Market Mayhem, Trump's 'Gold Card' & India's 1 Billion Non-Spenders | Business News Wrap

₹40 crore could buy you a luxury apartment in India. And now, it could also buy you a ticket to a US citizenship. Which one would you choose?

And this week’s biggest story comes from the United States, where President Donald Trump has announced the Gold Card—a visa program that allows wealthy non-citizens to live and work in the US—for five million dollars. A gold card will get the buyer green card privileges with a route to U.S citizenship. President Trump claims this will help the US earn trillions of dollars.

However, experts have countered this claim, arguing that the number of people with a net worth of $5 million or more outside the US and the rest of the Western world is much smaller.

Shifting focus from the world’s richest to those struggling to make ends meet—a report by venture capital firm Blume Ventures states that almost a billion Indians do not earn enough to spend on anything beyond the basics. That leaves just 130-140 million true consumers, or the ‘consuming class’—about the same as Mexico’s population. Then there are another 300 million “aspirants”, who are just beginning to spend cautiously. The report notes that the "consuming class" in India is not expanding in size but rather becoming wealthier, meaning those who are already rich are getting richer.

Speaking of consumption in India, Spanish fashion brand Zara has shut its store in the iconic Ismail Building in South Mumbai. Zara posted a note at the store’s entrance announcing its closure but remained silent on the reason behind the move. However, various media reports suggest that high rent may have been the key factor. According to reports, Zara was paying around ₹3 crore per month in rent for the heritage building.

Not great news on that front, but Apple’s "Make in India" push continues to deliver headlines that would have been unimaginable just a couple of years ago. According to The Economic Times, Apple component makers in India - Motherson Group, Jabil, and Tata Electronics - have now started exporting to, wait for it, China and Vietnam. This is a major role reversal for India, which until a few years ago was importing components from these countries. It also marks a milestone for Apple’s supply chain diversification plan.

Shifting gears to the world of Artificial Intelligence and its impact on jobs. Singapore’s largest bank, DBS, has announced a restructuring plan, revealing approximately 4,000 job cuts over the next three years. The decision stems from the bank’s increasing reliance on AI to handle tasks traditionally performed by human employees. The layoffs will primarily affect temporary and contract staff across DBS’s 19 markets. However, alongside these reductions, DBS also plans to create approximately 1,000 new jobs tied to AI development and implementation.

While DBS is betting big on AI, it doesn’t seem to have gone too well for the Bengaluru bench of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT). In December 2024, the tribunal passed an order in the Buckeye Trust v PCIT-1 case, citing three Supreme Court judgments and one Madras High Court verdict. The catch? These judgments do not exist. The tribunal has now withdrawn the order, but the reference to fictitious verdicts has sparked suspicions of potential use of a generative AI tool, such as ChatGPT. These tools, while transformative, are also known for hallucinating and generating fictitious responses.

Meanwhile, the bloodbath on Dalal Street continues. Amid its downward spiral, Friday saw the sharpest cuts. Both the Sensex and the Nifty slipped around 1.5% each for the week. The two benchmark indices are now almost 15% lower from the lifetime highs they hit in September 2024. The mid and small caps have seen sharper cuts, with the NSE Midcap 100 down around 18% and the small-cap index down almost 25% from their peaks. The latest sell-off on has been triggered by fresh tariff threats from US President Donald Trump against Mexico, Canada and China.

Amidst the carnage in the stock market, capital markets regulator SEBI has a new chief. The centre has appointed Finance Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey as the new SEBI chairman. Pandey, who is a 1987 batch IAS officer, has been appointed, initially, for a period of three years. He will succeed Madhabi Puri Buch, who was the first SEBI chairperson from the private sector.

With that, it’s a wrap on this week’s business headlines.