PremiumEscalating US-China tension over Taiwan played a role on Tuesday as Asian markets and Europe were in negative territory. Furthermore, economic data from the U.S., Europe and China showed demand weakening under inflation pressures, while the looming possibility of recession curbed risk appetite.
Indian benchmark indices witnessed a volatile day and ended the day flat amidst multiple negative global cues. The Sensex made a marginal gain of 20 points to end at 58,136, whereas the Nifty was up 5 points and closed at 17,345 points.
PSU Bank index surged and gained 2.5% on Tuesday, whereas IT, Metal and Realty stocks dragged. IndusInd bank and Asian Paints were the biggest gainers, whereas UPL, Tech Mahindra, and Hero Motor Corp lagged throughout the session.
Asian markets ended in red with Chinese stocks posting their biggest fall in more than two months on Tuesday as tensions between Washington and Beijing escalated on news U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi was set to visit Taiwan during the day.
Furthermore, economic data from the U.S., Europe and China showed demand weakening under inflation pressures which added to the negative sentiment.
Tokyo stocks closed lower as Nikkei 225 index dropped 1.42%. The Hang Seng index fell 2.4% while the Shanghai Composite Index lost 2.3%. Europe tracked the Asian markets and was trading in red in the morning.
Escalating tension between US and China is all set to have an effect on Wall Street.
India is planning to start a carbon trading market for major emitters in the energy, steel and cement industries, as part of its efforts to hasten the transition to cleaner fuels.
The platform is likely to be announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Independence Day celebrations on Aug. 15, according to people with the knowledge of the plan. It’s been in the works since March, when consultation with ministries and companies began, said the people who asked not be named because discussions are private.
Bank of India on Tuesday reported 22% decline in standalone net profit at ₹561 crore for June quarter on higher operating expenses, even as bad loans declined.
The lender had posted a net profit of ₹720 crore in the corresponding quarter ended June 2021. As compared to the previous March quarter, the net profit was down 7.4%.
Total income during April-June 2022-23 fell to ₹11,124.36 crore from ₹11,641.37 crore in the year-ago period as income from other sources was down, Bank of India said in a regulatory filing.
Godrej Properties Limited (GPL) has appointed Gaurav Pandey as the new Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, effective from 1 January, 2023, the company said in a BSE filing on 2 August. Gaurav Pandey who currently heads North Zone of Godrej Properties will replace Mohit Malhotra. (Full Report)
Drug major Cipla has appointed Mandar Purushottam Vaidya as an independent director for a period of five years, till July 28, 2027.
On the recommendation of the nomination and remuneration committee and subject to the approval of the shareholders at the ensuing annual general meeting, the company's board has appointed Vaidya, the Mumbai-based company said in a regulatory filing.
In August 2019, Vaidya had joined OYO, a global travel-tech company as CEO - SE Asia & Middle East.
The government is looking into cases of alleged tax evasion by three mobile companies of China and notices have been given to them, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman informed Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.
Replying to supplementaries during the Question Hour, the minister said the three companies are Oppo, Vivo India and Xiaomi.
The Department of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) has issued a notice to mobile company Oppo for total customs duty of ₹4,389 crore and these are on the grounds of mis-declaration of certain goods leading to a short payment in customs duty, she said, adding, "duty evasion we think is about ₹2,981 crore".
Foreign banks bought a net ₹14,700 crore worth of India government debt in July, their biggest such purchase since February 2020, according to Reuters. India's 10-year benchmark bond yield fell 13 basis points in July as bets of aggressive rate hikes from the U.S. Federal Reserve as well as the Reserve Bank of India eased considerably. Currently, it was trading at 7.1901%. (Full Report)
Kansai Nerolac Ltd., leader in the industrial paints segment, reported robust earning for the June quarter. Consolidated net profit at ₹152 crore rose 36.5% year-on-year (y-o-y) and revenue from operations increased 46.2% y-o-y to ₹2,051 crore. The company surpassed analysts' expectations on both these parameters. (Full Report)
India will extend an additional $100 million line of credit to the Maldives, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday, after a meeting with the island nation's President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih in New Delhi.
