The Markets Decipher Fresh India-US Deal Announcements
Indian stocks had their best week in three months
On Episode 793 of The Core Report, financial journalist Govindraj Ethiraj talks to Indrani Bagchi, CEO, Ananta Aspen Centre. We also feature an excerpt from our recent interview with Nitin Saini, Vice President – Marketing at Mondelez India (Full video is available on youtube).
SHOW NOTES
(00:00) Stories of the Day
(05:09) The markets will have to decipher a fresh set of India-US deal announcements.
(08:48) India is pushing back on areas like corn and soybean in India-US deal.
(12:06) What can we take away from the critical political optics of the India-US deal.
(20:34) Behind Mondelez’s success in driving brands like Cadbury and Oreo in Indian markets
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NOTE: This transcript contains the host's monologue and includes interview transcripts by a machine. Human eyes have gone through the script but there might still be errors in some of the text, so please refer to the audio in case you need to clarify any part. If you want to get in touch regarding any feedback, you can drop us a message on feedback@thecore.in.
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Good morning, it's Monday, the 9th of February, and this is Govindraj Ethiraj broadcasting and streaming weekdays from Mumbai, India's financial capital. Before we start, the Budget 2026 that was presented on the 1st of February and the India-US trade deal over the weekend in its details could have a profound impact on businesses, large and small. If you want to find out more, do join us for an exclusive session in Mumbai, that's today, this morning at 8.30 a.m. That's of course, you catch this in time in Lower Parel.
More details in the description.
The Take: The Whiplash Economy
Market gravity has a way of reasserting itself often without warning or a clear explanation.
Just ask the crypto faithful. Bitcoin, an asset we don't track much, and for good reason, recently suffered its largest weekly decline in over three years, falling 16% to about $70,000, which is a 45% retreat from its October peak of $126,000. The most unsettling part of this, no one is quite sure what went wrong, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
On the other hand, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the bastion of blue chip industrials like Walmart and Boeing, companies we track, crossed the 50,000 threshold for the first time this past week, even as the broader tech landscape is grappling with a trillion dollar wipeout. Now this drought, rippling through Silicon Valley's stocks and bonds, is the most severe since the launch of ChatGPT about three years ago. Software stocks are at the epicentre, including in India, as in iShares ETF tracking, the sector has bled nearly $1 trillion in value in just seven days.
Now, the catalyst is not just bubble talk, it's the fundamental anxiety over how new AI tools, specifically recent revelations from Anthropic, might dismantle the traditional business models of IT services companies, including in India. Now, Indian markets have been lucky to escape the AI trade wave of the last three years. And I say lucky, because Indian markets have investors have not been exposed to the ups, and of course the downs, and thus the wild gyrations that one usually sees on Wall Street.
Now that luck is seemingly running dry in the last few weeks in the metals market, with Indian investors who rushed into gold and silver are currently being treated to a rollercoaster ride of their lives. While much of India's holdings in these metals are shielded in physical jewellery, or physical gold and silver, the paper side of the trade is in a tailspin. Silver, for example, erased a two-day recovery to fall 17% on Thursday after touching about $90 an ounce, and has fallen by more than one-third from its January 29th high.
Gold and silver ETFs fell 20% on Thursday again, reflecting a massive exodus of speculative funds. Silver exchange-traded funds have fallen 38% from their all-time peak hit, like I said, on 29th of January. It is worth noting that these Indian exchange-traded funds had almost no assets, or very few assets, under management even a year ago.
Today, they're filled with millions of small investors, many who have migrated from regular mutual funds, and they are like a shoal of fish, darting between trades, and mostly led by the unresearched noise of social media. And while retail investors scramble like fish, the sharks are moving in. Bian Qi Ming, a billionaire trader, made $3 billion riding gold's rally, and has reportedly built a $300 million short position against silver on the Shanghai Futures Exchange, according to a report in Bloomberg.
