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Wall Street drops 3% despite encouraging inflation data as Trump’s trade war still weighs

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Wall Street drops 3% despite encouraging inflation data as Trump’s trade war still weighs


Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, April 10, 2025.
| Photo Credit: AP

U.S. stocks on Thursday (April 10, 2025) are giving back a chunk of their historic gains from the day before as Wall Street weighs a global trade war that has cooled in temperature but is still threatening the economy.

The S&P 500 was down 3.2% in midday trading, a day after surging 9.5% following President Donald Trump’s decision to pause many of his tariffs worldwide. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1,079 points, or 2.7%, as of 11 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 3.8% lower.

Even a better-than-expected report on inflation Thursday morning wasn’t enough to get U.S. stocks to add to their surges from the day before, including the S&P 500’s third-best since 1940. Economists said the data wasn’t very useful because it offered a view only of the past, when inflation may rise in coming months because of tariffs.

“Trump blinks,” UBS strategist Bhanu Baweja wrote in a report about the President’s decision on tariffs, “but the damage isn’t all undone.”

Mr. has focused more on China, raising his tariffs on its products to well above 100%. Even if that were to get negotiated down to something like 50%, and even if only 10% tariffs remained on other countries, Mr. Baweja said the hit to the U.S. economy could still be large enough to hurt expected growth for upcoming U.S. corporate profits.

China, meanwhile, has reached out to other countries around the world in hopes of forming a united front against Trump.

The stock price of Warner Brothers Discovery, the company behind “A Minecraft Movie,” dropped 11.9% for one of Wall Street’s sharpest losses after China said Thursday it will “appropriately reduce the number of imported U.S. films.” The Walt Disney Co.’s stock sank 6.2%

A spokesperson for the China Film Administration said it is “inevitable” that Chinese audiences would find American films less palatable given the “wrong move by the U.S. to wantonly implement tariffs on China.”

That was after Mr. Trump and his Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, sent a clear message to other countries Wednesday after announcing their tariff pause: “Do not retaliate, and you will be rewarded.”

The European Union on Thursday said it will put its trade retaliation measures on hold for 90 days and leave room for a negotiated solution.

It all demonstrates why many on Wall Street are preparing for more swings to hit markets, after the S&P 500 at one point nearly dropped into a “bear market” by almost closing 20% below its record. Often, the whipsaw moves have come not just day to day but also hour to hour. The S&P 500 still remains below where it was when Mr. Trump announced his sweeping set of tariffs last week on “Liberation Day.”

“Everything is still very volatile, because with Donald Trump, you don’t know what to expect,” said Francis Lun, chief executive of Geo Securities. “This is really big uncertainty in the market. The threat of recession has not faded.”

One encouraging signal may be coming from the bond market, where stress seems to be easing.

The bond market has historically played the role of enforcer against politicians and economic policies it deemed imprudent. It helped topple the United Kingdom’s Liz Truss in 2022, for example, whose 49 days made her Britain’s shortest-serving Prime Minister. James Carville, adviser to former U.S. President Bill Clinton, also famously said he’d like to be reincarnated as the bond market because of how much power it wields.

Earlier this week, big jumps for U.S. Treasury yields had rattled the market, so much that Mr. Trump said Wednesday he had been watching how investors were “getting a little queasy.”

Several reasons could have been behind the sharp, sudden rise, including hedge funds having to sell their Treasurys in order to raise cash or investors outside the United States dumping their U.S. investments because of the trade war. Regardless of the reasons behind it, higher yields on Treasurys crank up pressure on the stock market and push rates higher for mortgages and other loans for U.S. households and businesses.

But the 10-year Treasury yield has calmed over the last day, following Mr. Trump’s U-turn on tariffs, and was sitting at 4.33%. That’s after it had shot up to nearly 4.50% Wednesday morning from just 4.01% at the end of last week.

In stock markets abroad, indexes rallied across Europe and Asia in their first chances to trade following Mr. Trump’s pause. Japan’s Nikkei 225 surged 9.1%, South Korea’s Kospi leaped 6.6% and Germany’s DAX returned 5.4%.



