PremiumRate hike worries and fear of a recession along with the Adani effect continue to cast a shadow on investor sentiment. Investors await the minutes of the Fed's meeting, due on Wednesday, to assess the U.S. central bank's future rate hiking path.
Indian shares closed flat amidst volatility on Tuesday while investors waited for minutes from the U.S. Federal Reserve's latest monetary policy to get cues on the central bank's future rate-hike path.
S&P BSE Sensex closed 18 points or 0.03% down to close at 60,672. Nifty 50 also declined 18 points or 0.1% to close at 17,826.
Adani Enterprises remained volatile and ended 3.5% down and was among the biggest laggards. Apollo Hospitals, Coal India and Bajaj Auto also shed in today's trading. NTPC jumped 3%. Britannia and Tata Steel were among other major gainers.
Metal started on a strong note but pared all the gains and ended in the red like most other indices. FMCG made minor gains. PSU Bank and Realty dragged the most and shed more than a per cent each. IT and Media shed 0.8%.
Asian markets were mixed Tuesday, with traders trying to gauge the outlook for the US economy as they price in more interest rate hikes than previously predicted.
Tokyo stocks closed lower on Tuesday as US rate hike speculation weighed on the market while investors looked for fresh cues. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index lost 0.21%, while the broader Topix index fell 0.11%.
Hong Kong shares closed lower on Tuesday, weighed down by geopolitical worries ahead of the Ukraine war's one-year anniversary and doubts around China's economic recovery.
Mainland China's equities ended higher, lifted by property developers and metal shares following China's latest measures to boost the real estate sector.
Hong Kong's benchmark Hang Seng Index closed down 1.7%, and the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index dropped 2.0%. China's blue-chip CSI300 Index finished 0.3% higher, while the Shanghai Composite Index climbed 0.5%.
European stocks fell on Tuesday ahead of key data that will offer a window into the health of major economies. The eurozone, Britain, France and the United States are all set to publish flash February PMI data, with market players watching for signs of the toll tighter monetary policy has taken on activity.
In early trading, the Euro STOXX 600 fell with major indexes in Germany, France and Britain opening slightly in the red.
UK's exporter-heavy FTSE 100 was dragged lower by HSBC after the London-headquartered bank dampened investors' expectations of a sustained income bonanza from rising interest rates worldwide.
The financial performance of Indian banks' sustained improvement bodes well for the sector’s intrinsic risk profiles, global rating agency Fitch says.
According to rating agency, the pace of asset quality and profitability improvement has exceeded expectations. However, the capital buffers are broadly in line with the projections.
Fitch said that Indian banks' impaired-loan ratio declined to 4.5 per cent in the first nine months of financial year ended March 2023 (9MFY23), from 6 per cent at FY'22. This was nearly 60 basis points below Fitch's FY23 estimate, it added. (Read More)
The Indian rupee's expected volatility against the dollar over the next one month hit its lowest level in almost seven months on Tuesday, tracking the currency's recent narrow trading range and on expectations of the central bank's continued support.
The rupee's one-month at-the-money volatility was quoting at 4.50/4.80%, near its lowest level since late July last year. The slide in the OTC (over-the-counter) volatility comes alongside a plunge in realized volatility – measured in terms of the last ten days' closing price – to 2.2%, its lowest this year. (Read More)
India's Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone, a group company of the beleaguered Adani Group, plans to prepay 10 billion rupees ($120.8 million) in commercial papers maturing in March, a company spokesperson said.
"This part prepayment is from the existing cash balance and funds generated from the business operations," the spokesperson said in an emailed response late on Monday.
Adani Ports has commercial papers worth 20 billion rupees due to mature in March, data from information service provider Prime Database showed. It had cash and cash equivalents of 62.57 billion rupees as of Dec. 31, as per its latest quarterly report.
The company has also paid 10 billion rupees to SBI Mutual Fund and 5 billion rupees to Aditya Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund on commercial papers that matured on Monday, as scheduled, Adani Ports said.