When the sharks bet against you, the outcome is mostly not a good one. The broader lesson is that we are in extremely unsure territory. Volatility is no longer confined to stocks or bonds.
It has infected the traditionally safe havens of gold and silver. Swings are deeper, sharper, and more punitive. On Wall Street, even a minor earnings miss is treated like a catastrophe.
Now, this in itself is not new, but what we are seeing is perhaps a worse form of what we have been exposed to in the past. Now, Indian markets have been historically more forgiven, but the Wall Street whiplash is now extending to global asset classes, as we're seeing with gold and silver. The bottom line, of course, is as old as the hills.
Investors must exercise considerable caution. The composition of the market has changed, and with it, the stability of even the most traditional asset classes. So leave the speculation to the professionals, the ones with the MIT degrees and the algorithms, the sharks, who are sitting thousands of miles away.
For everyone else, it's time to focus on assets you actually intend to keep.
And that brings us to the top stories and themes for the day...
The stock markets will have to decipher a fresh set of India-US deal announcements, even as they build on a positive week.
India has done a good job of pushing back on areas like corn and soybean in the India-US deal of details known so far.
If the economic details are unclear, what can we take away from the critical political optics of the same deal?
And the recipe behind Mondelez's success in driving old brands like Cadbury and newer ones like Oreo in Indian markets.
A Good Week
Indian stocks had their best week in three months as a long-awaited trade deal with the United States lifted a key overhang for markets, putting behind the steep fall on Budget Day, that's February 1st, and the tech turmoil driven by fears of AI-led disruption.
Both the Nifty and the Sensex rose about 1.5% last week, which saw six days of trading, starting with that special Sunday trading day also being the Budget Day. So the question now is how will markets react to the announcement of an interim framework that could bring down tariffs, recast energy partnerships, and potentially deepen economic cooperation? The framework reaffirms a commitment to negotiations towards a broader bilateral trade agreement, the United States and Indian governments said in a joint statement over the weekend while noting that further negotiations were needed to complete the pact. What this also means is that details are still awaited because we also know now that any reversal on a commitment either made or not made on not buying Russian oil, which will bring back the 25% punitive tariffs.
Friday's joint statement provides additional details compared with the initial outlines revealed by U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday. It confirms that India will purchase about $500 billion in U.S. goods over a five-year period, including oil, gas, coking coal, aircraft, and aircraft parts, precious metals, and technology products. The last category includes graphics processing units, or GPUs, typically used for AI applications and other goods for data centres.
So some of this obviously aligns with what's been said and has already been mentioned or unveiled in the Union budget last week. The statement also said India would eliminate or reduce tariffs on all U.S. industrial goods and a wide range of U.S. food and agriculture products. More details coming up on that.
Indian exports will face duties of about 18% compared to 50% so far, while categories like drugs and pharmaceuticals and electronics, of course, would continue to go in at close to zero tariffs like before. More on the political outcomes of all of this shortly. And on Friday market close, the Sensex was up 266 points to close at 83,580 and the Nifty was up 50 points to close at 25,693.
Earlier on Friday, the Reserve Bank of India raised its GDP growth forecast to 6.9% for the first quarter of 2627 and increased the second quarter estimate to 7%. It refrained from sharing a full year guidance on GDP because of an impending change in the GDP series. Meanwhile, the Monetary Policy Committee revised its 26 inflation forecast, that's 2526 inflation forecast from 2 to 2.1%, all obviously still quite low.
Earlier, of course, more importantly, the Monetary Policy Committee of the Reserve Bank of India announced to keep the repo rate unchanged at 5.25% and the Reserve Bank of India, MPC, or the Monetary Policy Committee has also decided unanimously to maintain the policy stance at neutral. The Governor Sanjay Malhotra said the decision was made after a detailed assessment of evolving macroeconomic conditions and the overall economic outlook. This is the first policy review after the Finance Minister announced the union budget for 2627 on Sunday, the first.