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Like Voda Idea, now Airtel looks to convert govt’s statutory debt with equity swap – Times of India

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Like Voda Idea, now Airtel looks to convert govt’s statutory debt with equity swap – Times of India


NEW DELHI: In a significant development, Bharti Airtel is understood to have approached the govt for swapping its statutory dues with equity, something that has been done in the case of beleaguered Vodafone Idea.The company is understood to have outstanding govt payment dues of over Rs 70,000 crore, including Rs 40,000 crore of AGR dues.
Sources said that Airtel believes that the measure will help it conserve cash, while also enabling the govt to be a part of a fast-growing enterprise which carries prospects of a growth in share price and resultant valuations. “A proposal to this effect is understood to have been submitted to the department of telecom,” a source said.
Airtel has not officially commented on the matter as yet.
The formula to swap the outstanding statutory payment dues with equity had been initiated by the department of telecom to help the industry, particularly loss-making Vodafone Idea tide over the financial challenges and continue as a going concern.
Airtel’s current market cap is around Rs 10.5 lakh crore, as per the details on the Bombay Stock Exchange. The company will need to transfer around 6% equity to the govt to clear its statutory dues. Shares of Airtel closed the day at Rs 1,845 on the BSE, down 2%.
Market analysts believe that govt has “a chance of realising positive returns” from the Airtel equity, considering that the company has been growing in profitability. This will be unlike Vodafone Idea where the value of its stake value has so far only fetched negative returns with the company’s scrip remaining below Rs 10 for most of the period of govt’s holding.
Govt had converted the Voda Idea statutory debt into equity at a price of Rs 10 per share, which is the face value. The current price of the company’s share is Rs 8, down one per cent at close on Thursday.





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Cyient Q4 net declines 5% to ₹186.4 crore 

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Intelligent engineering and technology solutions provider Cyient’s consolidated net profit for the quarter ended March declined more than 5% to ₹186.4 crore from ₹196.9 crore a year earlier.

The lower net profit came on an over 3% increase in total income to ₹1,950.2 crore (₹1,884.2 crore).

In a release, Cyient said during the quarter its Digital, Engineering, and Technology (DET) segment revenue declined 1.2% at ₹1,472 crore, while net profit at ₹163 crore was a year on year de-growth of 6%. The company has declared a final dividend of ₹14 per share (par value of ₹5 each) for 2024-25.

For the fiscal, Cyient DET net profit was 12.2% lower at ₹605 crore. It came on a 1.6% decline in revenue to ₹5,816 crore.

“Our top customers demonstrated strong growth this fiscal year despite the headwinds in demand. While there are some uncertainties in the near term, we are working very closely with our customers in navigating through the current challenges. We expect this to last at least through the first half of FY26,” executive vice chairman and managing director of Cyient Krishna Bodanapu said.

At a group level, “we now have three well-balanced growth vectors for the future. Our recent carve-out, Cyient Semiconductors, focuses on technology development and disruption led by AI. The DET business focuses on technology services with engineering competence as the core, and our DLM business focuses on engineering-led product manufacturing opportunities. With this, we are well-positioned to address a wide spectrum of growth opportunities in this emerging macro and geopolitical environment,” he said in a release.



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Jaggi brothers: How the Gensol founders fell

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Jaggi brothers: How the Gensol founders fell


Story so far:  Touted as a ‘one-stop shop for all things related to solar power’, Gensol Engineering Ltd saw its shares plummet by 90% in April this year from their 52-week high of ₹1125 in June 24, 2024. The fall followed after India’s regulatory body, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), found alarming pattern of fund diversion by the company’s promoters — Anmol Singh Jaggi and Puneet Singh Jaggi. 

In its interim order, SEBI revealed that the Jaggi brothers treated Gensol, which is listed in the National Stock Exchange (NSE), as a proprietary firm and diverted corporate funds to buy a high-end apartment in The Camellias, DLF Gurgaon, splurge on a luxury golf set, pay off credit cards and transfer money to close relatives. Furthermore, it found that Gensol’s electric vehicle (EV) plant in Pune had “no manufacturing activity” and only two to three labourers were present when a NSE official visted the site.

However, Gensol is not the only company the brothers have endangered. Electric cab service BluSmart — another start-up founded by the brothers and seen as a rival to Uber, suspended its services after SEBI’s critical report. As its fleet of 8000 taxis are procured by Gensol and then leased to BluSmart, its services have been affected due to SEBI’s probe into the Jaggis. The company has offered a ‘refund within the next 90 days if services do not resume’, reported Reuters.

Who are the Jaggis?

Raised as ‘Army kids’, the elder brother — Anmol Singh Jaggi, nursed entrepreneurial spirit since his early years. While studying Applied Petroleum Engineering at Dehradun’s University of Petroleum & Energy Studies between 2003 and 2007, Anmol first dipped into the renewable energy sector in his final semester of B.Tech. An internship at Reliance Industries pushed him into carbon trading, where in he purchased carbon credits from wind farms in India and sold them to European companies. 

