Donald Trump attacked Democrats on abortion, seeking to position himself as a moderate voice on the issue as he pivoted to a new general election challenger, Vice President Kamala Harris. “She is a radical, crazy person,” Trump said at a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Wednesday evening, his first since President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race and endorsed Harris as his successor — the latest twist in an already volatile presidential election. “When you compare my position on abortion to that of Kamala Harris, my position is eight points higher in the polls,” Trump said, without specifying the basis for that assertion. Surveys generally show that people say they trust Democrats more than Republicans on the issue, Bloomberg reported.

India is quickly catching up on China as the largest country in a benchmark Emerging Market index, according to a report in the Financial Times. Next month’s MSCI review can elevate India to more than 20%, eclipsing Taiwan and putting India’s weight directly behind China. Indian equities are currently trading at 24 times one-year forward earnings, compared to China’s 10 times.

President Joe Biden framed his decision to drop out of the 2024 race as a bid to unify the nation under a new generation of leaders, in his first public address since he ended his reelection campaign against Republican Donald Trump. “I have decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. That is the best way to unite our nation,” Biden, 81, said Wednesday in an Oval Office address. More on that here.

There’s no turning back on scrapping indexation benefits for real estate, said Finance Secretary TV Somanathan on Wednesday, July 24, while also adding that ‘they were ready for the backlash’. “Every budget that has anything that might remotely increase taxes will have blowback. It’s not a surprise,” Somanathan told CNBC-TV18 in its special programme ‘Budget Verdict’. On whether the government will review the decision, the Finance Secretary said, “When we make our budget, we take suggestions from everyone when we respond to the budget. And we’ll take all suggestions seriously, including that one….But I personally am not in favor of review.”

The Finance Secretary also spoke on the issue of buybacks and said that they are trying to kill buybacks as an instrument of tax avoidance and not the process as a whole. He added that while “buyback may still be relevant as a capital structuring decision for a company, it may no longer be relevant as a means of avoiding taxation for the promoters.” In a policy shift aimed at aligning the taxation of dividends and buybacks, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced in the Union Budget 2024 that the government plans to abolish the buyback tax, and instead tax the income as dividends.

Defending the Union Budget’s proposal to increase securities transaction tax (STT) on futures and options (F&O) trades from October 1, Finance Secretary TV Somanathan called it “a mild nudge.” The Finance Secretary reckoned the role of speculation in keeping markets fluid and terming it the “lubricating oil” necessary for smooth market operations. “Speculation is the lubricating oil that keeps the market running smoothly. But where does it go too far in terms of the tail beginning to wag the dog,” he added.

L&T and Axis Bank, the two Nifty constituents will be in focus on Thursday as they will react to their quarterly results reported after market hours on Friday. L&T said that it will not revise its FY25 guidance even as core business margins were below the suggested guidance, Axis Bank reported a rise in slippages.

A new study from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) revealed that 71% of individual intraday equity cash market traders lost money in the fiscal year 2023. The situation was even worse for those who traded very frequently, with 80% of these high-frequency traders (over 500 trades per year) ending up in the red. More on that in this piece by CNBC-TV18’s Yash Jain.