still, the size of India’s corporate bond market stands at just 18% of the country’s total GDP as against 80% in Korea and 36% in China, the Survey noted. A majority of these funds were gathered by firms through private placements, thus deterring the participation of retail investors. “In FY24, the public placement of corporate bonds stood at ₹19,000 crore against the private placement of around ₹8,38,000 crore,” the Survey found.

Most of the borrowing in the bond market was done only by borrowers with the highest credit ratings. About 97% of corporate bond issuances came from firms with the top-three highest ratings (AAA, AA+, and AA), the Survey noted. It further mentioned that this could be the reason why most borrowers in the bond market are NBFCs and PSUs.

“If liquidity has to enter corporate bond markets, problems such as entry costs, information asymmetry, and the absence of a secondary market must be addressed,” the Survey pointed out.

Image used for representative purpose only.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The secondary markets have delivered positive performance amidst significant volatility witnessed since the commencement of FY25 and on a longer-term basis, Indian markets have been among the best-performing markets in the world the Economic Survey 2024-25 has stated. 

“The compounded annualised returns of Nifty 50 for the past ten years [since March 2014] stand at 8.8% [adjusted for USD], trailing below few indices, such as the U.S. NASDAQ composite index [15.3% and U.S. Dow Jones [9.2%] among a select set of significant markets as of December 2024,” the survey pointed out.

Also Read | Excessive financialisation can hurt the economy says Economic Survey

“The corresponding CAGR of China’s Shanghai Composite indices stands at 3.2%. The positive performance of the Indian stock was driven by strong profitability growth, rapid traction of digital financial infrastructure, expanding investor base and substantial reforms in products and processes,” it stated. 

In line with the performance of Indian markets, India’s weight in the MSCI-EM index reached a new high of 20% in July 2024 before settling down at 19.4% at the end of December 2024. This is only the third highest after China and Taiwan, the Survey highlighted.

Emphasising that the period since the pandemic has seen a surge in individual and household participation as capital market investors through direct (trading in markets through their accounts) and indirect (through mutual funds) channels, the Survey stated that healthy corporate earnings, stable macro fundamentals, trust garnered by mutual fund ecosystem and online digital investment platforms have encouraged greater participation in capital markets.

“The incremental addition to demat accounts has been continuously increasing, with the number of demat accounts rising sharply by 33% to 18.5 crore at the end of December 2024 on a YoY basis. In the equity cash segment, individual investor share turnover41 was 35.6 per cent from April to December 2024,” it mentioned.

There are 11.5 crore unique investors with demat accounts and 5.6 crore unique investors in mutual funds as of the end of December 2024, it added.

“Higher investor participation has engendered a self-reinforcing cycle of strong market returns, bringing in even more investors. This, in turn, will eventually transform the securities market into a more diverse, inclusive, and robust platform for wealth creation,” the Survey emphasised.

Notwithstanding the market volatility and geopolitical uncertainties, the primary markets continued to witness heightened listing activities and investor enthusiasm in FY25, the Survey found. 

Also Read | Economic Survey 2024-25 cautions against ‘meaningful’ market correction in 2025

“As per the E&Y Global IPO trends, Indian stock exchanges provide conducive market conditions for foreign conglomerates to list their local subsidiaries, thereby offering a good opportunity for unlocking value. India’s share in global IPO listings surged to 30% in 2024, up from 17% in 2023, making it the leading contributor of primary resource mobilisation globally,” it started.

“The total resource mobilisation from primary markets [equity and debt] stands at ₹11.1 lakh crore from April to December 2024, which is 5% more than the amount mobilised during the entire FY24. This also amounts to 25.6% of gross fixed capital formation of private and public corporations during FY24,” it concluded. 

The real challenge in school education is to maintain the retention rates for all classes, from primary to higher secondary levels, the Economic Survey 2024-25 said on Friday.

Retention rate is the percentage of students who enrol in a school and continue over a specific period of time. “Retention rates stand at 85.4% for primary (Classes I to V), 78% for elementary (Classes I to VIII), 63.8% for secondary (Classes I to X), and 45.6% for higher secondary (Classes I to XII),” the survey states. 