The decision also comes days after India announced trade agreements with the US and the European Union. Back in the market, shares of IT companies continue to reel under pressure, falling 2.6%, hitting a three-month low on the National Stock Exchange middle of Friday. So in the past four trading days, the nifty IT index has fallen about 9% and trading at its lowest level since November 7th, 2025.
Agriculture Imports
India has proposed opening up parts of its agricultural industry to cheaper imports from the US, a move that may lower food and feed costs, but intensify pressure on some farming sectors according to a Bloomberg report. The US-India Joint Statement specifically mentions that India will reduce or eliminate tariff on a wide range of US agriculture products, including dried distiller's grains, or DDDGS, red sorghum for animal feed, tree nuts, fresh and processed fruits, soya bean oil, wine and spirits, and additional products. These additional products were not specified.
India has also agreed to address longstanding non-tariff barriers to trade in US food and agriculture products. Writing in Money Control, former Agriculture Secretary Siraj Hussain argues that it's not that Indian duty concessions to the US are a new phenomenon as India had reduced import duties on various US agriculture products, including blueberries and cranberries on February 20th, 2024. Though he does point out that India has not offered similar concessions in any of its recent trade deals, such as those with Australia, New Zealand and the European Union.
He also says the deal protected India's key agriculture sectors like dairy, wheat, sugar and apples by keeping them in an exclusion list. Now, there is a lot of nitty-gritty in trade deals and each product or category deserves deeper analysis, which can be a little too detailed for this report. Mr. Hussain also told the Core Report on Sunday that it is an achievement that India has not succumbed on areas like maize and we've been trying, of course, to accommodate the United States for a while.
He also pointed out that we have to remember that India may not have been in a very strong bargaining position, considering that the United States may have threatened to impose taxes or tariffs on services, which obviously would be quite harmful to India. But on areas like corn, he said that India has definitely done a good job. And of course, as we've pointed out, in the union budget presented on February 1st, tariff duty concessions were proposed for several sectors in which US companies have stake, which includes aerospace, nuclear technology, clean energy equipment, electronics, and medical devices.
On the other hand, reaching that import target of $500 billion, even though that would include import of aircraft and components may not be so simple because we are at about $42 billion of exports per year right now and doubling that will obviously be a tough one. So while the trade deal with the United States is not necessarily the most ideal deal, remember the 18% on the other side, it's really the best or seems to be the best in the circumstances. And you also have to compare with where things were in March 2025, where India was exporting to the United States most products at close to 0%.
Meanwhile, on Sunday, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said that one agriculture item where India has agreed to provide quota-based duty concessions on dried distiller grains or DDGS under the trade deal as the animal, husbandry, and poultry industry wants the product due to its high nutritional value. So the industry, at least the poultry and animal industry wants it. He said that I've given them a quota in DDGS.
It's an animal feed, very high in nutrition, animal husbandry, like he was quoted saying it, wants it, poultry people are craving it, and it makes chicken much, much healthier. Very high protein, he told PTI videos in an interview.
So the question as the India-US trade deal evolves is if we can take away any other signals which are non-economic and more political, being the key reason relations between the two countries have been frosty in the last year.
And how does this stand in the context of the India-EU FTA that has been signed two weeks ago and how India’s political leadership is seeing it.
I reached out to Indrani Bagchi, CEO of Ananta Centre who also hosted the inaugural India-EU Forum in Delhi last week in partnership with the Ministery of External Affairs, Govt of India and began by asking her how she was seeing the non economic signals from the India-US deal.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Indrani Bagchi: As far as I know, the US agreement is not a trade deal like the EU agreement, which has been negotiated to the bone. This is kind of a tariff deal. A proper trade deal with the US will have to go through the Congress and this is just an executive order, which basically means that Trump can change this around in 24 hours or the next president can can this particular understanding.
Having said that, the tariff deal is literally because for the 50% that has been imposed on us. In a sense, it's a political deal. We've had to sort of eat crow in a sense and admit to cutting out Russian oil.
