PRE-MARKET INDIAN STOCK NEWS: Bajaj Finance and Hindustan Zinc post strong Q2 profit growth; Jio Platforms' record IPO opens; markets reopen after Dussehra holiday`

Bajaj Finance (BAF IS) - Q2 FY27 (INR): Net Profit 63.67bln (prev. 49.48bln Y/Y), NII 133.35bln (+24% Y/Y); AUM +26% Y/Y, gold loans doubled Y/Y. (Reuters)

Hindustan Zinc (HZ IS) - Q2 FY27 (INR): Net Profit 64.12bln (prev. 26.49bln Y/Y). Cut FY27 zinc production cost guidance to USD 825-850/t (prev. 975-1,000/t); Q2 production cost USD 703/t (-29% Y/Y). (Reuters)

Infosys (INFO IS) - Strengthened its strategic collaboration with Truist to build a global capability centre in India; Q2 results due 23rd October. (NSE filing)

NMDC (NMDC IS) - Reportedly delayed plans to develop overseas nickel mines and to acquire nickel assets, according to sources.

NTPC (NTPC IS) - Issued a clarification on an AD HOC NEWS report titled "NTPC Posts 7.43 Percent Profit Growth; Buyback Sets Date for NTPC stock". (NSE filing)

Piramal Finance (PIRAMALFIN IS) - Q2 FY27 (INR): Net Profit 5.45bln (+67% Y/Y). (NSE filing)

REC (RECL IS) / Power Finance Corp (POWF IS) - Received no-objection letters from NSE and BSE for the proposed merger of REC into PFC. (NSE filing)

Reliance Industries (RELIANCE IS) - Jio Platforms' USD 3.2bln IPO, India's largest share sale to date, opens for public bids today and closes on Friday, with a price band of INR 1,065-1,119/shr; it values Jio at up to USD 108.3bln, with trading due to start 28th October. Separately, US Secretary of State Rubio said he will encourage Reliance to refine more Venezuelan crude and potentially produce oil in Venezuela. (Reuters)

Transrail Lighting (TRANSRAILL IS) - Board approved the acquisition of a 49% stake in NOPL Pace Green Energy, entering renewable power generation via a 990MW solar portfolio in Maharashtra. (NSE filing)

• Trade - US Secretary of State Rubio said a trade deal with India is down to some technical details, anticipating it in a matter of weeks, not months; US President Trump said a deal is pretty close.
• Pernod Ricard (RI FP) / Diageo (DGE LN) - Under investigation by India over Scotch imports under the UK trade pact, according to sources.

This is the standard post-holiday pre-market digest, and the first session back after a festival closure in India has historically tended to compress several days of flow into the open, with gap risk in the large caps that reported or announced during the break. The substantive items split into two cases. The lenders and miners are prints that confirm direction already in the price: Bajaj Finance and the housing financiers posting double-digit profit and AUM growth is the established pattern for Indian consumer credit, and the question is always asset quality and funding cost rather than the headline number. Hindustan Zinc's cost guidance cut is the more actionable item, since production cost is the swing variable for that equity's leverage to the metal, and a sharply lower cost base reframes margin at any given zinc price. The Jio offering is the liquidity event: record domestic IPOs have historically absorbed a meaningful share of institutional cash in the subscription window, and the pattern is rotation out of the parent and index heavyweights into the new listing, with Reliance's own performance around the pricing date the tell. The REC into PFC merger clearance advances a long-flagged consolidation in state power financiers; the arb spread between the two is the mechanism to watch as approvals accumulate. Trade rhetoric and the Scotch import probe are recurring noise channels that have tended to fade without concrete tariff or excise action.