Also Read | Economic Survey calls for doubling education infrastructure to achieve NEP goal

The National Education Policy, 2020 aims for a 100% Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) by 2030. “The GER is near-universal at the primary (93%) and the efforts are under way to bridge the gaps at the secondary (77.4%) and higher secondary level (56.2%),” the survey states. 

Expenditure on education has grown at a CAGR of 12% from ₹5.8 lakh crore in FY21 to ₹9.2 lakh crore in FY25 (BE), the survey says. 

India’s school education system serves 24.8 crore students across 14.72 lakh schools with 98 lakh teachers (UDISE+ 2023-24).

The National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy (NIPUN Bharat) was launched in July 2021 by the Education Ministry to achieve foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) for every student by end of Class 3 by 2026-27. The Economic Survey proposes that to achieve this peer teaching, apart from teacher-led instruction, is a promising solution, where students learn by teaching and supporting their peers.

The survey says that while Mission Ankur in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat and Bihar’s Mission Daksh aims to provide personalised mentoring for lagging students to achieve grade-level competencies by 2025, they heavily rely on teachers, highlighting the need for scalable, adaptable teaching strategies that offer personalisation without overburdening educators.

Also Read | Budget 2025: Reduced taxes, investment in digital education needed for education 

The survey states that The ‘Nalli-Kali’ (joyful learning in Kannada) programme, which was launched in 1995 in Karnataka’s Mysuru district, focuses on peer and group work to create a collaborative classroom environment that supports self-paced, personalised learning and is now the primary pedagogy for Classes 1-3 in Karnataka to develop age-appropriate skills. The ‘Prerana’ model of education, implemented in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana through the Sikshana Foundation, also emphasises peer learning and group work, where small groups of four to five students collaborate on classroom activities, teaching and learning from each other. 

It says that Involve Learning Solutions Foundation is working with educators in six districts across Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Karnataka to integrate structured peer teaching into government schools. The model pairs students identified as ‘Student Champions’ with ‘Learners.’ Each Student Champion, with better subject mastery, is trained further to support a group of four learners, their peers who struggle to understand concepts, thereby facilitating their progress through 40-minute sessions three to four times a week. 

Early evaluations in Karnataka’s Anekal block have shown increased learning outcomes in numeracy for students by 15% compared with students who did not participate in the programme. Similarly, in Bhagalpur, structured peer interactions have helped bridge reading and numeracy gaps among children who could not meet age-appropriate learning milestones, the survey states. 

The survey points out that there is a rural-urban digital divide in India with lower Internet-searching capabilities in rural areas, especially among women. It says that 63% of men and 55% of women in rural areas can search the Internet for information compared with 74% of men and 69% of women in urban areas. 

“The results highlight the need for focused efforts to close the digital gap,” the survey states. 

The survey speaks of leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) for teachers’ professional development and providing AI-driven personal tutors for students. It says AI can automate tasks like lesson planning and assessment development and foster critical thinking, freeing teachers to focus on instruction and mentoring. 

Also Read | Economic Survey 2024-25: Key takeaways in charts

It also lauds the ‘Illam Thedi Kalvi’ Scheme launched by the Tamil Nadu government to bridge the education gap brought about by the pandemic and the digital divide. The initiative focuses on education through physical methods. The scheme was designed during the pandemic to reduce students’ reliance on Internet resources for their learning, with volunteers assisting them. These volunteers conducted door-to-door efforts to educate the students. 

The State Planning Commission conducted a rapid assessment of the programme’s impact through a comprehensive survey in September 2022. This assessment involved the active participation of volunteers, teachers, headmasters, and parents from 362 schools across six districts — Ariyalur, Cuddalore, Nagapattinam, Salem, Thiruvarur, and Villupuram. Parents reported a noticeable improvement in their children’s learning experiences, noting that education has become a more enjoyable activity for them. The scheme continues to run till date post pandemic to bridge learning gaps, the survey states.