MARKETS ON WEDNESDAY: Sensex ends 352 pts lower as trade war fears escalate

All that happened in the markets on Wednesday

11:35 AM

Mark-to-market provisioning relief to lift public sector banks' profits

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has lent a helping hand to the banking sector, especially public sector banks (PSBs), when it allowed them to spread the mark-to-market (MTM) provisioning burden for the October-December 2017 (Q3) and January-March 2018 (Q4) quarters equally over up to four quarters. READ MORE

11:25 AM

Fertiliser, agrochemicals stocks in focus on forecast of normal monsoon

Shares of fertiliser and agrochemicals companies were trading higher by up to 10% on the BSE in intra-day trade after the private weather forecasting agency Skymet said this year monsoon could be ‘normal’ and expected to be 100% of the long period average. READ MORE

11:11 AM

Monsoon Forecast

 

Private weather forecasting agency, Skymet on Wednesday in its first forecast said that southwest monsoon in 2018 is expected to be normal at 100 per cent of the Long Period Average (LPA) with a model error of plus and minus 5 per cent.

 

The Long Period Average for the June to September rains is around 887 millimetres.

 

The agency also said that there is nil possibility of a big nationwide drought or deficient rainfall when the total cumulative seasonal rainfall across the country falls below 90 per cent of LPA. READ MORE

(Photo: Shutterstock)

11:00 AM

Stocks at 52-week high

COMPANY	LATEST	52 WK HIGH	PREV HIGH	PREV DATE	VOLUME
APOLLO TYRES	286.60	289.15	288.80	03-APR-2018	44040
BAJAJ ELECTRICAL	641.40	663.55	638.80	03-APR-2018	137344
BHARAT FINANCIAL	1120.75	1125.00	1120.55	03-APR-2018	12836
CHOLAMAN.INV.&FN	1530.00	1548.00	1530.00	03-APR-2018	3647
FIRSTSOUR.SOLU.	56.95	57.75	57.50	03-APR-2018	734484

10:45 AM

Zensar Technologies surges 7% on multi-year contract with City of San Diego

 

Shares of Zensar Technologies have surged 7% to Rs 968 per share on the BSE in early morning trade after the company announced that it has won a four year, multi-million dollar contract from the City of San Diego for network services.

 

The stock is trading close to its 52-week high of Rs 1,000 touched on January 24, 2018 on the BSE in intra-day trade. READ MORE

10:31 AM

Sebi releases list of nearly 2,200 entities for not paying penalty

 

Nearly 2,200 entities failed to pay penalties imposed on them by markets regulator Sebi for various violations till last December.

 

The defaulters include individuals as well as companies which failed to pay penalties levied on them by Sebi for various offences related to the securities market. Some of these cases are nearly two decades old.

 

Certain amounts due are as small as Rs 15,000, while the majority of individual penalties are worth a few lakhs of rupees, and others amount to a few crores of rupees. READ MORE

10:15 AM

ICICI Securities makes weak debut

 

ICICI Securities made a weak debut by listing at Rs 431, a 17% lower against its issue price of Rs 520 per share on the BSE. On the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the stock opened at Rs 435, a 16% below its offer price.

 

ICICI Securities had reduced the size of its initial public offer (IPO) to Rs 35.15 billion after the sale elicited a sluggish response, especially from high networth individuals. The IPO was subscribed 0.78 times, received bids for 34.68 million shares, against offer size of 44.22 million shares, data on the stock exchanges website showed. READ MORE

10:00 AM

Market Check

 

S&P BSE Sensex	33,448.27		0.23%
Nifty 50	10,257.10		0.12%
S&P BSE 200	4,519.34		0.31%
Nifty 500	9,101.85		0.30%
S&P BSE Mid-Cap	16,442.47		0.66%
S&P BSE Small-Cap	17,808.01		1.02%

9:58 AM

Motilal Oswal Research on Shilpa Medicare

Shilpa Medicare (SLPA) recently decided to end its joint venture (JV) with ICE S.P.A Italy (ICE) – a move that would help it garner proceeds of INR1.3b, as against its investment of INR800m toward the JV. Furthermore, the amount of annual business with ICE via CRAMS may be reduced by ~INR500m. The decision was premised on the increasing uncertainty over the profitability of the JV.
 