Now, we have been going down on Russian oil. The Prime Minister informed Mr. Putin when he was here in December that India would be cutting down on Russian oil, which was not new. The fact that that has been linked to tariffs against India, frankly, is new, is unwelcome and is going to be very difficult going forward because it can snap back.
The instability, the uncertainty that the tariffs brought in last year, the uncertainty of the political relationship, I don't think that has gone away too much. It has maybe been shelved for a little while because there is a feel-good factor about tariffs going down. But I think that state of uncertainty remains.
Govindraj Ethiraj: It's interesting because I was trying to see if there was more of a feel-good factor on the political side and less on the economic side because details are awaited. What you're saying is almost the reverse.
Indrani Bagchi: The economic side will be easier. All of this that you are looking at, the list of stuff that you're looking at, whether it's the sorghum, whether it's the fruits and flowers or whatever.
Govindraj Ethiraj: All the agricultural commodities.
Indrani Bagchi: Now, all of this was part of the offer that was originally made by India to the US. It was part of what was being negotiated anyway. And that has come to an end.
The negotiations themselves had come to an end some time back.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Long ago.
Indrani Bagchi: The Americans are very clear that they cannot get into the Indian market in the way that they had wanted to. That's pretty clear. India has been more generous and all this stuff for animal, livestock feed, etc.
is all there. And that's fine. I mean, there have been people who have said that we need to revisit our view on genetically modified foods.
But that apart, I think by and large, we have got the agriculture thing sorted. I didn't see too much. I mean, I know that the Commerce Minister has been talking about things like higher value technologies, higher value tech products.
I haven't seen that in the joint statement. And we had been put on that AI diffusion list by Biden. Trump removed that when he first came in.
I don't see the Pax Silica that we've just been invited to, or even the critical minerals thing that we were at. I'm not sure where that is on the ground, because America has no processing facilities. And if they decide that they want to process everything in America, nobody's going to join.
Because nobody was going to forget this particular phase of uncertainty. So I'm not sure how that's going to work out going forward. But I don't see where we can get things like higher tech, dual use tech, higher tech.
I haven't seen any of that. I believe there is a defence agreement that will be signed next week, a defence procurement agreement.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. So if things are not really kosher on the political side, what could that mean?
Indrani Bagchi: I would say that the optics in terms of the minister, the prime minister, addressing President Trump as my dear friend, et cetera, because nobody really at anybody below that has any kind of a public relationship. That's fine. I think it will be a while before India actually can get onto a more friendly relationship with the entire system, because it has taken quite a battering.
I mean, I think we for some reason, we took the biggest battering last year. I mean, the Europeans took probably the next big one. But India really took the biggest battering.
I don't think that's going to be that easy to forget or get over.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Okay. So let me come to Europe since you mentioned it. The India-EU Forum has just concluded with you leading the effort, so to speak.
And you've also had an opportunity to interact very closely with the External Affairs Minister, Mr. Jaishankar, the Commerce Minister, Mr. Piyush Goyal, amongst many others on both sides of the aisle. What's your sort of takeaway? I know that most of these proceedings were chattermouse, so you cannot refer to them specifically.
But what would you say are the two or three broad takeaways as India moves ahead or attempts to move ahead from all of this?
Indrani Bagchi: So my sense this time was that this was a very unusual moment on the Europe-India front. The trade deal was literally considered to be, was the most difficult thing that we have accomplished with the Europeans. And honestly, if it wasn't for the fact that Trump was beating both sides, both India and Europe so comprehensively last year, that was in some way an impetus for India and Europe to get together.
But I think what we might be looking at is opening up a market that is desperate to be opened. The Europeans are not easy to do business with. Of course, they are still much easier than India.
And Indians are not that easy to do business with. So in a sense, just putting new rules of business, of investment is actually very, very important. I would say that this is one of the most interesting and important deals that we've seen over the last couple of years, last several years.
I saw a sense of optimism on both sides. I saw a sense of quiet excitement. Everybody has been there and returned and with a little bit of disappointment earlier.
