Get App
Benchmark indices closed marginally higher in a volatile week as gains in realty, media and pharma stocks were capped by losses in oil & gas, energy and banking stocks. For the week, the Sensex rose 0.07% to 62,547.11. The Nifty 50 index gained 0.19% to 18,534.10. The BSE Midcap index rose 1.83% to 27,294.10, while the BSE Smallcap index 2.40% to 30,885.70.
During the week, FIIs were net buyers for Rs 6,519.7 crore and DIIs were net sellers for Rs 1,043.1 crore in the cash segment. For the entire month of May 2023, FIIs were net buyers for Rs 27,856.48 crore, while DIIs were net sellers for Rs 3,306.35 crore.
Top gainers among Nifty sectoral indices were Realty [3.87%], Media [3.15%], Consumer Durables [2.64%], Healthcare [2.51%], and Pharma [2.37%]. Top losers were Oil & Gas [-2.75%], Energy [-1.87%], and Bank [-0.18%].
Indian rupee appreciated by 11 paise to 82.31 against the US dollar on Friday.
Company News
Coal India: Indian Government’s offer for sale (OFS) of shares in Coal India received a strong response from institutional investors and retail investors. In the two-day offer for sale (OFS), the government sold 18.48 crore shares or 3% in the company. On Wednesday, the union ministry of coal informed the exchanges that the floor price for OFS would be Rs 225 per share.
Maruti Suzuki India: India’s largest passenger vehicle manufacturer announced that its total sales for the month of May 2023 aggregated to 178,083 units, up 10.3% from 161,413 units sold in the same period last year. The sales of passenger vehicles increased 15.45% to 143,708 units, while sales of light commercial vehicles slipped 18.09% to 2,888 units in May 2023 over May 2022. While the company’s total domestic sales rose by 12.9% to 151,606 units, exports declined by 2.63% to 26,477 units in May 2023 over May 2022.
Hero MotoCorp: The two-wheeler maker registered 7% year-on-year growth in sales to 519,474 units during May 2023. The company expects the upside trend in sales to continue in the coming months owing to customer sentiments uptick, normal monsoon, and new launches. In May 2022, the total sales stood at 486,704 units. As per its regulatory filing, of the total sales in May 2023, it sold 489,336 motorcycles and 30,138 scooters as against 452,246 motorcycles and 34,458 scooters sold in May 2022. Domestic sales stood at 508,309 units in May 2023, up from sales of 466,466 units in May last year. Meanwhile, exports declined to 11,165 units in May 2023 versus 20,238 units in May 2022.
Reliance Industries (RIL): JioCinema, the streaming platform of RIL, and NBC Universal (NBCU) have entered into a multi-year partnership to offer films and TV series in India. Under the partnership, the over-the-top (OTT) platform will stream Comcast NBCUniversal’s production entities and brands. The deal will give JioCinema’s premium subscribers access to popular Hollywood shows.
ICICI Bank: The private sector lender’s board has approved to raise its stake in ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company by up to 4% in multiple tranches, and makes the general insurance company its subsidiary. ICICI Bank already holds 48.02% stake in the general insurer, and it plans to acquire at least 2.5% of the 4% before September 9, 2024. The board has also approved the re-appointment of Sandeep Batra as executive director of the bank for a period of two years with effect from 23 December 2023 to 22 December 2025, subject to RBI approval.
Sun Pharma: The company announced that it has entered into a licensing agreement with Philogen S.p.A for commercializing Philogen’s specialty product, Nidlegy (Daromun) in the territories of Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Nidlegy, currently in Phase-III clinical trials, is a new anti-cancer biopharmaceutical which is being developed by Philogen for the treatment of melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancers. The two partner companies will share post-commercialization economics in about 50:50 ratio.
Tata Motors: The company has announced the opening of tender to buyback its external commercial borrowing bonds. The automaker said that it had issued external commercial borrowing bonds of $250,000,000 5.75% senior notes 2024 (ECB bonds) on 30 October 2014, which are listed on the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Limited. The company has commenced a tender offer inviting the holders of the ECB bonds to offer to sell for cash to the company the ECB bonds held by such bond holders, subject to the terms and conditions set out in the tender offer memorandum dated 31 May 2023, issued by the company, its regulatory filing said.
Tata Motors sold 74,973 units of commercial and passenger vehicles in May 2023, falling 1.6% from 76,210 units in May 2022. Domestic sales dropped 2% YoY to 73,448 units, but exports grew by 4.8% to 1,525 units in the same period.
Vedanta: Indian Government is reportedly set to decline Foxconn and Vedanta’s joint venture request to receive incentives for manufacturing semiconductor chips in India, Bloomberg reported citing sources. According to the report, authorities are likely to inform the joint venture (JV) that it won’t receive incentives for building 28-nanometre chips. The JV has not been able to meet government requirements to receive the funding as the project is yet to find a technology partner or license manufacturing-grade technology for the 28nm chips it was seeking to build, sources said.
Meanwhile, Vedanta Resources — the parent company of mining giant Vedanta — said it has further repaid $400 million of loans, cutting gross debt to $6.4 billion.
Apollo Hospitals Enterprise: The company’s net profit jumped 50.5% to Rs 146 crore in Q4FY23 as against Rs 97 in Q4FY22. Its revenue was up 21.3% to Rs 4302.2 crore in Q4FY23 as against Rs 3546.4 crore in Q4FY22. EBITDA rose 5.4% to Rs 488.2 crore in Q4FY23 as against Rs 463.3 crore in Q4FY22.
Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ): The leading ports and logistics company has recorded a consolidated profit of Rs 1,159 crore in Q4FY23, up by 5% YoY. The company reported an impairment of Rs 1,273.38 crore during the March quarter on account of urgent sale of Myanmar assets, declared as exceptional items. Revenue from operations in Q4FY23 stood at Rs 5,797 crore, up 40% over the corresponding period last fiscal. The board has recommended a dividend of Rs 5 per share for FY23.
Adani Transmission: The company’s consolidated revenue was up 12.9% YoY at Rs 3,357.7 crore in Q4FY23. Ebitda was up 27.3% YoY at Rs 1,203.2 crore in Q4FY23. Consolidated net profit was up 85.5% YoY at Rs 439.6 crore in Q4FY23.
Eicher Motors: The company’s total motorcycles (Royal Enfield) sales jumped 22% to 77,461 units in May 2023 from 63,643 units sold in May 2022. While sales of motorcycle models with engine capacity up to 350cc surged 28% to 69,038 units, sales of motorcycle models with engine capacity more than 350cc fell 14% to 8,423 units in May 2023 over May 2022. In the international market, sales stood at 6,666 units in May 2023, which is lower by 34% as compared with 10,118 units sold in May 2022.
Separately, Eicher Motors said that it will set up fifth overseas Royal Enfield CKD assembly unit. The unit will have one lac square feet facility and an assembling capacity of 20,000 units per year. Operations will begin with local assembly of new Classic 350 and Scram 411 models.
Further, the automaker announced that its unlisted subsidiary, VE Commercial Vehicles (VECV) had reported 11.6% increase in commercial vehicles (CV) sales at 6,289 units in May 2023 over May 2022. The total domestic sales of Eicher trucks and buses rose 15.8% to 5,826 units, while total exports declined 46.9% to 250 units in May 2023 over May 2022. Total sales of Volvo trucks and buses surged 60.2% to 213 units in May 2023 as compared with 133 units sold in May 2022.
Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC): The company’s standalone revenue rose 39.7% YoY to Rs 965 crore in Q4FY23. Ebitda rose 16.5% YoY to Rs 324.6 crore in Q4FY23. Standalone net profit rose 30% YoY to Rs 278.8 crore in Q4FY23. The company reported exceptional gain to the tune of Rs 25.9 crore for the quarter under review, compared to exceptional loss of Rs 4 crore in the year-ago period. The company will pay a final dividend of Rs 2 per share for the fiscal 2023.
Dixon Technologies (India): The company announced a partnership with Xiaomi India to manufacture and export Xiaomi mobile phones. The two companies would also explore enhancing component ecosystem in India through the wholly owned subsidiaries of Dixon. Dixon Technologies (India) is a diversified electronics manufacturing services (EMS) company with operations across electronic products vertical.
Economy News
India’s GDP growth rate for Q4FY23 stood at 6.1%, which is higher than the preceding quarter’s growth rate of 4.4%. The overall GDP growth rate for FY23 was 7.2%, which is higher than the government’s revised estimate of 7%. However, the FY23 growth rate is lower than the 9.5% growth rate in FY22.
Meanwhile, the government’s fiscal deficit narrowed to Rs 17.33 trillion or 6.4% of GDP for FY23, on the back of higher tax receipts. India’s gross GST revenue collection in the month of May stood at Rs 1,57,090 crore, a rise of 12% YoY, the Ministry of Finance said on Thursday. April saw a record high GST collection of Rs 1.87 lakh crore.
Moreover, the total gross collection for 2022-23 stood at Rs 18.10 lakh crore and the average gross monthly collection for the full year is Rs 1.51 lakh crore. The gross revenues in 2022-23 were 22% higher than that last year.
India’s foreign exchange reserves dropped by $6.052 billion to $593.477 billion during the week ended May 19, RBI said on Friday.
The seasonally adjusted S&P Global India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) rose to 58.7 in May, registering robust expansion of the sector since October 2020.
Global Markets
The US markets closed higher as technology stocks gained and the US Senate passed the US debt ceiling legislation avoiding a default. For the week, the S&P 500 jumped 1.83%, Nasdaq surged 2.04% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average index rose 2.02%.
Meanwhile, comments from US Fed officials hinted that the Fed is likely to keep the interest rates steady.
On the economic front, Job openings, a measure of labor demand in the US, increased by 358,000 to 10.1 million in April. Data for March was revised higher to show 9.75 million job openings instead of the previously reported 9.59 million. Further, non-farm payrolls increased 339,000 in May 2023. Unemployment rate rose to 3.7% in May from 3.4% in April.
Japanese equities rose over the week, helped by continued strong foreign investor interest. The Nikkei 225 index surged 1.97% and the broader Topix index soared 1.72%. The yen strengthened to about JPY 139 against the US dollar from the prior week’s JPY 140.66.
Chinese equities rose after the US Senate passed the US debt ceiling bill and removed the risk of a default as well as revived investors’ risk appetite. The Shanghai Stock Exchange index gained 0.55%, while the CSI 300 added 0.28% and the Hang Seng index rose 1.08% during the week.
On the economic front, China’s official manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) fell to 48.8 in May from April’s 49.2. A reading above 50 represents an expansion from the previous month. The non-manufacturing PMI also eased, falling to 54.5 in May from 56.4 in April. Separately, the private Caixin/S&P Global survey of manufacturing activity unexpectedly rose to 50.9 in May from April’s 49.5 as output and new orders rose at the highest level in almost a year.
Industrial profits in China declined 20.6% in the first four months of the year from the year-ago period, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.