MARKETS ON MONDAY: Sensex ends 162 pts up, Nifty at 10,379 on Asian cues

All that happened in the markets today.

12:17 PM

Gold could shine again

The rupee has fallen across the board over the past three months. It has lost ground against the dollar, the euro, the yen (JPY) and the Chinese renminbi (RMB). It has even lost value versus the pound (GBP), which is perhaps, the most surprising. The weakness has come about as a result of several trends.

A higher trade deficit has led directly to a higher current account deficit (CAD). Forex inflows have also eased off, leading to further pressure. A rise in global crude prices is partially responsible for the trade deficit but there are other factors at play as well. READ MORE

12:02 PM

Asia FX outlook improves but yuan to lose ground on trade dispute: Reuters poll

The outlook for emerging Asian currencies has brightened for the coming year as the trade dispute between the U.S. and China has further underscored a weak dollar view, but that uncertainty has also dulled the yuan's allure, a Reuters poll found.

 

While Asian currencies, which are heavily exposed to global trade, should have taken a hit from the ongoing tit-for-tat trade row and on expectations for faster rate hikes from the U.S. Federal Reserve, most of them have gained this year. READ MORE HERE

12:01 PM

Markets at Noon

 

S&P BSE Sensex	33,770.47		0.43%
Nifty 50	10,380.40		0.47%
S&P BSE 200	4,569.61		0.41%
Nifty 500	9,206.40		0.37%
S&P BSE Mid-Cap	16,628.20		0.19%
S&P BSE Small-Cap	17,969.17		0.48%

12:00 PM

GLOBAL MARKET ROUND-UP

Asian shares crept higher on Monday as a rally in U.S. stock futures soothed sentiment even as U.S. President Donald Trump kept up his twitter war with China just a couple of days before President Xi Jinping gives a keynote speech. Helping was news North Korea had told the United States for the first time that it was prepared to discuss denuclearization when their leaders meet. There was more confusion than reaction to reports, which the Pentagon quickly denied, that U.S. forces had struck at sites in Syria. READ MORE

11:52 AM

Motilal Oswal on Titan Company

4QFY18 turned out to be a good quarter for the Jewellery division, with retail growth coming in at mid-teens, despite no new collection launch. Growth was driven by successful diamond jewellery activation and the revised gold exchange policy. We maintain our Buy rating on Titan, with a revised target price of Rs 1,090 (valued at 55x March 2020E EPS, a 33% premium to the three-year average multiple, because of the strong earnings growth prospects – 26% EPS CAGR over FY18-20)

11:46 AM

Datamatics Global soars 15% on acquisition of BPO firm RJ Globus Solutions

Shares of Datamatics Global Services have rallied 15% to Rs 129 per share, extending their 2% gain on the BSE on Friday, after the acquisition of RJ Globus Solutions, a BPO company in Philippines, to strengthen its BPO offerings to meet the growing demands of customers and increase its market presence. The company said it acquired 75% shares and balance 25% shares will be acquired in the year 2019 and 2020 based on the financial performance of the target Company. READ MORE

11:34 AM

From ICICI Prudential MF to SBI MF, fund houses see assets swell in 2017-18

Assets under management (AUM) of mutual funds (MFs) rose 26 per cent year-on-year to Rs 23 trillion in the recently-concluded fiscal year 2017-18. The top three fund houses — ICIC Prudential MF, HDFC MF and Aditya Birla Sun Life MF — witnessed their assets grow in line with the industry.
 

Among the top five players, Reliance Nippon MF underperformed, while SBI MF reported the highest growth, data provided by industry body Association of Mutual Funds show. Fund houses that saw the highest growth in AUM were Motilal Oswal MF and Mirae Asset MF. READ MORE

11:22 AM

Titan Company shares hit new high on good growth in jewellery in Q4FY18

Shares of Titan Company hit a new high of Rs 970 per share, up 3.3% on the BSE after the company said that its jewelry segment saw mid-teen retail sales growth during the quarter ended March 2018 (Q4FY18). The stock surpassed its previous high of Rs 963 recorded on March 28, 2018 on the BSE in intra-day trade. READ MORE

11:11 AM

Reliance Securities on HeidelbergCement India

HeidelbergCement India (HCIL) gained over 5% in Friday’s range bound market on the expectation of healthy 4QFY18 numbers mainly to be aided by healthy volume in Central markets.