But I see some excitement. You were there for the external affairs minister's session, right? And he sort of compared this with the nuclear deal moment with the US, which is interesting.
I didn't think that was coming. But I mean, he negotiated that as well. That in a way transformed the way America saw us and we saw America.
In the same way, I think this is going to change the way Europeans look at India and vice versa. I can see a lot of committees have already been set up on the horizon Europe, on minerals, on technology, on trust, elements of trust, on being able to recognise each other's certifications. That's going to be a very big one if that goes through on R&D.
These are all going to be game changers as we go down the road. Of course, you won't see results in a day or two. But my sense is in five years, the landscape of the India-Europe relationship will be completely transformed.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Good note to end on. Thank you so much for joining me, Indani.
Indrani Bagchi: Thank you, Govind, as always.
And Chocolates…
We all know about Cadbury's chocolates, but not everyone may recall now that Cadbury is now part of the multinational Mondelez. So Mondelez International is an American multinational confectionery food and beverage company based in Illinois. So how has Mondelez been driving the growth of its traditional brand Cadbury, which it acquired, and its newer brands like Oreo, in India that is, in an expanding consumer market, including thanks to electronic commerce and quick commerce.
On the core reports in Studio Special Edition, I spoke to Nitin Saini, Mondelez India Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, and I began by asking him about Cadbury's oldest and best known brands in India and also Oreo.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Nitin Saini: So, across categories, you can say, we largely play in five categories. So, chocolate, where, you know, Cadbury is the leading mother brand, you can call. But then there is a, it's a house of brands.
So, you've got Dairy Milk, you've got Five Star, you've got Perk, you know, we launched Silk sometime again in 2011. So, it's a, it's a house of brands, you know, as far as chocolate is concerned. In biscuits, which is the second category and in our category, we are really focussing on, we've got Oreo.
We have some, what we call as Choco Bakery. So, we have got, you know, a layered cake, a brownie, which we recently launched. And then there is a brand called Biscoff, which we recently launched.
So, that's the biscuits category. Then in beverages, we have got malted food drinks, where we have Bonvita. And then we have powdered beverages, where we have got Tang.
And then finally, we also have a play in candy. So, with brands like Choclairs and Halls. So, that's a relatively a smaller business for us.
But that's also the category we play in. So, you can say, these are the sort of five categories.
Govindraj Ethiraj: So, in chocolates, I mean, so let's say if you were to start with five star, which I'm assuming is in the non-premium segment, and then the transition to five, is it sort of gradual and incremental in the last, let's say, 20, 25 years? Or was there some kind of jump? Because suddenly, maybe in the last few years, you've seen new brands come in, let's say, artisanal brands, chains, which are, you know, sort of selling chocolates, including at airports.
So, was there a sort of sudden turn at some point, and then it shot off, or was it all incremental?
Nitin Saini: You know, if I take us back to, let's say, the early 1980s, you know, then chocolate was seen as something for kids, something which was maybe more appealing to the more affluent audience in metros. You know, from then to now, it has kind of totally changed, right? And, you know, there have been many points in the journey.
And we as market leaders have played a key role in driving that category building, you know, building relevance for the category. And I was talking about early 1980s, it was, as I was saying, for kids, something that parents will bring for kids.
Govindraj Ethiraj: As a reward sometimes for something.
Nitin Saini: Yeah, I mean, we used to have this campaign, you know, which would talk about, you know, something that parents bring home for their kids. And if you see the journey in the 80s and the 90s, was a lot about building relevance with a wider set of audience. So, you know, we had campaigns like Khaane walo ko khaane ka bahana chahiye, or, you know, the real taste of life, asli swa zindagi ka, you know.
So, those campaigns, what they did was, they built relevance for chocolate as a category with a wider set of audience. So, with the real taste of life campaign, what it said was that chocolate is not just for the kid, but it's for the kid in you. And the Khaane walo ko khaane ka bahana chahiye was almost sort of appealing to a wider set of audience, going beyond the metros and, you know, the next set of town classes.