On July 2, 2007, he founded Gensol Engineering in a 50 sq. ft space in Ahmedabad offering Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) solutions for solar projects. The company helps its clients in designing, procuring materials and installation in solar plants, i.e. start-to-finish of the project. Touting its rooted beginnings, Anmol posted on LinkedIn, “16 years today of being super pumped in building business, making friends, awesome team, kind investors,” displaying a photo with his parents and grandparents. His brother – Puneet, who completed his B.Tech in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee in 2010, joined Gensol soon after. 

Anmol Jaggi with his family on July 2, 2007 at Gensol’s first office in Ahmedabad. Photo: LinkedIn

In 2016, Puneet also founded Prescinto Technologies — an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based asset performance management provider for renewable energy. Based in Bengaluru, the firm was part of the Gensol Group and catered to customers in fourteen countries. With AI solutions, the company focused on analysing clean energy plant data to delivering increased generation. This company was acquired by IT giant IBM in October 2024. 

Meanwhile, Anmol founded Matrix Gas And Renewables Limited in 2018 — a gas supplier and distributor for energy production, focusing on natural gas, biogas and green hydrogen. As part of the Gensol group, Matrix is part of the basket of renewable energy solutions offered including lithium-ion cell manufacturing, battery energy storage, EV leasing and manufacturing and solar EPC. Together, the brothers also founded BluSmart in 2019.

Between 2019-2024, stocks analysts were very bullish on Gensol as it expanded its business scope from solar to EV sector, according to Fortune India. Its share prices surged from ₹85 to ₹2,392, delivering returns of 2714% to its investors.

What went wrong with Gensol?

According to Businessline, the company’s revenue was on the rise from 2022 till 2025, with its performance beating 2024. With orders worth ₹4,000 crore and over 8,300 EVs leased by December 2024, Gensol’s prospects seemed bright. However, by March 2025, the company’s credit rating reports downgraded it to D-rating (i.e. expected to default soon). This sent Gensol’s stock crash by 20% on the same day and it hit lower everyday. 

There were several reasons listed for Gensol financial issues are — three years of cash outflows exceeding its inflows (negative cash flows), increasing trend of promoters pledging their shares as collateral for loans (promoter share pledge) from 81.7% in December 2024 to 85.5% in February 2025, dropping promoter holdings from 71.2% in March 2022 to 62.1% in 2025 and the resignation of the CFO on March 6 citing ‘personal reasons’. Gensol’s s liquidity position and investor confidence were diminished prior to SEBI’s probe. 

In April this year, SEBI initiated a probe following complaints of share price manipulation and default in loan repayments, filed in June 2024. Gensol had availed ₹977.75 crore in term loans from institutions like IREDA and PFC of which ₹663.89 crore was earmarked for purchasing 6400 EVs. However, only 4,704 vehicles worth ₹567.73 crore were procured, ₹262.13 crore unaccounted for, found SEBI. 

This triggered a slump in Gensol’s stock from its record high of ₹2,392 in October 2023 to half its worth (₹1126) in June 2024 and to ₹111.65 on April 21, 2025 — days after SEBI’s interim order.

What has SEBI found on Jaggis?

In response to SEBI’s findings, Gensol admitted that it had procured only 4,704 of the 6400 EVs it had received funding for, leaving ₹262.13 crore unaccounted for. SEBI found that in many instances, funds transferred to Gensol’s supplier Go-Auto for EV purchases were routed back to it or entities linked to Anmol and Puneet either directly or indirectly.

Some funds were used for unsanctioned purposes. These include financing a luxury apartment in DLF Camellias by routing funds via Anmol’s Capbridge Ventures, ₹6.20 crore allegedly diverted to Anmol’s mother Jasminder Kaur, ₹2.98 crore to his wife Mugdha Kaur Jaggi and investing ₹50 lakh in Ashneer Grover’s startup Third Unicorn, ₹26 lakh on a golf set and ₹3 lakh spent through MakeMyTrip for travel. On Puneet, SEBI found that he diverted ₹1.13 crore to his spouse Shalmali Kaur Jaggi, ₹87.52 lakh to his mother and pay off his credit card bills. 

In its 29-page order, SEBI concluded, “These transactions would mean that the diversions would need to be written off from the company’s books, ultimately resulting in losses to the investors of the company.” 

It has barred the Jaggi brothers from holding any directorship or key management position in Gensol or any other listed company. Gensol’s promoters have been prohibited from accessing the securities market until further notice, citing fund diversion and serious governance lapses. The company’s proposed stock split in the ratio of 1:10 has also been put on hold. A forensic auditor is now further investigating the matter. 



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