Markets by Zerodha Sep 19, 2026
With Lavanya, who presents Weekly Tidbits on Markets by Zerodha
India's trade deficit with China in electrical and electronic goods reached $43.1 billion in FY26, against about $20 billion in FY19.
The export figures get quoted as proof that India now makes phones. This edition put the import line next to them: the country ships more finished electronics every year and buys more of the parts inside them from one supplier.
"The country is assembling and exporting more phones and electronic products but still imports many of the parts inside of them. Domestic production can therefore grow without reducing dependence on China."
Lavanya presents Weekly Tidbits on Markets by Zerodha, the weekly offshoot of The Daily Brief, whose newsletter has more than 167,000 subscribers and whose YouTube channel has 248,000. The format exists for stories the daily show has no room for, and this edition ran twelve of them in under fourteen minutes.
The full segment is covered here so you can skip it.
Here are the 12 takeaways that matter.
Key Takeaways
India's electronics trade deficit with China reached $43.1 billion in FY26, against about $20 billion in FY19
China supplied at least 80% of India's imports across 636 product categories, up from 461 in FY19
Asian spot LNG near $30 per million BTU is reaching factory floors in Bangladesh
78% of the knitwear factories in one survey had partially stopped production
Retail inflation at 4.82% is still inside the RBI's 2–6% band, and wholesale inflation is at 9.92%
The RBI pulled 2.23 lakh crore rupees out of the banking system for three days at 5.24%
Tata Power, Adani and Reliance run 19,000 EV charging points and still only 24% of public chargers
State-run oil companies hold 37%
Semicon 2.0's $11 billion to $12 billion is proposals, not money already spent
The US securities regulator's tokenized-stock exemption runs five years and leaves custody unsettled
1. Tokenized Stocks Get a Lane
The US securities regulator introduced a five-year exemption that makes it easier for platforms to trade tokenized stocks: blockchain records in which each token represents ownership in a real company. To qualify, a token has to carry the same basic rights as an ordinary share, voting and dividends included, so a product that only copies a stock's price is out. Supporters say the format allows round-the-clock trading, faster settlement and fractional pieces, and it puts Coinbase and Robinhood into closer competition with exchanges and brokers.
The custody questions are still open
But the experiment still has to answer basic questions. Who holds the underlying share? And what happens if a platform fails and whether investors can move their assets elsewhere?
Lavanya
2. A Carbon Store Under the Sea
The European Union's first full-scale carbon storage project started operating. Under the Greensand project, carbon dioxide from Danish biomethane plants is captured, turned into liquid and taken to the port of Esbjerg, then shipped to a depleted North Sea oil field and injected about 1,800 meters below the seabed. Capacity starts at 400,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year, with plans to expand to between 4 million and 8 million tons.
The customers are the industries that cannot cut emissions another way
Carbon storage is meant for cement, steel and chemicals, Lavanya said. She called the technology expensive and controversial, and said Greensand is the test of whether it can work past pilot scale.
3. $30 LNG Hits Bangladesh
Disruptions to oil and gas shipments through the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea pushed Asian spot LNG prices toward $30 per million BTU, from around $10 before the war. Bangladesh generates more than 40% of its electricity from imported LNG, so the power cuts and gas shortages that followed are forcing factories to slow down or stop.
78% of the knitwear factories surveyed had partially stopped production
A survey of Bangladeshi knitwear factories found that 55% had seen buyers reduce or cancel orders because of unreliable power and gas while 78% had partially stopped production.
Lavanya
Pakistan is facing the same price shock and has brought in fuel subsidies for motorcycles, rickshaws and small cars.
4. Inflation Is Back at 4.82%
India's retail inflation rose to 4.82% in August from 4.45% in July. Food inflation climbed to 5.95%, and rural inflation stayed above urban. Wholesale inflation, which measures prices before goods reach customers, rose to 9.92% on fuel, food and manufactured products.