Last week, Reuters reported Adani Enterprises and Adani Ports are likely to repay their short-term commercial papers debt, instead of rolling them over. (Reuters)
Credit Suisse Group AG shares fell to an intraday record low on Tuesday after Reuters reported that Switzerland’s financial regulator is reviewing comments that the lender’s Chairman Axel Lehmann made in December on outflows from the company having stabilized.
The stock slid as much as 5.7% to 2.613 Swiss francs, surpassing the previous all-time trough.
Finma is looking to establish the extent to which Credit Suisse representatives including Lehmann were aware that clients were still withdrawing funds when he made the comments, according to the report, which cited two unidentified people familiar with the matter.
In an interview with Bloomberg News, Lehmann said that client withdrawals, which had surged in early October, had “basically stopped." The remarks were made before the close of a crucial $4 billion capital raise, though results published this month showed that further outflows worth tens of billions of dollars continued until at least the end of the quarter. (Bloomberg)
Jaguar Land Rover India on Tuesday said it has appointed Rajan Amba as the managing director, with effect from March 1.
Amba will succeed incumbent Rohit Suri, who is due to retire from the post on March 31, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) India said in a statement.
Amba is currently serving as the vice president for sales, marketing and customer care at Tata Motors.
"Rajan's customer-centric mindset, broad experiences from different industries, and his leadership approach, bring the right set of qualities to further grow our operations into the promising future of India," Martin Limpert, Regional Director - Overseas at JLR, said. (PTI)
State-run Coal India Ltd (CIL) will achieve 1 billion tonne production target by 2025-26, CareEdge Ratings said in a report.
India’s coal requirement will likely hit 1.5 billion tonne by 2030 and to meet this, the country should scale up its production, It added.
“CareEdge Research maintains its coal production estimate of 850–900 MT by the end of this fiscal year driven by Coal India Limited’s expected ramp-up in production to achieve the Ministry of Coal’s target to produce 1 billion tonne by FY26 and 1.5 billion tonne by FY30," Tanvi Shah, director, CareEdge Advisory & Research, said. (Read More)
Dixon Technologies shares have remained under downtrend since November 2022. From November to till date, Dixon's share price has corrected from a lifetime high of ₹4,690 apiece to ₹2,720 per share levels on NSE, retracing more than 40 per cent from its highs. However, the stock has given some upside movement in recent sessions that has attracted the attention of stock market experts and market observers.
Vaishali Parekh, Vice President — Technical Research at Prabhudas Lilladher believes that Dixon's share price has bottomed out at ₹2,600 levels and it all set for strong upside movement. Vaishali Parekh recommended positional investors to buy Dixon Technologies shares at a current market price of around ₹2,720 for the medium-term target of ₹3,120 per share. Prabhudas Lilladher said that the stock has a strong support base at ₹2,600 whereas it is facing a hurdle at ₹2,770. However, she said that the stock may become highly bullish once it crosses ₹2,770 per share hurdle. (Read More)
NTPC Green Energy Ltd (NGEL), a subsidiary of India’s largest power utility NTPC, has invited bids for rupee-denominated term loan of up to ₹9,000 crore. NGEL intends to raise fresh debt and repay outstanding liability of ₹8,200 crore towards NTPC by 31 March, along with applicable interest cost along with applicable interest cost, as per the bid document.
Also, additional funds to the tune of ₹800 crore will be required for additional debt liability and for balance capex payments of projects which are yet to achieve full commercial operations, the company said in a release. (Read More)
No-frills carrier SpiceJet on Tuesday said that the company will consider issuing equity shares via preferential basis in a board meet this week on Friday, February 24, 2023 & mull upon conversion of outstanding liabilities. The company will also consider raising fresh capital via issue of securities to qualified institutional buyers.
“This is to inform you that the Board of Directors of the Company in its meeting scheduled to be held on February 24, 2023 (Friday), will discuss and consider, inter-alia, issuance of equity shares on preferential basis consequent upon conversion of outstanding liabilities into equity shares of the Company, subject to applicable regulatory approvals," the domestic airline informed in an exchange filing today. (Read More)
Indian jeweller Joyalukkas India Ltd. has withdrawn its ₹2,300 crore initial public offering (IPO), reported Reuters, citing a document on the market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India's (SEBI) website on Tuesday. The company last year had filed its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with the market regulator to raise funds via public issue.