"We have decided to extend an additional line of credit worth $100 million dollars so that all projects may be completed on time," Modi said at a joint press meet in the Indian capital.
India's largest gas distributor GAIL (India) Ltd has started gas rationing, cutting supplies to fertiliser and industrial clients after imports were hit under its deal with a former unit of Russian energy giant Gazprom, two sources familiar with the matter said.
Lower gas supplies will affect impact India's urea production, and a sustained cut would lift imports of the soil nutrient, a fertiliser industry source aware of the cuts said.
Tirthankar Das, head of technical research, Ashika Group says, “Nifty formed a long bullish candle with bullish runaway gaps indicating that the trend remains intact and is likely to continue its positive momentum. On the oscillator front, there are still no signs of exhaustion, or any reversal signal are being unfolded. On the contrary, Weekly RSI clocked breakout from 6 months falling trend line indicating long-term positive bias. The psychological level of 17000 which further coincides with the 200 dma would be the immediate short-term trend deciding level for the market. On the upside the elevated target level for Nifty is around 17500 (being 80% retracement of two-month decline (18100-15183). Improving market breadth measured by percentage of stocks above 50 & 200DMA within Nifty 500 universe augurs well for durability of ongoing up move. Hence, intraday dip towards 17190-17222 can be used creating a long position for the target of 17500."
Larsen & Toubro Infotech or LTI has launched a dedicated Microsoft business unit as part of its expansion of its collaboration with Microsoft to focus on developing high-value cloud solutions for enterprises. As a part of this multi-year collaboration, LTI will also train 12,000 professionals from its existing workforce on various Microsoft technologies by 2024. The objective is to develop skills of LTI employees that are a part of the Microsoft unit and enhance their competencies across technologies like cloud, data, IoT and security. (Full Story)
Oil prices edged lower on Tuesday as investors absorbed a bleak outlook for fuel demand with data pointing to a global manufacturing downturn just as major crude producers meet this week to determine whether to increase supply.
Brent crude futures dropped 24 cents, or 0.2%, to $99.82 a barrel by 0634 GMT, while WTI crude futures eased 10 cents, or 0.1%, to $93.78 a barrel.
The power ministry released draft guidelines, seeking to remove a cap on the high-price market segment of power exchanges. A new consulting paper by the power ministry, however, has sought to remove the price cap to allow power generators whose variable costs exceed ₹12 a unit to participate in the power exchanges. (Read More)
A bout of jitters in global markets over deepening US-China tension weighed on cryptocurrencies, pushing Bitcoin lower for a third day.
The largest digital token fell as much as 1.6% to $22,769 on Tuesday and was trading at $22,860 as of 2:57 p.m. in Tokyo. Ether at one point shed 3.7%, while smaller coins ranging from Polkadot to Cardano were also in the red.
Metal and Realty indices shed the most, while PSU Bank Index gained more than 3%
Bots to resolve queries and AI solutions to help customers renew their policies automatically and even measure calorie intake. Giving a glimpse into insurance in the tech age, Girish Nayak of ICICI Lombard General Insurance Co Ltd says companies are tailoring their offerings for efficiency and personalised experiences.
An app developed by the company is helping retail and corporate customers use features such as teleconsultation and homecare. And newly launched AI-based features are helping them understand their health vitals and calorie intake, Nayak, the company's chief, Customer Service, Operations and Technology, told PTI in an interview.
Tokyo stocks closed lower Tuesday as speculation over a Taiwan visit by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi fanned China-US tensions and strengthened the yen against the dollar.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 index dropped 1.42%, or 398.62 points, to end at 27,594.73, while the broader Topix index lost 1.77%, or 34.62 points, to 1,925.49.