Accordingly, for FY19/FY20, we reduce our (i) sales estimate by 5% to Rs 10 billion /Rs 12 billion and (ii) earnings estimate by 8.5% to Rs 2.1 billion / Rs 2.7 billion. Consequently, our price target is lowered to Rs 686 (25x 12M forward earnings). We, however, remain positive on SLPA and re-iterate our Buy rating, given the promising outlook for the US formulations business (31 ANDAs pending for approval) and minimal medium-term regulatory risk.

9:56 AM

Sector watch: Telecom

Since January 2018, telecom service providers have once again turned to market share gains at the cost of profitability. The sector might continue to see aggressive pricing for the next 12 months, leading to market share losses for the smaller players (15% currently) as well as Vodafone-Idea until the merger settles down.
 

Bharti’s acquisition of TTSL and Telenor should provide INR33.8b EBITDA in FY20, a much needed buffer to mitigate the impact of ARPU downtrading. Vodafone-Idea’s Rs 200 billion cash infusion should help take care of FY19 capex, but beyond that, net debt of Rs 1.2 trillion and net-debt-to-EBITDA of ~11x might necessitate further cash infusion.

We maintain Buy on both Bharti and Idea, but cut our target prices. Our target price is now Rs 581 (v/s Rs 680 earlier) for Bharti and Rs 91 (v/s Rs 120 earlier) for Idea. As recovery sets in in the next 3-4 quarters, strong FCF growth should re-rate the stocks.

(Source: MOSL)

9:54 AM

Engineering & Capital Goods - Q4FY18 result preview

Post demonetisation and GST impacting growth in H1, we expect execution ramp up to continue in Q4FY18, after 11% YoY growth in Q3FY18. We estimate 15% YoY revenue spurt aiding 50bps margin expansion. Among public spending verticals, railways and infra continued to see significant order finalisation, followed by T&D. While the private sector has sustained its opex spending (focus on improving efficiencies), there have been signs of revival with brown field projects in selective segments viz., cement, metals, among a few.

Pick up in greenfield projects continues to remain a key monitorable as it is crucial to drive the next leg of growth of EPC companies, which we believe is ~12-15 months away. We prefer companies with improving growth visibility and scalable businesses—L&T, Cochin Shipyard, Kalpataru Power and KEC International—which we believe are likely to outperform over the next one-two years.

(Source: Edelweiss Research)

9:50 AM

Volume Toppers

COMPANY	PRICE()	CHG()	CHG(%)	VOLUME
UNITECH	6.40	0.42	7.02	1777384
REL. COMM.	23.15	0.50	2.21	958678
IDBI BANK	73.15	1.00	1.39	940600
JP ASSOCIATES	20.55	0.20	0.98	849047
SUZLON ENERGY	11.80	0.05	0.43	698979

9:35 AM

Nifty Auto index gains over 1% on strong auto sales numbers

Top gainers

COMPANY	LATEST	PREV CLOSE	GAIN()	GAIN(%)	VOLUME
TATA MOTORS	353.40	343.10	10.30	3.00	1610974
EICHER MOTORS	28617.70	27990.00	627.70	2.24	4845
TATA MOTORS-DVR	198.20	193.95	4.25	2.19	178274
BHARAT FORGE	730.40	717.50	12.90	1.80	124380
MOTHERSON SUMI	337.70	332.35	5.35	1.61	234768
EXIDE INDS.	235.25	232.95	2.30	0.99	213951

9:23 AM

Sectoral Trend

9:21 AM

BSE Sensex: gainers and losers