The proceeds from the issue of the initial share sale were to be used to pay back some loans and to open new stores, the company had said in a draft prospectus filed in March 2022. Joyalukkas is one of the largest jewellery retail and e-commerce chains. Alukkas Varghese Joy is the promoter of the Kerala-based company. (Read More)
FTX's Sam Bankman Fried, Nik Storonsky of Revolut, Cliff Obrecht of Canva, edtech Byju's founders Byju Raveendran and Divya Gokulnath are some names featured in Forbes list of 44 startup founders who have lost half of their wealth in the past one year.
Forbes reports shows that half the wealth of the billionaires behind unicorns has been wiped out, thus leaving this group of startup founders $96 billion poorer than they were a year ago. (Read More)
Jobs created under the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) fell month-on-month by 14.45% to 8,02,250 compared to 9,37,780 net new subscribers added in November, shows the provisional payroll data of EPFO. December is the third consecutive month when the number of first-time members joining the social security scheme remained below the 1 million mark.
The government uses the EPFO payroll data as a high-frequency measure for formal sector job creation in the economy. (Read More)
With the third quarter ended December 2022 (Q3 FY23) reporting season over, domestic brokerage and research firm Ambit has highlight it's biggest EPS (earnings per share) upgrades/downgrades of reporting season amongst NSE200.
Where are Ambit’s biggest EPS upgrades/downgrades of reporting season? Amongst NSE 200 stocks, BPCL, Tata Motors, Oberoi Realty, ACC & Dalmia Bharat are the biggest upgrades (FY23E), while Zomato, Indus Towers, ABFRL, Lupin & Voltas are its biggest downgrades. (Read More)
Metal and FMCG indices remain strong, while PSU Bank struggles
State-owned aerospace and defence company, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), on Tuesday announced that Ananthakrishnan, Director (Finance) tenure as chairman and managing director has been extended for a period of six months.
The company said that his tenure extended for six months from 1st February, 2023.
On account of the US dollar rally and growing fear of the US Fed rate hike in the upcoming FOMC meeting today, gold prices continued to trade tepid on the fourth day in a row. Gold price today hit a 5-week low in the early morning session but managed to sustain above ₹56,000 per 10 gm levels in the domestic market. The yellow metal price today opened lower at ₹56,191 per 10 gm on MCX and went on to hit an intraday low of ₹56,104 in the domestic market.
In the international market, gold rates today opened lower on the US dollar rally as the dollar index logged near 0.10 per cent gains and came close to 104 levels. Gold price in the international spot market opened at 1,841 per ounce level and made a high of $1,843.75 levels. However, it failed to sustain at higher levels and hit an intraday low of $1,837 after a sharp correction in morning deals. (Read More)
Indian Railways plans to put its redeveloped surplus land across all major cities under several real estate investment trusts (REITs) as part of its asset monetization drive, two people aware of the development said.
The decision is significant as Railways has lagged behind in achieving its targets under the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) for the last two years. (Read More)
Indian budget airline Spicejet Ltd said on Tuesday it will consider options to raise fresh capital by issuing securities to qualified institutional buyers.
The airline said it will also, when its board meets on Feb. 24, consider issuing shares on a preferential basis after converting outstanding liabilities into equity shares. (Reuters)
Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) selling in Indian equities moderated in the first half of February from the previous month, data from National Securities Depository Ltd. showed.
(Graphic: FPI selling in Indian shares moderates in February, https://www.reuters.com/graphics/FPI-FEB1/FEB1-FPI/akpeqogobpr/chart.png)
FPIs sold shares worth 48.06 billion rupees ($580.86 million) in the first half of February. FPI selling in Indian stocks had hit a seven-month high of 288.52 billion rupees in January due to the reallocation of funds to China and Taiwan and the uncertainties from a sharp selloff in Adani Group shares after a report by a U.S. short-seller Hindenburg Research flagged concerns over the conglomerate's financials.