The spread between India's one-year and five-year overnight indexed swaps dropped to its lowest level in over 29 months on Tuesday as bets of aggressive rate hikes from the Reserve Bank of India ebbed.
The one-year swap rate was trading at 6.10%, while the five-year swap rate has fallen more to 6.24%, with the spread dropping to 14 basis points (bps), which is lowest since March 2020.
The spread had been above 50 bps at end of June, and had jumped to as high as 160 bps in April in anticipation of a prolonged rate hike cycle.
Speaking at the first edition of Lentra Digital Lending Transformation Global Summit 2022 in Mumbai, the former Finance Secretary and RBI Governor, Dr Duvvuri Subbarao emphasized the crucial role of technology-related policy initiatives in building a robust financial ecosystem for effectively catering to the credit needs of our growing economy.
"The next revolution in finance will be driven by technology oriented policies, such as the JAM trinity (Jan Dhan Yojana, Aadhaar and Mobile number), digital infrastructure as a public good, interoperability across all sectors, emphasis on consumer protection, and most importantly the closing of the gender gap," said Dr D Subbarao.
However, as access to credit still remains a challenge, technology will help widen the reach.
Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) on Monday informed the exchanges that its board will meet this week on Thursday, August 4, to consider the proposal of the issuance of bonus equity shares. Bonus shares are fully paid additional shares issued by a company to its existing shareholders. (Full Report)
ITC: ACCUMULATE | CMP: Rs308 | TP: Rs327
Nazara Technologies: BUY | CMP: Rs636 | TP: Rs911
UPL: BUY | CMP: Rs767 | TP: Rs1,020
Cholamandalam Investment and Finance: BUY | CMP: Rs734 | TP: Rs792
Max Financial Services Limited (MFSL) today announced its financial results. The company reported consolidated revenues of ₹4,003 crore, grew 17% year-on-year. The company recorded a consolidated profit after tax of ₹68 Crore, up 91% year-on-year, owing to lower tax expense than the previous year.
During the first quarter of FY23, Max Life achieved a 15% jump in new business premiums to ₹1,009 Crore from ₹875 Crore in the year-ago period driven by strong growth in proprietary channels.
Cholamandalam Investment and Finance: ADD
Varun Beverages: ADD
Greenlam Industries: NEUTRAL
Nazara Technologies: NEUTRAL
Escorts Kubota: REDUCE
The partnership will establish a Center of Excellence (CoE) to deliver an accelerated transformation program for business process management and managed services backed by intelligent automation and task mining.
Tech Mahindra's CoE will be located in New Delhi to support the evolving digital transformation needs of customers' right from Discovery to Realization.
Shares of online food delivery platform Zomato rallied nearly 8% on the BSE to ₹49 apiece in Tuesday's opening deals as its consolidated net loss in the first quarter of the current financial year almost halved to ₹186 crore due to higher income. The company had reported a net loss of ₹360.7 crore in the year-ago period. (Full Report)
Churchil Bhatt, executive vice president - debt investments, Kotak Mahindra Life Insurance Company, said “The upcoming August RBI policy will likely mark the end of an era characterized by outsized, at-any-cost rate tightening with a 35bps hike in policy rates. MPC may hint at a bit more moderate, data-dependent policy adjustments thereafter, while persisting with ongoing withdrawal of system liquidity.
From a medium-term perspective, trajectory of the Repo Rate remains a function of global inflationary dynamics. In our view, while inflation may have peaked for now, but it is far from dead. Unless supply is augmented in energy and industrial commodities, any growth impulse will lead to an accompanying rise in inflation, especially since the Ukraine situation is far from over. Therefore, any hint of a pause in rate hiking cycle may be treated as just that, with all possibilities open depending upon evolving growth inflation dynamics."
While recession fears have seen new listings grind to a halt this year, one of the few companies currently seeking to go public in Mumbai is testing investor appetite for India’s growing wine market. (Full Report)
India witnessed a record decline in daily Covid-19 cases with the country reporting 13,734 new infections in the past 24 hours, according to the Union Health Ministry. The country logged 16,464 Covid-19 cases on Monday, while over 20,000 infections on Sunday. The active caseload in India currently stands at 1,39,792.
