What changed for the market while you were sleeping? Top 10 things to know

Wall Street gained ground on Monday and surging technology shares pushed the Nasdaq to a record closing high, as promising trial results from potential COVID-19 vaccines helped investors look beyond spiraling new cases of the disease.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 8.92 points, or 0.03%, to 26,680.87, the S&P 500 gained 27.11 points, or 0.84%, to 3,251.84 and the Nasdaq Composite added 263.90 points, or 2.51%, to 10,767.09.

Asian Markets

Asian shares were set to open higher on Tuesday after U.S. markets gained ground on positive data from trials of three potential COVID-19 vaccines and hopes that the European Union would finalize a recovery fund.

Australian S&P/ASX 200 futures YAPcm1 rose 0.70% in early trade while Japan’s Nikkei 225 futures NKc1 were up 0.02%, or 0.47% higher than the Nikkei’s close on Monday.

SGX Nifty

Trends on SGX Nifty indicate a gap-up opening for the index in India with a 92 points gain. The Nifty futures were trading at 11,114 on the Singaporean Exchange around 07:30 hours IST.

First human trial of Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine shows promise, produces immune response

AstraZeneca's experimental COVID-19 vaccine was safe and produced an immune response in early-stage clinical trials in healthy volunteers, data showed on Monday. The vaccine, called AZD1222 and under development by AstraZeneca and scientists at Britain's Oxford University, did not prompt any serious side effects and elicited antibody and T-cell immune responses, according to trial results published in The Lancet medical journal.

"We hope this means the immune system will remember the virus, so that our vaccine will protect people for an extended period," study lead author Andrew Pollard of the University of Oxford said. "However, we need more research before we can confirm the vaccine effectively protects against SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) infection, and for how long any protection lasts," he said.

Oil steady as virus infections rise but hopes for vaccine lend support

Oil prices were little changed on Monday as coronavirus cases increased in many countries, though a flurry of announcements about a potential COVID-19 vaccine and ongoing talks over a European Union fund to revive economies hit by the pandemic curbed losses.

Brent crude settled up 14 cents, or 0.3%, at $43.28 per barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) rose 22 cents, 0.5%, to $40.81.

SEBI gives guidelines to verify upfront collection of margins

Markets regulator SEBI on Monday released framework to enable verification of upfront collection of margins from clients in cash and derivatives segments. The new framework will come into effect from December 1, 2020, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) said in a circular.

The regulator has reiterated that the applicable upfront margins will be collected from the clients in advance of the trade. SEBI said clearing corporations will send minimum four snapshots of client wise margin requirement to trading member (TM) or clearing member (CM) for them to know the intra-day margin requirement per client in each segment.

India plans to reduce number of state-owned banks to just 5

India is looking to privatise more than half of its state-owned banks to reduce the number of government-owned lenders to just five as part of an overhaul of the banking industry, government and banking sources said.

The first part of the plan would be to sell majority stakes in Bank of India, Central Bank of India, Indian Overseas Bank, UCO Bank, Bank of Maharashtra and Punjab & Sind Bank, leading to an effective privatisation of these state-owned lenders, a government official said. "The idea is to have 4-5 government owned banks," said one senior government official. At present, India has 12 state-owned banks.

EPFO records 3.18 lakh new enrolments in May

Net new enrolments with retirement fund body EPFO rose to 3.18 lakh in May from 1 lakh during April 2020, according to its latest payroll data, providing a perspective on employment in the formal sector amid the COVID-19 crisis. Provisional payroll data released by the EPFO last month had showed that net new enrolments stood at 1.33 lakh in April this year.

The net new enrolments with the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) had dropped to 5.72 lakh in March 2020 from 10.21 lakh in February, as per the payroll data released in May.

NSE-backed CAMS gets SEBI nod to float IPO

Computer Age Management Services, backed by Warburg Pincus LLC and the National Stock Exchange, has received markets regulator SEBI's go-ahead to raise an estimated Rs 1,500-1,600 crore through an initial share sale. The IPO will see sale of 1.22 crore equity shares through offer-for-sale by Great Terrain Investment, NSE Investments, Acsys Investments, HDFC and HDB Employees Welfare Trust, as per the draft papers filed with SEBI.

Market sources estimate the IPO size to be between Rs 1,500 crore and Rs 1,600 crore. The issue is being managed by Kotak Mahindra Capital Co Ltd, HDFC Bank Ltd, ICICI Securities Ltd and Nomura Financial Advisory and Securities (India) Pvt Ltd.

Results on July 21

Hindustan Unilever, Axis Bank, Bajaj Finance, Bajaj Finserv, HDFC Life Insurance Company, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company, SBI Life Insurance Company, IndiaMART InterMESH, etc.

FII and DII data

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought shares worth Rs 1,709.97 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) sold shares worth Rs 1,521.99 crore in the Indian equity market on July 20, provisional data available on the NSE showed.

10 stocks under F&O ban on NSE

Adani Enterprises, Bharat Heavy Electricals, Canara Bank, Century Textiles & Industries, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, Vodafone Idea, L&T Finance Holdings, Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services, National Aluminium Company and Sun TV are under the F&O ban for July 21. Securities in the ban period under the F&O segment include companies in which the security has crossed 95 percent of the market-wide position limit.

With inputs from Reuters & other agencies