The moderation in FPI selling comes as the valuation gap between India and China normalised. The Indian market's premium to China is back in line with the 10-year average at the end of January, Christopher Wood of Jefferies said in his latest weekly newsletter GREED and fear. (Reuters)
The initial public offering (IPO) of Macfos Ltd has seen strong demand from retail investors since its opening on Friday, February 17 2023. The last day to bid for a three-day initial share sale is Tuesday, February 21, 2023. The price band of the issue has been fixed at ₹96 to ₹102 per share. The IPO aims to raise about ₹23.75 crores with an NII quota of 15%, QIB of 50%, and a retail quota of 35%.
As of day 2 on Monday, Macfos IPO received 40.26 subscription with 93.42 times bid from retail buyers, 2.60x from QIB buyers, and 55.49x from NII buyers, as per the BSE data. (Read More)
Shares of NMDC Steel hit the upper circuit for the second straight day on Tuesday on the BSE, rising to ₹33 apiece in early deals, after the company's shares got listed on the stock exchanges BSE and NSE on Monday after the demerger of NMDC's steel business. The equity shares of the company were also listed on the Calcutta Stock Exchange. The company's market valuation stands at over ₹9,758 crore on the BSE.
NMDC Steel shares made a market debut at ₹37.75 apiece yesterday. NMDC Steel is a newly formed entity post its demerger from mining giant NMDC Limited. The government last month had received in-principle approval from the BSE for a listing of NMDC Steel Ltd (NSL). (Read More)
The government is expected to release the third quarter GDP data on February 28. Experts and economists estimate that the India's economy grew 4.6%-5% during the October-December 2022 period.
Barclays India expects India’s Q3 FY23 GDP (or Q4 2022) to rise 5.0% YoY, slowing from 6.3% growth in the year ago period. On a sequential (nsa) basis, however, Q3 GDP is likely to increase faster than the previous quarter. (Read More)
State-owned hydro power giant NHPC on Monday raised ₹996 crore through the issuance of non-convertible bonds on aprivate placement basis.
"NHPC Limited has raised ₹996 crore on February 20, 2023, through unsecured, redeemable, non-convertible, non-cumulative and taxable 7.59 per cent AD series bonds on a private placement basis," according to a filing.
The bonds are proposed for listing at the Wholesale Debt Market (WDM) segment of BSE and the National Stock Exchange (NSE).
STOCK IN FOCUS:
Voltas (CMP 873): Considering the decent earnings growth, higher volume and improved business visibility over the medium-term, we have our BUY rating on the stock, with a Target Price of Rs1,015.
Intraday Picks
CONCOR (PREVIOUS CLOSE: RS609) BUY
For today’s trade, long position can be initiated in the range of Rs600-
605 for the target of Rs623 with a strict stop loss of Rs595
ITC (PREVIOUS CLOSE: RS384) SELL
For today’s trade, short position can be initiated in the range of Rs388-
390 for the target of Rs378 with a strict stop loss of Rs394.
JSWSTEEL (PREVIOUS CLOSE: RS 723) SELL
For today’s trade, short position can be initiated in the range of Rs730-
735 for the target of Rs714 with a strict stop loss of Rs742.
Retail inflation for farm and rural workers rose to 6.85 per cent and 6.88 per cent, respectively, in January, mainly due to higher prices of certain food items.
The inflation readings for farm and rural workers stood at 6.38 per cent and 6.60 per cent, respectively, in December 2022.
In January last year, the inflation numbers for farm and rural workers was at 5.49 per cent and 5.74 per cent, respectively.
"Point to point rate of inflation based on the CPI-AL (Consumer Price Index Agricultural Labourers) and CPI-RL (Rural Labourers) stood at 6.85 per cent & 6.88 per cent in January 2023 compared to 6.38 per cent & 6.60 per cent, respectively in December 2022 and 5.49 per cent," the labour ministry said in a statement on Monday.