So, that was one big moment, I would say, in making chocolates more relevant. The other one was beginning of 2000s and a journey where we continue to be on, is positioning chocolate or Cadbury as modern meetha through the kuch meetha ho jaye campaign. You know, again, the objective was that chocolate, yes, it had become relevant with a wider set of audience, but still it was being consumed more in special occasions.
So, how can you make chocolate relevant in everyday occasions? And, you know, we do know that, you know, meetha is relevant, right, in everyday occasions. And really the idea was to position chocolate and dairy milk as the modern meetha.
And there are several campaigns then that, you know, can fall under that broader umbrella, whether it is, when somebody does well in exams, there's a campaign called Pappu Paas Ho Gaya or Shubharam, whenever you start something new, you know, start with meetha. So, a lot of campaigns, and we continue to be on that journey even today. And finally, I would say, is how we have also evolved the portfolio.
You know, we started with dairy milk, and we had five star jams and perg, but even if you look at the last 15 years, there are several new brands or variety under brand that we have introduced. So, you got a brand called Silk, which we introduced, you know, in 2010, again, which is now the second largest chocolate brand in the category. It's a premium chocolate brand, you know, it's a gold standard of milk chocolate experience, the way we call it.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Going up, which are pretty high right now. Okay, so let me come to biscuits, which is the other interesting category. So, this is a category that didn't exist in the form that you have launched in India.
But has become successful. So, now, Oreo is again a multifaceted brand portfolio. As I see it at least or how it appears.
So, tell us about that journey.
Nitin Saini: It has been an amazing journey. I will say, I think we are, our focus was to premiumize the category. And with Oreo first, which did that in the cream segment.
And now, we are doing it with Biscoff in the cookie segment. But I think with Oreo, the journey has been great. And we have seen great success in being able to premiumize that particular segment.
And I think, whether it is in terms of business or penetration, the journey has been very, very solid the last 15 years.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Can you walk us through the different types of Oreos that are there today? And what sub-segments they are addressing?
Nitin Saini: So, in India, we are very much focused on the core. So, you have got, you know, what we call as the classic. So, the black and white cookie.
So, the Oreo cookie with vanilla cream. I think that is really the mainstay. And most of our business is there.
Then you have got a couple of flavour varieties. You have got chocolate and you have got strawberry. And this is pretty much most of our portfolio today.
Govindraj Ethiraj: And what sort of drives the growth of this? Is it children, adults, combination of both?
Nitin Saini: So, the way we define it is that Oreo is for families. And so, it is for that parent-kid bonding moment. You know, the way we would say it is for sparking that moment of connection between the parent and the kid.
So, it is for both. Both the parent and the kid. And, you know, we have actually seen that happen in the journey.
Govindraj Ethiraj: And Biscoff is again a very well-known brand. How is that done in India so far?
Nitin Saini: We just launched it. So, we introduced it in November first week. So, it has just been, what, two and a half months.
But the response has been fantastic, you know, to the launch. There has been a lot of buzz on social media about the launch. It has been a high decibel launch.
So, we have also, you know, put together a suite of communication assets to support the launch. And the initial response from both consumers and customers has been great. I mean, they are loving the product.
Govindraj Ethiraj: And now, between chocolates and biscuits and let's say Biscoff, which is, I guess, in the baked category or the baking category broadly. It will be in the biscuits category. Okay, it is in the biscuits category.
How would you say consumers are consuming between these three categories, even as you try and differentiate what you are offering?
Nitin Saini: I mean, look at these categories separately. I mean, of course, there is this overall snacking universe, right? Everybody is looking to have a snack.
So, there will be some interplay. But other than that, I think there are very clear kind of demarcations to say, okay, chocolate plays more strongly in these moments, in these occasions, vis-à-vis a biscuit. So, there are clear demarcations.
But yet, at some level, they are all snacks, right? So, we kind of look at within the category and how we are doing.