The data shows that a total of 17,897 people recovered from the coronavirus infection in the last 24 hours, taking the country's cumulative recoveries to 4,33,83,787. The recovery rate remains consistent at 98.49%. (Full Report)
STOCK IN FOCUS
Crompton (CMP Rs.399)
We have a BUY rating, with a Target Price of Rs475.
Intraday Picks
HINDUNILVR (PREVIOUS CLOSE: 2593) SELL
For today’s trade, short position can be initiated in the range of ₹2620-2630 for the target of Rs.2570 with a strict stop loss of ₹2650.
HDFCLIFE (PREVIOUS CLOSE: 546) BUY
For today’s trade, long position can be initiated in the range of ₹537- 542 for the target of Rs. 555 with a strict stop loss of ₹530.
TECHM (PREVIOUS CLOSE: 1050) BUY
For today’s trade, long position can be initiated in the range of ₹1035- 1045 for the target of Rs. 1075 with a strict stop loss of ₹1030.
The Indian rupee strengthened to a sub-79 per dollar level in opening trade on Tuesday to its highest in more than three weeks while the 10-year bond yield fell to a three-month low tracking U.S. yields and losses in the greenback.
The partially convertible rupee was trading at 78.95 per dollar compared to its close of 79.02 after touching 78.94, its strongest since July 7.
The yield on India's 10-year bond was at 7.21%, after falling to 7.18% in opening deals, its lowest since May 4. The yield was at 7.24% on Monday.
ITC Ltd reported a 38% rise in consolidated net profit to ₹4,169 crore for the April-June quarter following a good performance by its business verticals. The company had posted a net profit of ₹3,013 crore in the year-ago quarter. Revenue grew over 41% to ₹18,320 crore from ₹12,959 crore a year ago.
Hotels was a star performer in 1Q, with highest-ever quarterly revenue and Ebitda in over a decade. While YoY comps benefited from a low base, 3Y revenue CAGR was also healthy at 12%. (Full Report)
As many as 31 new shopping malls are expected to be operational by the end of next year on the back of strong revival in the retail sector, according to Anarock.
This year, a total of 15 new malls will enter the market spread across 12 cities and in 2023, another 16 new malls will come up.
In terms of area, property consultant Anarock said fresh retail space in shopping malls is expected to rise 76 per cent this year on an annual basis.
Adani Green Energy, Indus Towers, Bank of India, Bosch, Siemens, and Voltas will be in focus as they declare their June quarter earnings today. (Full Report)
Indian low-cost carrier SpiceJet Ltd said on Tuesday it had cleared all its outstanding principal dues with the Airports Authority of India, which owns and operates airports in the country.
The airline will revert to an advance payment mechanism for its daily operations, it added, days after the aviation regulator ordered the low-cost airline to slash its approved fleet to 50% this summer for eight weeks citing safety snags.
Zomato, the Indian food delivery company backed by China's Ant Group, is considering reorganising its management so that each of its individual businesses would have its own CEO, while the parent company would be renamed "Eternal", an internal company memo said.
Zomato's CEO Deepinder Goyal in the memo stated that the company was now not only running the Zomato food delivery business but also other large businesses.
Goyal said these included Zomato's proposed purchase of grocery-delivery startup Blinkit, kitchen and food ingredients supply business Hyperpure, and Feeding India, a not-for-profit firm that aims to reduce hunger in India's poor communities.
Tighter monetary policy in developed economies and macro-economic stress in some emerging markets may impact demand for Indian exports in the next 6-12 months, said Sanjeev Sanyal, a member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Committee (PMEAC), in an emailed interview.
