Markets, macro and company updates on Feb. 18, 2026

Domestic equities were expected to open flat to slightly negative on Wednesday, with Gift Nifty at 25,755 pointing to a marginal decline. This followed two modestly bullish sessions and came amid mixed global cues and anticipated volatility.

Hariprasad K of Livelong Wealth said further upside in the index would depend on sustaining early gains, with traders likely to focus on stock-specific ideas rather than broad-based buying. IT stocks were flagged as a key pressure point, with concerns around AI-driven disruption to traditional IT services models keeping the sector under scrutiny.

Despite near-term caution, strategists highlighted a resilient earnings backdrop. Emkay Global Research noted that BSE-500 companies delivered 16% PAT growth in Q3 FY26, outpacing the Nifty 50’s 8%, and reiterated a positive stance on Indian equities. The firm maintained a Nifty target of 29,000 for December 2026, favouring SMID lenders, new-age internet names and discretionary consumption.

WhiteOak Capital’s Market Valuation Index eased to 99 in January 2026 from 100.5 in December 2025, while its Balance Advantage Fund lifted net equity exposure from 59.2% to 65.89%, pointing to a measured increase in risk even as valuations and volatility are closely watched.

Separately, new data from India’s Income-Tax Department showed a broad, sustained expansion of the direct tax base over the last decade. Total taxpayers – those filing returns or with tax deducted at source – rose from 5.26 crore in AY2013-14 to 12.13 crore in AY2024-25, implying a compound annual growth rate of about 7.89%.

Individual taxpayers drove most of the increase, climbing from 4.96 crore to 11.61 crore over the same period, roughly 8% CAGR. After a nearly 9% contraction in AY2020-21 amid the pandemic, growth rebounded to double digits in recent assessment years, suggesting renewed momentum in formalisation.

Non-individual taxpayers – including firms, companies and other entities – rose more moderately, from 0.29 crore to about 0.48 crore (around 5% CAGR), with growth stabilising near 5% in recent years. At the same time, the cost of collecting direct taxes fell from 1.36% of collections in FY2000-01 to a provisional 0.41% in FY2024-25, despite higher volumes.

Officials attributed the efficiency gains to digital filing, pre-filled returns, faceless assessments and broader third-party information reporting. The combination of a wider base and lower collection costs was characterised as strengthening the structural underpinnings of India’s public finances.

In the United States, a Federal Reserve Bank Economic Letter examined the impact of unauthorized immigrant worker flows on local employment. Using court and administrative data, researchers constructed estimates of net entries and exits of working-age unauthorized immigrants by commuting zone from 2013 to mid-2025.

Their analysis found a nearly one-for-one effect between these worker flows and local employment growth in two distinct periods: the rapid rise in unauthorized immigration from March 2021 to March 2024, and the subsequent slowdown from March 2024 to March 2025. An increase in flows equal to 1% of local employment was associated with roughly a 1% rise in employment.

At the industry level, the rapid inflow period was linked to outsized employment gains in leisure and hospitality, professional services and other services. During the slowdown, areas with the sharpest deceleration in unauthorized inflows saw larger employment slowdowns in construction, manufacturing and other services, suggesting these sectors may be particularly exposed to shifts in local labour supply.

The authors concluded that official employment statistics appear to capture unauthorized immigrant employment reasonably well, and that continued declines in such worker flows could exert downward pressure on overall U.S. employment growth, particularly where construction and manufacturing demand remains strong.

In healthcare, MarketBeat data showed short interest in Merck & Co. fell 14.6% between mid- and end-January, to about 28.7 million shares, or 1.2% of the float, with a days-to-cover ratio of 2.4. The company recently reported quarterly EPS of $2.04 on revenue of $16.4 billion, both slightly ahead of consensus, and guided FY2026 EPS to $5.00–$5.15.

InterContinental Hotels Group highlighted record growth in 2025, opening 443 hotels and taking its estate to more than 6,900 properties and over 1 million rooms. Management pointed to system growth, cost control, ancillary fees, and branded residences as levers to support its growth algorithm beyond traditional RevPAR trends.

On the AI and enterprise side, forecasting platform Metaculus launched FutureEval, a live benchmark that tracks how accurately AI models predict real-world events versus human forecasters, while regulators in California advanced an AI accountability program and continued a probe into xAI’s content practices. These moves underscored growing scrutiny of AI systems even as adoption accelerates across sectors.