Inside the band, but moving the wrong way
Retail inflation remains within the RBI's tolerance range of 2 to 6%. So, this is not yet an inflation crisis, but the direction matters.
Lavanya
Higher food prices squeeze household budgets, and rising fuel and wholesale prices eventually reach businesses and consumers. If inflation keeps climbing, the RBI may have to hold rates higher for longer or raise them, which makes loans more expensive.
5. The RBI Drains the Excess
The RBI absorbed 2.23 lakh crore rupees from the banking system through a three-day variable rate reverse repo auction. Banks offered to park 2.226 lakh crore rupees against a notified amount of 2.25 lakh crore rupees, and the central bank took all the bids at a weighted average rate of 5.24%.
Surplus cash pushes market rates below the policy rate
That is the reason the auction happens, Lavanya said: too much spare cash in the banking system can drag short-term market interest rates under the RBI's own policy rate, which weakens monetary policy. A three-day auction drains the excess without locking the banks' money away.
6. Assembled Here, Made There
The $43.1 billion deficit in electrical and electronic goods is roughly double the FY19 figure of about $20 billion. China supplied at least 80% of India's imports across 636 product categories, up from 461 categories in FY19, covering integrated circuits, semiconductors, batteries, smartphone parts and display modules.
Output can rise while dependence stays flat
The country is assembling and exporting more phones and electronic products but still imports many of the parts inside of them. Domestic production can therefore grow without reducing dependence on China.
Lavanya
Replacing those imports is hard because China spent decades building the supplier network behind them. What India needs, she said, is companies that make the chips, batteries and displays, not only factories that put them together.
7. The Himalayas Cost More
Roads, bridges and hydropower projects in the Himalayas were always hard to build: steep ground, fast-changing weather, materials hauled up narrow mountain roads. Repeated floods, landslides and glacial lake disasters are now making them expensive to insure. After the Sikkim glacial lake flood, insurance rates for some roads and bridges reportedly rose by around 21%.
Premiums are a financing cost, and they land in the project bill
Climate change is making infrastructure more expensive to finance even before anything is even damaged.
Lavanya
Banks and investors do not fund an unprotected project, so developers facing higher premiums either accept more exclusions or carry a larger share of the potential losses themselves.
8. Fakes That Look Real
Counterfeit medicines used to give themselves away through poor printing, spelling mistakes or odd packaging. Counterfeiters have got better at copying boxes, batch numbers, holograms and QR codes, so a packet can look genuine while the medicine inside has the wrong ingredients, too little of the active ingredient, or none at all.
Packaging has stopped being evidence
India's pharmaceutical supply chain runs from distributor to stockist to wholesaler to pharmacy before a medicine reaches a patient, and each handover is a point where a fake can enter. Factory inspections cannot cover that whole chain, Lavanya said, so regulators also need a way to trace a packet back to an authorized source.
9. Organic's Land Problem
Organic farming avoids most synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, which is why it gets treated as the environmental choice. An Our World in Data analysis makes the comparison messier. Organic farms do less pesticide damage and support more insects, birds and plant life on the land being farmed, but they produce less food per hectare, so a kilogram of food can take substantially more land.
Measured per kilogram rather than per hectare, the advantage shrinks
Organic farming performs better on some measures, while conventional farming uses less land.
Lavanya
What people eat, how much they waste and how efficiently it is grown may matter more than the label, she said.
10. 19,000 Chargers, 24%
Tata Power, Adani and Reliance Industries operated 19,000 EV charging points at the end of FY26, more than triple the 5,438 they ran in FY23. The network grew 21% over FY25 and 67% over FY24. Tata Power leads with 7,700 points, Reliance has 6,200 and Adani 5,100, serving cars, buses and trucks at malls, offices, hotels and hospitals.