Food inflation rose to 6.61 per cent and 6.47 per cent, respectively, last month from 5.89 per cent and 5.76 per cent, respectively, in December 2022. (PTI)
Dr V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services: The market will continue to trade in a broad range of 17750-18150 since there are no triggers for a breakout or a breakdown crossing the upper or lower limit. At lower levels, DIIs and retail investors will turn buyers and at higher levels, FIIs will turn sellers. Trading opportunities are limited. But long-term investors can utilise the weakness in the market to buy high-quality stocks in performing sectors. Auto is a segment to watch since this segment is coming out of a 5-year downturn and its prospects look good, particularly in the premium segment. Reports of very low hiring and retrenchment in the IT sector may impact sentiments in this space even though some mid-caps like Persistent Systems are doing exceedingly well. Rising deposit costs are feared to impact the margins of banks even though credit growth continues to be strong. Top names in banking are good buys on declines.
Elantas Beck India will be among the stocks in focus as it will declare its December quarter earnings today. (Read More)
Fintech firm BharatPe Group has roped in former SBI Card executive Aparna Kuppuswamy as Group Chief Risk Officer.
Kuppuswamy will be working closely with the CFO and interim CEO, Nalin Negi, and lead the risk portfolio across the BharatPe Group of companies, including the merchant and consumer businesses.
"Aparna...will play a vital role in the next phase of our growth story as well as helping us in becoming IPO ready. Additionally, Aparna’s understanding of the consumer side of financial services will help us build cutting-edge products that are not only relevant but also are risk aversive," BharatPe CFO and interim CEO Nalin Negi said in a statement.
Prior to joining BharatPe, Aparna was the Chief Risk Officer at SBI Cards for over 14 years, where she led a number of key projects. (PTI)
Adani Cement on Monday said its cement business operations for ACC and Ambuja Cements will resume operations at Bilaspur and Solan district plants in Himachal Pradesh after resolving issues over freight rates.
The 67-day deadlock between the two Adani Group companies and truckers' unions over freight charges has amicably resolved the issues on freight rates said the company. Adani Group's ACC and Ambuja will resume operations on Tuesday at the Gagal and Darlaghat plants. (Read More)
Reliance Industries (RIL) is in a sweet spot with the prospects of robust earnings growth across sectors over the next two years and being in a position to take advantage of a huge value creating opportunity in new energy business, as per brokerage and research firm Antique Stock Broking.
“Firing on all cylinders: While O2C will benefit from the “platinum age of refining", telecom is set to ride the 5G transition with significant tariff increase tailwind, robust growth in retail from aggressive investments so far, and the gas production growth driving earnings of oil and gas segment. We initiate coverage on RIL shares with BUY rating and a SoTP target of ₹2,900 per share, an upside of 20%," the note stated. (Read More)
The rupee appreciated by 9 paise to close at 82.73 against the US dollar on Monday, as the American currency retreated from its six week high levels in the global markets.
Forex traders said a muted trend in domestic equities and foreign fund outflows weighed on investor sentiments and restricted the appreciation bias.
At the interbank foreign exchange market, the local unit opened at 82.69 against the American currency and finally settled at 82.73 against the greenback, registering a gain of 9 paise over its previous close of 82.82.
During the trading session, the rupee touched a high of 82.62 and a low of 82.74 against the dollar.
The dollar index, which gauges the greenback's strength against a basket of six currencies, rose 0.04 per cent to 103.90.
"Rupee traded strong near 82.75 as dollar index traded below USD 104 guiding rupee strength. Asian currencies were trading strong on the back of weakness in the dollar," said Jateen Trivedi, VP Research Analyst at LKP Securities. (PTI)
India is invoking an emergency rule that will force some of the country’s biggest coal power plants to operate at full capacity, as the country prepares to meet surging electricity demand and avoid blackouts.
Power stations operating on imported coal will be asked to run at full capacity for three months during the summer season to ease the burden on domestic coal supplies, according to a Feb. 20 power ministry order seen by Bloomberg News.
Several parts of the country are witnessing unusually warm weather for this time of the year and peak electricity demand over the past week is already close to the record levels seen last summer. The government expects peak power demand to reach 229 gigawatts by April, compared with an all-time high of 215 gigawatts seen last summer.
The affected plants include Adani Power Ltd.’s giant 4,620 megawatt facility at Mundra in the coastal state of Gujarat and Tata Power Co. Ltd.’s 4,000 megawatt plant in the same town. Some of these plants with fixed-price power supply contracts have not been operating at full capacity as it’s hard for them to supply electricity at those rates when imported coal prices rise. (Bloomberg)
The insolvency cases have increased by nearly 25 per cent in the December 2022 quarter, while recovery of debt through the process remained the lowest at 23.45 per cent in the period, according to a Care Ratings analysis.
