The rupee on Thursday nosedived a whopping 70 paise against the US dollar after World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the deadly Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. The currency hit a low of 74.34 during the session. However, later it trimmed some losses to trade at 74.12.

The number of cases in over 100 countries around the world has risen to more than 124,000, with over 4,500 deaths, including a jump in fatalities in Iran and Italy in particular, according to an AFP tally.

Reliance Industries Ltd, operator of the world's biggest refining complex, has bought 2 million barrels of additional Saudi oil in a very large crude carrier for loading in April, trade sources said on Thursday.

No immediate comment was available from Reliance.

State-run Saudi Aramco, the world's top oil exporter, has slashed its selling price for April and announced plans to raise output to a record 12.3 million barrels per day (bpd).

Mahindra Group’s MeraKisan, an organic agri producer, has partnered with Ajinkya Rahane, Vice-Captain of the Indian Test Cricket team.

As part of this partnership, Ajinkya has invested and will own equity in MeraKisan and would also be its brand ambassador.

The country's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) on Wednesday said it has reduced its fixed deposit rates for certain tenors and marginal cost of funds-based lending rates (MCLR) across various tenors.

Making it a second reduction in a month, the public sector bank has reduced retail term deposits (less than Rs 2 crore) by 10 to 50 basis points for a few tenors.

Shares of YES Bank rallied over 30 per cent for the second straight day and surged 39 per cent to Rs 29.60 on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) on Wednesday.

YES Bank's stock price has surged a mammoth 424 per cent from Friday’s low of Rs 5.65, after the government-owned State Bank of India (SBI) said it will pick a 49 per cent stake in the troubled private lender as part of a revival scheme framed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

Private power producer Tata Power on Wednesday said it will run normal operations at its Mundra Power plants upto March 20, 2020. The company had last week announced a March 11, 2020, deadline to shut down operations at Mundra owing to a lack of compensatory tariff.

Further to the notices issued by 4000 MW Coastal Gujarat Power (CGPL) for closure of the Mundra Power plant progressively from March 11, 2020, to the five procurer states due to delay in adoption of the High Powered Committee recommendation and entering into supplemental power purchase agreement, a meeting was convened by Union Power Secretary on 9th March 2020, the company said on Wednesday.

Shares of information technology (IT) companies were under pressure on Wednesday with sector giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Wipro hitting their respective 52-week lows on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) in the early morning trade on concerns over potential impact from COVID-19 (Coronavirus).

Nifty IT index, the top loser among the key sectoral indices, too hit its 52-week low of 14,356, down 3.4 per cent on the NSE. The index was at its lowest level since January 15, 2019, when it had touched 14,262 points in the intra-day trade.

Shares of telecom companies gained on Wednesday on report that it would take at least six months to evaluate the companies' self-assessment of dues linked to adjusted gross revenue (AGR).

Among individual stocks, Vodafone Idea surged as much as 23.5 per cent to Rs 4.94 on the BSE while Bharti Airtel was up 2.46 per cent to Rs 508.5. In comparison, the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex was trading 0.1 per cent higher at 10 AM.

Reliance Industries (RIL), the oil-to-telecom behemoth, surged around 6 per cent to Rs 1,178.40 apiece on the BSE on Wednesday after global brokerage firm Macquarie upgraded the stock to 'Neutral'. Moreover, oil prices continued to rise for the second straight day, lifted by hopes that US producers will cut output.

RIL had hit a 52-week low of Rs 1,094.95 on Monday (March 9) owing to crash in crude oil prices after Saudi Arabia and Russia triggered a price war.

Shares of oil marketing companies (OMCs), including Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), skid up to 4 per cent on the BSE after oil prices rose for the second straight day on Wednesday.

At 9:43 am, Brent Crude Futures were at $38.45 per barrel-mark, up 3.3 per cent, while the US WTI was at $35.26/bbl, up 2.62 per cent. This comes after an over 8 per cent rise in the oil prices on Tuesday. Prices inched higher on hopes of a supply cut by US producers.

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