 

Our channel check suggests that the Central region is likely to see realizations improvement of ~5% YoY and ~4% QoQ in 4QFY18. Further, with the resolution of sand mining issues in Uttar Pradesh, demand in central region has witnessed a firm recovery aiding companies to witness healthy sales volume.

 

Further, with no meaningful capacity addition coming in Central region in next 2-3 years except UltraTech and JK Cement, we believe HCIL would hit a sweet spot to improve its financials in ensuing years, on the back of healthy demand outlook owing to favourable monsoon, likely uptick in government spending in UP & MP and resolution of sand mining issues.

 

Further, likely de-leveraging of balance-sheet along with better operating performance is expected to result in improvement in return ratios. ​​We maintain our fundamental BUY recommendation on the stock with a Target Price of Rs205.

11:10 AM

Reliance Securities on H.G. Infra

H.G. Infra (HGI) has been gaining a healthy traction for last two years on​ the backdrop of consistent order book addition and improving execution expertise. While current order book of Rs50.6bn (4.8x FY17 revenue) provides robust growth visibility, HGI is expected to add more orders to its kitty mainly led by improvement in financial prequalification and enormous opportunity in Roads & Highway segment.

 

We expect HGI’s revenue and earnings to clock 31% and 46% CAGR, respectively through FY17-FY20E. Further, current valuations at 18.4x ​​/ 13.7x EPS of FY19E / FY20E, respectively, look attractive considering less than 1x PEG ratio and strong return ratios. ​​We maintain our fundamental BUY rating on the stock with a Target Price of Rs 375

11:07 AM

MARKET COMMENT

Technical Outlook: Nifty 50 after testing 200DMA has swiftly bounced back. It has also penetrated downward sloping trend line indicating that market is rally ready. It is likely that Nifty50 may slightly dip before moving upwards. On the higher side Nifty50 can touch 10600 in the short time wherein some amount of profit booking can be expected. On a worst case scenario prices can touch 10,000 levels, which should act as stop loss for positional traders. Buy on dips should be the strategy for traders.

(Source: Samco Securities)

11:05 AM

Market Snapshot (Image source: NSE)

10:50 AM

MORGAN STANLEY ON ECONOMIC DATA

At a headline level, export growth will likely decline by 5.6% YoY in March, though this is largely on account of a significant base effect (export growth was 27% YoY in March-17). Hence, we expect underlying export growth to have held up reasonably well.

Trade growth in other economies has held up well, and we do not expect a significant impact on trade credit and export growth due to the move to ban letters of undertaking and letters of comfort. Industrial production should accelerate to 8.7%, even as sequential momentum is likely to have moderated slightly in February. We expect CPI inflation to moderate further in March due to deceleration in food prices before favourable base effects lift it higher in subsequent months.

The corporate logo of financial firm Morgan Stanley is pictured on the company's world headquarters in New York, New York January 20, 2015. REUTERS

10:45 AM

NEW LISTING Lemon Tree Hotels makes decent debut; lists 10% premium over issue price

Lemon Tree Hotels has made a decent debut by listing at Rs 61.60, a 10% premium against issue price of Rs 56 on the BSE and the National Stock Exchange (NSE). At 10:01 am; the stock was trading 9% higher at Rs 60.80 on the BSE. Post listing, it hit an intra-day of Rs 65. A combined 1.23 million shares changed hands on the counter on the BSE and NSE so far. READ MORE

10:41 AM

MARKET COMMENT BY NOMURA RBI increases limit on FPI investments in bonds

Given that the increase in FPI limits was largely expected, the announcement should broadly be neutral to markets, in our view. Assuming the utilisation of these limits remain at current levels (i.e. 93% for general category investors and 82% for long-term investors, as of end-March), this increase in limits should help FPIs absorb ~12% of net supply for the year FY19 (Figure 2). In FY18, FPIs absorbed 15% of net supply. We believe the increase in FPI limits is a step in the right direction, helping to resolve supply/demand issues for bonds.