In the December 2022 period, insolvency petitions increased by 25 per cent, while the overall recovery rate till the December quarter was just 30.4 per cent, implying a haircut of 69.6 per cent, according to an analysis of the latest numbers of insolvency board IBBI carried out by Care Ratings. (Read More)
Indian engineering manager Abheer was in the middle of a performance review cycle when he was suddenly laid off from his job at Google - victim of a wave of industry-wide cutbacks.
"Everything was going fine," said Abheer, 31, who asked to use a pseudonym to protect his identity. "I know a few people who actually got promoted in October and (then) they were laid off ... there's no kind of foresight that this is coming."
The wave of tech layoffs in the United States at companies including Meta Platforms Inc, Google and Amazon are upending the lives of foreign workers like Abheer who are in the country on H-1B visas reserved for "high skilled" occupations. (Read More)
Thyssenkrupp, the German engineering giant with interests in high-grade electrical steel manufacturing in India, is in talks with the Indian government to explore possibilities for expanding its production capacity, a top company executive said.
“We are in discussions internally as well as with the government and other authorities about a possible capacity expansion in the country. Now, we are evaluating investment possibilities in case we want to expand here. We are also investigating whether we can find logical participation here with the help of Indian institutions and the government. The fact is that the necessity for the Indian market is absolutely there," said Georgios Giovanakis, chief executive of Thyssenkrupp Electrical Steel GmbH, said in an interview. “At our plant in Nasik, we have enough land and supporting infrastructure for expansion. Hence, that is not a problem for us," he added. (Read More)
Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd.’s board has engaged consulting firm Egon Zehnder to lead a global search for a chief executive officer to replace its billionaire founder Uday Kotak, people with knowledge of the matter said.
Group presidents and whole-time directors Shanti Ekambaram and KVS Manian are the internal candidates for the top job, according to the people. The board is expanding the search to ensure it finds suitable external candidates, they said, asking not to be identified discussing confidential information. (Read More)
Wipro Ltd has asked campus hires selected for one programme to join another that pays 46% less, in a move that has sparked uncertainty among the chosen candidates. India’s fourth largest software services company wrote to tech graduates it had hired for the Turbo programme with salary offers of ₹6.5 lakh per annum that they would instead be placed in the Elite programme, which offers ₹3.5 lakh.
Turbo recruits get the higher salary after undergoing and clearing an online training programme called Velocity in the last three months of their college wherein they learn Java, AWS and full stack. So, a student initially gets hired for 3.5 lakh; and after Velocity training, gets 6.5 lakh under Turbo. (Read More)
The joint venture between Anil Agarwal led Vedanta and manufacturing giant Foxconn on Monday announced that it is setting up the semiconductor and display manufacturing facility in Dholera Special Investment Region near Ahmedabad, Gujarat.
The Vedanta-Foxconn JV in September last year signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Gujarat government to invest ₹1,54,000 crore to set up semiconductor and display manufacturing plant. It is the first semiconductor manufacturing facility in India. (Read More)
Stocks in Asia faced a muted open Tuesday and US equity futures fell as investors weighed the prospect that central banks will have to tighten policy settings more than expected to tame inflation.
Australian shares declined and futures for Japan traded lower, while those for Hong Kong stocks edged moderately higher. Contracts for the S&P 500 fell, indicating further downward pressure for US stocks after declines on Thursday and Friday. US equity and bond markets were closed for a US holiday Monday.
The dollar was flat, extending a run of range-bound trading over the past week. Treasury futures, which did trade Monday, fell slightly.
Ed Yardeni, chief investment strategist of his eponymous research firm, placed a 40% chance of a soft landing for the US economy, the highest odds among four potential scenarios facing markets this year.
“We see the greatest odds of a soft landing in which inflation moderates, the Treasury bond remains below last year’s peak, and the S&P 500 ends the year at a new high," he said in a Tuesday note. (Bloomberg)
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