9 FINANCEOUTLOOKINDIAJULY, 2026GOLD EXTENDS FOURTH WEEKLY DECLINE: IMPACT ON INDIAN BUYERSZERODHA TO ENTER INVESTMENT BANKING POST SEBI APPROVALINDIA'S FOREX RESERVES RISE TO $672.59 BN AS GOLD HOLDINGS SURGEINDIA STARTUP FUNDING CROSSES $1.1 BILLION IN THE LATEST WEEKGold prices remained under pressure on Friday despite a modest recovery, as investors continued to reassess the U.S. Federal Reserve's interest rate outlook. The precious metal is now headed for its fourth consecutive weekly decline, weighed down by a resilient U.S. dollar and expectations that the Fed could maintain a tighter monetary policy for longer.Spot gold was trading around $4,052 per ounce, while U.S. gold futures hovered near $4,068 per ounce after recovering from a seven-month low touched earlier this week. However, bullion remains down roughly 2.5% for the week after briefly slipping below the psychologically important $4,000 level for the first time since November. India's largest discount brokerage platform, Zerodha, is looking to step into the investment banking field and has applied to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) for approval in this regard. Through its wholly owned subsidiary, the company has filed an application, seeking permission to function as a merchant banker. The application, submitted in April 2026, is currently under review by Sebi.Once it gets the approval, Zerodha will be able to engage in various investment banking functions such as handling initial public offerings (IPOs), corporate finance advisory services, issue management, and other capital market activities. India's forex reserves rose by $963 million to $672.587 billion for the week, reversing a sharp decline witnessed the previous week, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in a release. The rebound was mainly attributable to a large increase in the country's gold reserves that more than compensated for the drop in foreign currency assets.Forex reserves shrank by $9.985 billion in the previous week, to reach $671.625 billion. The hike is indicative of a return to external stability amid global market volatility in the Indian economy. Indian startup ecosystem witnessed one of its strongest funding weeks of 2026, with 20 startups raising a combined whopping $1.11 billion across 19 disclosed funding rounds in the latest week (June 22 and June 27). More than 80% of the capital raised over the week was from YT funds, led by a $900 million investment in fintech unicorn CRED by Meta.Beyond fundraising, the week also witnessed a new unicorn, several leadership changes, strategic partnerships, acquisitions and terminations of jobs across industries such as AI, fintech, proptech, healthtech, cybersecurity, and spacetech.
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