Business

A drop in US mortgage rates is offering early encouragement to prospective homebuyers ahead of the crucial spring homebuying season, even as borrowing costs continue to hover near the 6% mark.The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage declined to 6.01% this week from 6.09% a week earlier, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday, AP…

Swiss President Guy Parmelinbacks a governance framework for AI that does not rely on a single instrument and calls for societal norms that guide users. Excerpts from an interview with TOI:How should countries deal with AI regulation? Is there a need to have a new agency? Will a regulatory set up stifle innovation and development…

NEW DELHI: India will play a “central role” in shaping both the opportunities and safeguards around advanced artificial intelligence, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said on Thursday, as the company announced its India expansion.Anthropic has opened an office in Bengaluru and appointed Irina Ghose as managing director for India. The company also said it has entered…

Rising geopolitical tensions and renewed safe-haven buying pushed precious metals sharply higher on Thursday, sending silver soaring in the domestic market while gold extended its upward momentum.Silver prices in the national capital surged by Rs 18,000, or 7.32 per cent, to Rs 2,64,000 per kg (inclusive of all taxes), according to local marketmen, PTI reported….

Roshni Nadar (File photo-PTI) Artificial intelligence is forcing a structural rethink of India’s technology growth model, with HCL Technologies chairperson Roshni Nadar Malhotra on Thursday calling for a decisive transition from services-led expansion to intellectual property creation to remain globally competitive.Addressing the AI Impact Summit 2026, Malhotra said the next phase of economic value creation…

US stocks edged lower on Thursday as rising oil prices and renewed concerns over a potential US-Iran conflict weighed on investor sentiment, even as several companies reported mixed quarterly earnings, according to AP.The S&P 500 slipped 0.4% and was on track for its first decline in four sessions. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 257…

Individual taxpayers often struggle with determining the correct reportable value of foreign assets. (AI image) India’s foreign assets reporting is no longer evolving quietly in the background; it has entered an era of assertive enforcement. Budget 2026 reinforced that overseas income/ asset disclosure is not merely a procedural obligation to disclose in the Income tax…

The US trade deficit in goods widened to a record level in 2025 even as overall trade flows expanded, underscoring persistent import strength despite tariffs imposed during President Donald Trump’s first year back in office, according to the US government data.Data released by the Commerce Department showed the US goods deficit reached $1.24 trillion in…

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) are sharply reducing exposure to technology sector, amid rising concerns that advances in artificial intelligence could disrupt traditional software services business models that have long powered the country’s IT industry.FIIs pulled out Rs 10,956 crore from Indian IT stocks in the first fortnight of February alone, as the launch of new…

India’s state-owned Bharat Petroleum Corp (BPCL) and private refiner HPCL Mittal Energy Ltd (HMEL) have each bought one million barrels of Venezuelan Merey crude oil, marking BPCL’s first-ever purchase and HMEL’s first in two years, according to Reuters sources on Wednesday. The deals, arranged through trader Vitol, will increase India’s Venezuelan oil imports to at…