The state oil retailers still run more public chargers than the three conglomerates
The three together held around 24% of the public chargers tracked in FY26, against 37% for state-run oil companies. Their expansion is making the market bigger rather than taking it over, Lavanya said, and a denser network is what removes the worry about running out of charge on a trip.
11. PwC Bets on India Again
PwC plans to combine large parts of its separately owned US and India operations in a new joint venture. The firm runs as a network of member businesses rather than one centrally owned global company, which lets each country's offices operate independently but makes sharing staff, technology and revenue across borders harder. The venture would make India a bigger base for work done for PwC's international clients.
The offshore task list is the one AI is coming for first
PwC is still betting on India, but the work done here could become much more specialized.
Lavanya
Research, documentation, data analysis and presentation building are increasingly assisted by AI, and those are the tasks that have filled large offshore teams.
12. $11B of Proposals
Electronics Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw says Semicon 2.0 has drawn investment proposals worth $11 billion to $12 billion across semiconductor equipment, materials, gases, chemicals and substrates. Applied Materials announced a $5 billion India plan through 2035 for supply chain capacity, research and talent. Tata Electronics announced seven partnerships on the first day of Semicon India and planned nine more, including agreements with Nexperia, Besi and Fujifilm. Kaynes Semicon is weighing a $1 billion OSAT project in Gujarat, an assembly, packaging and test plant that handles chips after they are manufactured.
A proposal is not a factory
But the 11 to 12 billion figure represents proposals, not money already spent. Some projects still need approvals and execution. The real test is how many announcements turn into operating facilities.
Lavanya
Bonus Insights
The global section is in the show because viewers asked for it
Weekly Tidbits now sorts its stories into global, economy, industry and company. Lavanya said last week's audience asked for the global section, and she asked viewers to say whether it works or whether it makes the edition too long.
The reverse repo auction, translated
In plain English, banks currently have more cash than they need for day-to-day lending and payments.
Lavanya
The thread running through the twelve stories is that India's position in electronics, chips and electric vehicles keeps being set by what it buys from somewhere else, meaning components, insurance cover and imported fuel, rather than by the assembly capacity and the investment pledges it counts.
Products, Companies & Tools Mentioned
Coinbase and Robinhood (The crypto platforms the tokenized-stock exemption pushes into closer competition with traditional exchanges and brokers)
Greensand (The EU's first full-scale carbon storage project, injecting Danish carbon dioxide about 1,800 meters under the North Sea; up to 400,000 tons a year, with plans for 4 million to 8 million)
Reserve Bank of India (Absorbed 2.23 lakh crore rupees for three days at a weighted average 5.24%, and the holder of the 2–6% tolerance band the August inflation print sits inside)
Tata Power, Reliance Industries and the Adani Group (7,700, 6,200 and 5,100 EV charging points; together about 24% of public chargers tracked in FY26 against 37% for state-run oil companies)
PwC (Plans a joint venture combining large parts of its separately owned US and India businesses, which would make India a bigger base for international client work)
Applied Materials (Announced a $5 billion India investment plan through 2035 to expand supply chain capacity, research and talent)
Tata Electronics (Seven partnerships on the first day of Semicon India and nine more planned across the chipmaking value chain)
Nexperia, Besi and Fujifilm (The partners named in the Tata Electronics agreements)
Kaynes Semicon (Considering a $1 billion OSAT project in Gujarat; OSAT plants assemble, package and test chips after they are manufactured)
Semicon 2.0 and Semicon India (The India Semiconductor Mission's second program and its event, credited by Ashwini Vaishnaw with $11 billion to $12 billion of proposals)
Books & Resources Mentioned
Is organic farming better for the environment than conventional farming? – Our World in Data (The analysis she used for the claim that organic farms do less pesticide damage but need substantially more land per kilogram of food)
Listen to the full episode
🔴 YouTube | 🔗 Episode page
Watch the full episode:
More Lavanya interviews and podcast appearances
If this was worth your time, send it to someone who has to have a view on this.
Get the latest market chatter as it happens: