PremiumOn the Sensex, consumer durables, metals and utilities were the only sectors in the green, although marginally. Some of the key quarterly results were to come in at the time the markets closed for trading. Sapphire foods' IPO was subscribed 5.43 times on its final day. The dollar rose to 20-month highs against the euro and other currencies on Thursday, and the yen fell back towards multi-year lows, after the hottest US inflation reading in a generation encouraged bets on interest rate hikes.
After a few days of sideways movement, Nifty made a bearish bar today. It closed at 17,880 , down by 135 points since yesterday's close. Nifty has support at 17,800 and 17,600 levels and resistance at 18,050 and 18,100 levels. Traders in long position need to be cautious and keep strict stoploss. Any daily closing below 17,600 may initiate a sharp bearish move in Nifty.
Seasonality & cost headwinds impacts performance; new capacity to drive growth
CMP : 1,589 | Target: 1,760 | Upside : 11%
BUY
Outlook & valuation: Cement demand has been improving post-monsoon and the company has raised prices to partially pass on the increase in input costs. Taking advantage of an improved demand scenario, the company is optimizing a geographical mix of sales again. These measures are expected to improve net realization in H2FY22. The company is on track to expand its capacity by 25% which will reduce concerns over volume growth moving ahead. With a strong position in the demand-accretive central region, new capacity addition, higher sale of premium products, and strong demand, the outlook for the company appears robust. The stock is currently trading at 8x and 6x FY22E and FY23E EV/Ebitda and EV/tonne of $75 and $72 respectively. We maintain our BUY recommendation on the stock and value the company at 9x FY23E EV/Ebitda to arrive at a target price of ₹1,760/share. The TP implies an upside of 11% from the CMP.
Inching Back Towards Normalcy
CMP : 597 | Target: 755 | Upside : 26%
BUY
Valuation & recommendation: The significant drop in the PAR0 signalling at lower incremental stress build-up, MoM pick-up in collections along with near normalized levels of disbursements are key positives. While stress remains elevated in the MMFL book, the management’s confidence in asset quality recovery by the end of FY22E is reassuring. The focus on rural markets in the MFI business along with a renewed focus on the retail finance book provides a large addressable market to grow over the medium term. With chances of Covid 3.0 appearing to be bleak, the recovery for CAG would be quicker and the company would be able to bounce back strongly and regain lost ground. We believe current valuations are attractive and provide a good entry point from a long-term perspective. We maintain our BUY recommendation on the stock and value CAG at 2.4x H1FY24E BV to arrive at a target price of ₹755/share, implying an upside of 26% from CMP. We believe that our target multiple reflects the superior return profile (~16% ROE by FY24E), large growth opportunity in the rural markets and the inherent risks in the MFI business.
Indian markets opened on a negative note following mixed Asian market cues and higher than expected inflation data reported in US raising concerns of an earlier-than-expected hike in interest rates in the world's largest economy. Also, continuous foreign fund outflows subdued traders’ sentiments. Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were stood as net sellers in the capital market, as they offloaded shares worth ₹469.50 crore on Wednesday. They have sold equities worth ₹5,515 crore so far this month. On sectoral front, almost all the indices traded in red barring metals and consumer durables which were marginally positive.
Sensex settled at 59,919.69, down 433.13 points, or 0.72%, at the end of trade on Thursday. Nifty was at 17,873.60, down 143.60 points, or 0.80%. On Wednesday Sensex had ended trade at 60,352.82, down 80.63, or 0.13%, while Nifty closed at 18,017.20, down 27.05 points, or 0.15%. The benchmark indices opened in the red and remained in negative territory through the day, with three meek bouncebacks that finally pared some losses. Nifty hit a low of 17,798.20 intraday, while Sensex hit a low of 59,656.26 in the day. At close, only six stocks on the Sensex were in the green, with only one showing over 1% gains. 24 stocks were in the red with 12 showing losses of over 1%. Titan, M&M and Reliance were top gainers, while SBI, Bajaj Financial Services and Tech Mahindra were top losers. Among the 3,445 listed stocks, 1,434 advanced, 1,857 declined and 154 remained unchanged. The story was not very different on NSE. Nifty ended trade with 8 advances, 46 declines and 1 unchanged. Titan, Hindalco and JSW Steel were top gainers, while SBI, ONGC and SBI Life were top losers. On the broader markets midcap indices, which had supported the market in earlier sessions, came under pressure and closed well in red.
ADD (Target Price: ₹317)
Rebound on the cards
The Brookfield India REIT (BREIT) delivered a resilient Q2FY22 performance inspite of a 400bps q-o-q same-store occupancy decline to 85% with over 99% of rental collections and flat operating lease rentals of ₹1.56 billion on y-o-y basis. In H2FY22, the REIT manager expects to renew 50% of scheduled expiries of 0.6msf with new LOIs of 0.16msf and ongoing discussions for 1.3msf of area, likely to result in portfolio occupancy remaining flat in H2FY22 before increasing from H1FY23 based on recovery in office leasing. We maintain our ADD rating on BREIT with a revised Mar’22 DCF based target price of ₹317/unit (earlier ₹293) factoring in improved leasing from FY23E. Key risks to our thesis are the large-scale adoption of Work-from-Home by occupiers over the long term and rising interest rates globally.
Investment rationale:
· Resilient Q2FY22 performance: The BREIT which listed on exchanges on February 16, 2021 achieved a resilient Q2FY22 performance in its operational portfolio with rental collections of over 99% and operating lease rentals remaining flat y-o-y at ₹1.56 billion while Net Operating Income (NOI) declined 8% y-o-y to ₹1.63 billion owing to reduction of ₹0.8 billion in CAM revenue owing to covid and mid-year termination of CIOP operating services with identified assets. The operating portfolio of 10.3msf is stabilized with 85% Same-Store Occupancy as of Sep’21 (89% as of Jun’21) and a Weighted Average Lease Expiry (WALE) of 6.6 years.
·Renewals of H2FY22E expiries a key monitorable: In H1FY22, of the 0.8msf of scheduled expiries, the REIT manager has renewed 0.2msf of area at a re-leasing spread of 3% while the balance 0.6msf has seen tenant exits resulting in same-store portfolio occupancy declining by 600bps to 85% as of Sep’21. For H2FY22, the REIT has 0.6msf of scheduled expiries (including 0.1msf of early expiries), of which the REIT manager expects to renew 0.3msf or 50% of the expiry. Additionally, the REIT has LOIs under execution for 0.16msf of area and ongoing discussions for 1.3msf of area which may result in the H2FY22 expected exits of 0.3msf being recouped. As per the REIT manager, there is a leasing pipeline opportunity of 3.2msf across its portfolio markets and it expects to see strong leasing traction heading into H1FY23 as more employees return to offices and relocation/expansion/consolidation plans fructify.
· On track to meet FY22 NDCF DPU guidance: At the end of Q4FY21, the REIT manager had given a NDCF DPU guidance of ₹12.75/unit for H1FY22 and has delivered a H1FY22 NDCF DPU of ₹12.85/unit of which it has distributed ₹12.0/unit. For FY22 overall, the REIT manager has given a NDCF DPU guidance of ₹22.0/unit, which implies a distribution of ₹10.0/unit in H2FY22 which factors in lower occupancies and excludes any major fresh leasing transactions. We believe that the H2FY22 DPU guidance is achievable and is in line with our estimates.
· Key assumptions for Brookfield India REIT:
• 4% annual increase in rentals from FY23E onwards
• 3% increase in market rentals for FY22E
• 4.5% terminal growth rate from FY30E
• Cap rate of 8% on Net Operation Income (NOI) of each asset
• Maximum stabilised long-term occupancy of 95% across assets
• WACC of 10.0% assuming 0.3x debt/equity with cost of equity of 11% and cost of debt of 7.5%.
ICICI Securities maintains ADD rating on Brookfield India REIT (BREIT) with a revised March 2022 DCF based target price of ₹317/unit (earlier ₹293) owing to higher FY23E occupancies across assets. At CMP of ₹297, ICICI Securities expects the BREIT to deliver NDCF distribution yield of 6.7% in FY22E, 7.7% in FY23E and 8.0% in FY24E.
Sensex was down over 500 points and Nifty over 168 points at 3 pm. Both are over 0.8% down. The indices have remained firmly in the red throughout the day. There were a couple of bounebacks, but the indices have progressively slipped further into red after each rise. In the final minutes of trading there is another rally which may pare some losses.
Page Industries Ltd has reported a 44.7% rise in its net profit in the September quarter from the year-ago period. It was ₹160.5 crore in Q2FY22 against ₹110.9 crore in Q2FY21. Revenue jumped 46.4% at ₹1,084 crore against ₹740.3 crore in the year-ago quarter. The manufacturer and retailer of innerwear, loungewear and socks saw its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (ebitda) rise 41.1% to ₹233.4 crore from ₹165.4 crore in the year-ago period. Ebitda margin stood at 21.5% against 22.3% in Q2FY21.
Pidilite Industries shares were up 4.24% to ₹2,465.90 at 2:45 pm on the back of positive quarterly results of the company. The adhesives maker recorded 5% rise in consolidated net profit to ₹376 crore on a 41% increase in net sales to ₹2,613 crore in Q2FY22 over Q2 FY21.
Engineers India Ltd has reported revenue of ₹6.57 billion in Q2FY22 compared with ₹6.9 billion in Q2FY21. The revenue is down quarter-on-quarter from ₹7.46 billion. The company's Q2 consolidated net profit is ₹170.4 million compared with ₹883 million year-on-year. The stock was down 2.72% as of 2:43 pm.
All sectors in the red, other than IT, have registered losses over 1%. Realty is down 2.71%
Nifty and Sensex saw bouncebacks towards noon and after 1 pm but since then have started going towards further losses, particularly in the case of Sensex.
The dollar rose to 20-month highs against the euro and other currencies on Thursday, and the yen fell back towards multi-year lows, after the hottest US inflation reading in a generation encouraged bets on interest rate hikes. US consumer prices grew last month at their fastest annual pace since 1990, data showed, and traders think the Federal Reserve could respond by lifting interest rates faster than peers in Europe and Japan. The euro was pummelled, as the European Central Bank is seen lagging on policy tightening. It slipped further to $1.1459 on Thursday, its lowest since July 2020. Sterling was also marginally down on Thursday at a new 11-month low of $1.3388, with better-than-expected GDP data in Britain doing little to support the pound. The yen extended a sharp reversal of recent gains to 114.15 per dollar—close to the Japanese currency's four-year low of 114.69 reached last month. The Australian and New Zealand dollars recorded one-month troughs. Against a basket of currencies, the dollar rose 0.2% to 95.02, its strongest since July 2020. Analysts said the sharp rise in U.S. government bond yields, including the 30-year Treasury passing 1.5%, was behind the dollar's jump.
Morepen Laboratories has reported that its consolidated net profit in Q2FY22 has risen to ₹374 million compared with ₹272 million in the year-ago period. The net profit has also seen a quarter-on-quarter increase to ₹305 million. The results have beaten estimates in both year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter estimates.
Nifty IT and pharma have pared losses from over 1% to now at 0.87% and 0.95% respectively.
TVS Srichakra has reported net profit of ₹25.3 crore in Q2FY22, which is 36.6% lower than the net profit of ₹39.9 crore reported in Q2FY21. The company's revenue was up 38.2% at ₹687.5 crore compared with ₹497.6 crore year-on-year. Also, the firm's earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (ebitda) was up 98.4% at ₹63.3 crore compared with ₹31.9 crore, year-on-year. Ebitda margin meanwhile, was up at 9.2% compared with 6.4% year-on-year.
Route Mobile has announced successful completion of the acquisition of 100% equity stake of Masivian S.A.S., Columbia, South America.
Titan and Tata Steel have gained more than 1% on Thursday even as the markets are gradually widening losses.
Shipping Corporation of India Ltd (SCI) has incorporated a wholly owned subsidiary, Shipping Corporation of India Land and Assets Ltd. The move is part of demerger under SCI's strategic disinvestment process undertaken by the government.
Sensex was down over 500 points and Nifty shed 165 points as both indices teased near 1% losses amid selling pressure. Sectoral and broad market indices continue to trade in red. On Nifty, metal remained the only index to trade in green. BFIS, FMCG, IT, pharma, and auto showed more than 1% losses.
Shares of Narayana Hrudayalaya have touched a new 52-week high of ₹623 intraday in the wake of healthy operational performance in the September quarter. The shares were trading up 10.62% at 12:12 pm. The company's consolidated net profit for Q2FY22 was ₹99.4 crore. It had posted a consolidated net loss of ₹3.4 crore in Q2FY21. Narayana Hrudayalaya's operations staged a decent recovery during the September quarter, after significant impact on operations in Q1FY22 due to covid-19.
Advances and declines on BSE in terms of top cluster of groups. More stocks have declined in Groups A and B than the number that has seen advances.
Gold
On Wednesday, Spot gold prices gained about 1% to close at $1,849.6 per ounce reflecting the solid US inflation figures. Mounting inflation worries has been a prime reason behind the recent rise in gold prices.
In October, US consumer prices surged following the increase in energy and food prices which boosted appeal for gold which is widely considered as a hedge against inflation and currency debasement.
The US Federal Reserve keeping interest rates near zero in the policy meet conducted last week hinted towards a dovish approach which kept gold prices afloat earlier in the week.
Inflation woes and an accommodative approach by global central banks has created a supportive environment for the safe haven asset, gold.
Supportive monetary approach and a weaker US dollar is expected to push gold higher in today’s session.
Crude oil
On Wednesday, WTI Crude slipped lower by 3.34% to close at $81.3 per barrel as buildup in US crude inventories outpaced optimism over boost in global demand.
As per reports from the Energy Information Administration, US Crude stocks increased by 1 million barrels in the week ending on 5 November 2021.
Bets over revival in global demand amid a tight supply market kept oil prices elevated earlier this week. US withdrawing the travel restrictions coupled with resumption in global economic activities is expected to boost demand for crude further pressuring the already tight supply chain.
Bets over increasing demand amid a tight supply market is expected to keep oil prices elevated.
Base metals
Industrial metals on MCX remained under pressure in line with the international markets as escalating concerns over the ongoing property crisis in China undermined the demand prospects for the base metals complex.
The ongoing property crisis, stern energy usage limitations and the recent spike in power prices around the globe has hampered the economic recovery in China, the largest metal consuming economy.
Boost in demand for Industrial metals given the resumption in global economic activities and the massive US infrastructure bill has created a supportive environment for the entire pack in the recent months. Industrial metal prices also found some strength as limited supply from China and depleting inventories across exchanges continued to hint towards a tight supply.
However, dismal demand from China remains a major setback for the industrial metals complex.
Copper
On Wednesday, MCX Copper prices ended lower by 0.91% extending the fall from the previous session as uncertainties arising from China’s economy clouded the outlook for Copper and other industrial metals.
The ongoing property crisis in China might overshadow worries over tightening supplies and push prices lower.
Both EURUSD and EURINR plunged by 1% and 0.67% respectively touching the lower levels of 1.1463 and 85.27. Reason for the same could be attributed to the sharp surge in the US Dollar Index that reached a year-to-date high while the 10-year Treasury yields rose around 12 basis points after consumer prices in the US quickened at the fastest clip in three decades on an annual basis. The consumer price index rose 6.2% year-on-year last month, surpassing all estimates. The US inflation data has increased the odds that the Fed would increase interest rates immediately after the taper wraps up. In fact, the data has led to more risks around the already high uncertainty around the Fed outlook for next year.
Market started yesterday’s session on a sluggish note, but still it was certainly not as bad as the SGX Nifty was indicating . Nifty retested 17,900 in the early morning trades which was then followed by some consolidation. Post the mid-session, we witnessed a decent recovery in some of the heavyweights which pulled the index beyond 18,000 to mark a flat close one day ahead of the weekly expiry. Although we had a decent recovery post the nervous start, overall there was no major action seen in the benchmark index. We once gain had a neutral close around 18,000 which keeps the chart structure unchanged. Hence the view and the levels remained the same as mentioned in the previous commentary. On an immediate basis 18,100–18,200 should be seen as crucial resistances; whereas with a broader view, 18,350 stands to be a crucial level which if gets surpassed, Nifty could see new highs thereafter. But till then one should continue with a ‘Sell on rise’ strategy. On the flipside, 17,950–17,850 are to be considered as key supports. Traders are still advised to stay light and even if one wants to focus on individual stocks, a proper money management is must to follow.
The ongoing property crisis, stern energy usage limitations and the recent spike in power prices around the globe have hampered the economic recovery in China, the largest metal consuming economy. Boost in demand for industrial metals given the resumption in global economic activities and the massive US infrastructure bill has created a supportive environment for the entire pack in the recent months. Prices also found some strength as limited supply from China and depleting inventories across exchanges continued to hint towards a tight supply. However, dismal demand from China remains a major setback for the Industrial metals complex.
Federal bank was the only stock in green on the S&P Bankex. SBI, City Union Bank and ICICI Bank were top drags, and were down over 1%.
Nykaa, which made a stellar debut on the bourses with 79% premium and clocked market capitalization of over ₹1 trillion, has seen drop in interest for the shares and was trading down over 3% as of 11:23 am. Earlier in the day the stock had dipped over 5%.
Sapphire Foods India Ltd's IPO has been subscribed 1.54 times as of 11:14 am largely on account of 6.22 times bidding by retail individual investor category. The category, which has been allotted 1,756,994 shares has received bids for 10,925,292.
The Supreme Court, CNBC TV18 has reported, has agreed to hear a plea by Future Group against the Delhi high court's refusal to stay the emergency arbitrator’s order. Also, the apex court has agreed to hear Amazon’s plea, seeking to restrain regulators from granting clearing to Future Retail deal. The plea will be heard on 23 November, the report says.
Sensex was down 508 points, and Nifty by 155 points at 11 am. Both indices have ceded the 60,000 and 17,900 marks and have been widening losses amid selling pressure. Among sectoral indices on Nifty, metals were the sole index marginally in green. All other sectors dragged, led by realty down over 2% and followed by IT, pharma, media, FMCG and financial services, which were all down over 1%.
Nifty Vix has seen 3.90% gains as of 10:59 am with all other broad market indices in red. Nifty and Sensex have widened losses following global cues.
Crisil has seen a 7.19% gain in the wake of its Q2 results announced on Wednesday. CRISIL Ltd's consolidated income from operations for the quarter ended 30 September 2021, rose 17.7% to ₹571.0 crore, compared with ₹485 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous year. Consolidated total income for the quarter was up 15.7% at ₹603.8 crore, compared with ₹522 crore in the year-ago period.
Monte Carlo Fashions has seen 20% gains in the wake of Q2 results announced Wednesday. The stock has touched its intraday and 52-week high. Net profit of Monte Carlo Fashions rose 665.46% to ₹33.91 crore in the quarter ended 30 September 2021 as against ₹4.43 crore in the year-ago period. Sales rose 142.53% to ₹238.29 crore in Q2FY22 as against ₹98.25 crore in Q2FY21. The company is holding analyst call on earnings today.
Zomato stock was up by 2.94% on Thursday a day after it announced September quarter results. The company reported that its revenue from operations jumped to ₹1,024.2 crore in the quarter ended September compared with ₹426 crore during in the year-ago period. Zomato’s losses went up to ₹434.9 crore against ₹229 crore year-on-year. The company also announced plans to deploy $1 billion in startups Shiprocket (logistics aggregator), Magicpin (local shopping and savings platform) and Cultfit (fitness startup).
Latent View Analytics Ltd's IPO, which closes on 12 Nov has been subscribed 3.83 times, while Sapphire Foods India Ltd's IPO, which closes today, has been subscribed 0.67 times.
NTPC has informed in an exchange filing that Unit-1 (660 MW) of Barh Super Thermal Power Station Stage-I (3x660 MW) will start commercial operation with effect from midnight of 12 November. The new unit will take the capacity of NTPC and NTPC group to 54,232.5 MW and 67,657.5 MW respectively.
Finolex Cables has announced its entry into the room heater segment with a new range of high-performance room heaters. The company said in a exchange filing that the room heaters come in six variations, supported by extensive engineering to provide reliable and flawless service for years. The heaters have multiple options such as oil filled, quartz tube, fan blower, convector and halogen with a wattage ranging from 400W to 2500W, the company said.
Metal index is being powered by Welspun, Hindustan Zinc, and Adani Enterprises, with Welspun alone gaining over 3%.
The markets are unable to decide the way forward. While the overall trend is positive, the short term vision seems undecided. Above 18,100 the outlook is positive while below 17,700-17,800 seems bearish. We are caught in a range and would require to break out or break down in order to witness a meaningful direction.
Yes Bank, Idea, and Zomato are among top active stocks. Yes Bank saw a upgrade in ratings from Moody's, Zomato came out with earnings numbers on Wednesday and Vodafone Idea recently said that it was planning to sort out the Cairn issue over the next few weeks.
Markets have opened in the red on Thursday. Sensex opened about 200 points down, while Nifty was down about 50 points at opening. The benchmark indices were about 0.3% down.
Nifty is expected to open negative at 17,960 down by 50 points. Since the last few trading sessions Nifty has been trading around its 20 period moving average on daily charts but has not been able to close above it. It is important for Nifty to close above 18,100 with higher than average volumes to continue its bull run. Traders are suggested not to initiate new long positions till then.
Sensex was at 60,292.05, down 60.77, or 0.10%, at 09:08 am on Thursday. Nifty was at 18,017.20, down 27.05, or 0.15% in pre-opening trade. Nifty, Maruti and Tata Steel were top gainers on Sensex, M&M, Tech Mahindra and ICICI Bank were in red. Tata Steel will be announcing September quarter results today.
Mickey Mouse is poised to venture into the metaverse. Walt Disney CEO Bob Chapek said the entertainment conglomerate is preparing to make the technological leap into a virtual reality world first imagined by science fiction writers. (Read here)
Sony Group Corp. has reduced its PlayStation 5 production outlook for this fiscal year due to component and logistics constraints, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday. The company has cut down the number of PS5 units assembled for the fiscal year to about 15 million, from its previous target of 16 million units, the report added, citing people familiar with its operations. The development comes amid a global shortage of semiconductors which is impacting companies including Sony. Sony did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment. In October, the conglomerate—spanning areas such as entertainment, sensors and financial services—said it was on track to sell 14.8 million PS5 consoles this financial year, a target that takes into account the global shortages. Gaming firms' earnings were hit last year by stay-at-home demand during the depths of the covid-19 pandemic. Since then, sliding PlayStation user numbers have stabilized, Sony's finance chief Hiroki Totoki said, as the company approaches the year-end shopping season.
Bank of Baroda’s (BoB) September-quarter performance didn’t have many reasons to cheer. Sure, net profit showed 24% year-on-year (y-o-y) growth, and bad loan stockpile reduced too. The management has given an upbeat outlook over growth and asset quality for the rest of the financial year. (Read here)Bank of Baroda’s (BoB) September-quarter performance didn’t have many reasons to cheer. Sure, net profit showed 24% year-on-year (y-o-y) growth, and bad loan stockpile reduced too. The management has given an upbeat outlook over growth and asset quality for the rest of the financial year. (Read here)
Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi) released data on Wednesday. It has shown that the Average Assets Under Management (AUM) and the Net AUM for the Indian Mutual Fund industry have risen to a record high levels at ₹38.21 trillion and ₹37.33 trillion respectively as 31 October. The Fund of Funds, Index Funds, and ETFs, too, reported positive flows. Collectively, they reported positive flows to the tune of ₹10,758.85 crore as of 31 October. Equity mutual funds saw net inflows of ₹5,214 crore in October, compared with ₹8,677 crore in the previous month. Hybrid funds garnered massive inflows of ₹10,437 crore compared to ₹3,587 crore earlier. Systematic investment plans (SIPs) have continued to rise in popularity. The SIP book continues to post healthy progress and was at ₹10,518 crore for the month, compared with ₹10,351 crore in September 2021. The number of SIP accounts also went up to 4.64 crore from 4.48 crore in the same period. Balanced advantage funds saw the largest inflows of ₹11,219 crore.
Indian stock markets may remain under pressure on Thursday while trends in SGX Nifty suggest a weak opening of Indian benchmark indices. On Wednesday, the BSE Sensex ended at 60,352.82, down 80.63 points or 0.13% and the Nifty was at 18,017.20, down 27.05 points or 0.15%. (Read here)
Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) provisions are “fully applicable" to state-run electricity distribution companies, and the corporate insolvency resolution process (CIRP) can be initiated against them, the power ministry said, potentially allowing creditors to turn the screws on indebted discoms.
Cash-strapped distribution firms across states currently owe around ₹1 trillion to power generation companies, according to data on the power ministry’s PRAAPTI portal. Non-payment of coal dues by gencos on account of payment delays by discoms also have a knock-on effect, limiting supplies, depleting fuel stocks at power plants and prompting concern over power shortage. (Read here)
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is keeping a close watch on core and fuel inflation, which have remained elevated even as food prices moderate, governor Shaktikanta Das said on Wednesday.
Nevertheless, Das expects inflation to be in line with the monetary policy committee’s (MPC) projection of 5.3% in FY22. Inflation measured by the consumer price index (CPI) eased to 4.35% in September from 5.3% in August. (Read here)
Shares of Rivian Automotive jumped in their debut on Wednesday, rising as much as 53% as investors look for the next big winner in the electric vehicle market. The closing price of $100,73 gave Rivian a market value of about $85.9 billion, greater than that of Ford and just below General Motors. That’s noteworthy because Rivian has so far delivered about 150 of its electric pickup trucks to customers, mostly employees, whereas Ford and GM sell millions of cars globally each year. Rivian is the latest in what’s becoming a long line of companies trying to peel away some of Tesla’s dominant market share in electric vehicles.
Oil prices were steady on Thursday after falling in the previous session on concerns rising inflation in the United States, spurred by climbing energy costs, may prompt the government to release more strategic crude stockpiles to drive down prices. On Wednesday, Brent crude futures fell by 2.5% and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures dropped by 3.3% after reports that US inflation increased at the fastest rate in 30 years pushed the dollar higher and crude inventories in the US, the world's biggest oil consumer, rose after the government released some strategic reserves. Brent crude futures gained 18 cents, or 0.2%, to $82.82 a barrel at 0156 GMT, while WTI futures rose 17 cents, or 0.2%, to $81.51.
Inflation fears pressured Asian stocks and buoyed the dollar on Thursday after data overnight showed US consumer prices surged at the fastest pace since 1990 last month, boosting the case for faster Federal Reserve policy tightening. Nominal US Treasury yields shot higher, with that on the benchmark 10-year note leaping by the most since February, while real yields, which take inflation into account, dipped to record lows. Gold jumped to a five-month high and bitcoin hit a record as investors sought inflation hedges. Oil pulled back sharply from near seven-year highs after US President Joe Biden said his administration was looking for ways to reduce energy costs. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.85%, led by a 1.19% slide in Australia's benchmark. Chinese blue chips slipped 0.09%. Japan's Nikkei bucked the trend by rising 0.24%, supported by the yen's weakness against a resurgent dollar and as U.S. stock futures ticked up slightly. Overnight though, the S&P 500 tumbled 0.82%, its worst day in more than a month. That marked the first back-to-back declines in a month, after the index closed at a record peak to start the week. The dollar index, which gauges the currency against six major peers including the yen and euro, hovered just below the high reached on Wednesday of 94.905, a level not seen since July of last year. The greenback added 0.13% to 114.04 yen, up from as low as 112.73 at the start of the week. The US consumer price index surged 6.2% on an annual basis, with gasoline leading a broad-based increase that added to signs that inflation could stay uncomfortably high well into 2022 amid snarled global supply chains. Inflationary pressures are also brewing in the labor market, with other data on Wednesday showing the number of Americans filing claims for unemployment benefits fell to a 20-month low.
Stocks
S&P 500 futures rose 0.1% as of 10:53 a.m. in Tokyo. The S&P 500 fell 0.8%
Nasdaq 100 futures added 0.2%. The Nasdaq 100 fell 1.4%
Japan’s Topix index rose 0.4%
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index fell 1%
South Korea’s Kospi index fell 0.6%
Hang Seng Index dropped 0.1%
Shanghai Composite Index added 0.6%
Zomato, Yes Bank and Oil India are among stocks to watch (Read here)
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