However, he added that instead of getting distracted by “cyclical factors", India should focus on becoming part of the global supply chain in an aggressive way. (Full Report)
Gold prices declined by ₹195 to ₹51,947 per 10 grams in the national capital on Monday amid weak global cues and rupee appreciation, according to HDFC Securities.
The precious metal had closed at ₹52,142 per 10 grams in the previous trade.
Silver declined by ₹223 to ₹58,731 per kg from ₹58,954 per kg in the previous trade.
The streaming business is getting expensive for homegrown over-the-top (OTT) video platforms competing for eyeballs with well-funded global companies such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+Hotstar.
While American firms with deep pockets have kept pace with the rising costs of producing web originals, smaller OTT platforms said it is a challenge considering the mounting bills as actors, writers and directors charge more and more as bigger platforms loosen their purse strings. Viewers, too, expect superior quality, requiring higher investments. (Full Report)
The rupee rose by 18 paise to close at a nearly four-week high of 79.06 against the US currency on Monday following foreign fund inflows, a decline in crude oil prices and weak American currency in global markets.
Strong gains in domestic equities, positive PMI data and an increased appetite for riskier assets among investors also boosted the rupee sentiment, analysts said.
At the interbank forex market, the local unit opened higher at 79.16 on gains in stocks and a fall in crude oil.
China major stock indexes slumped on Tuesday, as tensions between Washington and Beijing mounted on news U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi was set to visit Taiwan during the day.
Selling was broad-based. The CSI300 index fell 1.4% to 4,129.73 points at 2:03 GMT, while the Shanghai Composite Index lost 1.7% to 3,205.98 points.
The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong was down 2.5%, to 19,660.96 points.
Pelosi, who began an Asia trip earlier on Monday in Singapore, was due to spend Tuesday night in Taiwan, three people briefed on the matter said, as the United States said it wouldn't be intimidated by Chinese threats to never "sit idly by" if she made the trip to the self-ruled island claimed by Beijing.
Chief Human Resource of Air India in a letter said, "Air India's pilots currently retire at the age of 58, the company has made a policy to extend service to pilots even after retirement, amid increasing the number of aircraft in its fleet."
The company's current retire age for pilots is 58. The policy has been made to extend service to pilots even after retirement keeping the increasing number of aircraft in its fleet in mind. (Read More)
India does not face any risk of either recession or stagflation as its macroeconomic fundamentals are "perfect", Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman asserted in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Sitharaman said that India is doing better than its peers and there is no question of India getting into recession or stagflation ... there is no question of us getting into stagflation or like the US a technical recession. (Full Report)
India's biggest ever auction of telecom spectrum received a record ₹1.5 lakh crore of bids, with Mukesh Ambani's Jio cornering nearly half of all the airwaves sold with a ₹88,078 crore bid.
Richest Indian Gautam Adani's group, whose entry in the auction was billed by some as another flashpoint in the rivalry with Ambani, paid ₹212 crore for 400 MHz, or less than 1 per cent of all spectrum sold, in a band that is not used for offering public telephony services.
Telecom tycoon Sunil Bharti Mittal's Bharti Airtel made a successful bid of ₹43,084 crore, while Vodafone Idea Ltd bought spectrum for ₹18,799 crore.
Tokyo shares opened lower on Tuesday following modest losses on Wall Street, where petroleum-linked shares retreated.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 index fell 0.62%, or 174.40 points, to 27,818.95 at the open, while the broader Topix index dropped 0.64%, or 12.55 points, to 1,947.56.
"Tokyo shares will fall... after the three major US indexes dropped," Mizuho Securities said. "The market is also likely to be weighed down by a stronger yen and profit-taking."
Wall Street ended a three-day winning streak and crude prices plunged on Monday as economic data from the U.S., Europe and China showed demand weakening under inflation pressures, while the looming possibility of recession curbed risk appetite.
All three major U.S. indexes ended the choppy session modestly lower on the first day of August, on the heels of the S&P 500's and the Nasdaq's largest monthly percentage gains since 2020.
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