India is well-stocked with inventories of crude oil and key petroleum products, including petrol, diesel, and aviation turbine fuel (ATF), to deal with short-term disruptions as the war intensifies in West Asia, Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri said on Tuesday.
After two years of strong gains, smallcap stocks fell sharply in 2025, but the correction may be setting up opportunities for long-term investors.
The stock of the country's largest beer maker, United Breweries (UBBL), is trading at 25-month lows given multiple headwinds related to volumes, regulatory issues, and margin trajectory. After a muted second quarter (July-September) of 2025-26 (Q2FY26), brokerages also expect the company's Q3FY26 performance to be underwhelming.
Developers are entering one of the busiest construction cycles, with the top four firms planning launches worth Rs 1.13 trillion over the near to medium term, even as execution faces pressure from approval delays, labour shortages, rising costs, and contractor capacity limits across the industry.
The stock of automotive (auto) components major Bharat Forge has risen 14.6 per cent over the past month. Despite ongoing demand challenges, strong operating performance in the July-September quarter (Q3) of 2025-26 (FY26), a diversified revenue base, and expectations of a gradual recovery have lifted sentiment.
The July-September quarter (Q2) performance of consumer electricals and durables major Havells India in 2025-26 (FY26) was broadly in line with Street estimates. While the top line was supported by robust growth in the wire and cable, switchgear, and lighting segments, the consumer durables segment restricted overall gains.
US strikes on Iran's three main nuclear facilities have once again raised concerns that Tehran might shut down the Strait of Hormuz - one of the world's most critical chokepoints, through which a fifth of global oil and gas supply flows.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has started winding down its short position in the dollar forward book, after a gap of seven months, on the back of a softening dollar, while infusing funds via open market operations (OMOs) to counter the resulting liquidity drain.
India's largest cable and wire manufacturer Polycab India ended financial year 2024-25 (FY25) on a high, delivering another strong quarter of double-digit growth and market share gains. This coupled with margin expansion, operating breakeven for its fast-moving electrical goods (FMEG) business, and steady exports outlook for FY26 is expected to support the stock, which is up 18 per cent over the past month. The stock is currently trading at Rs 5,765 a share.
Brokerages expect a further slowdown in Indian firms' revenue and earnings growth in Q4FY25, following low single-digit growth in the preceding three quarters, as factors like weak consumer demand and credit growth linger on.
Net profit of 19 listed banks is likely to decline by 4 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) for the quarter ended March (Q4FY25) mainly due to pressure on net interest margins (NIM) as a result of rate cut by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), according to analysts' estimates. Additionally, loan growth is expected to further slowdown amid low demand in certain secured products, stress in the unsecured segment, and a high cost to deposit (CD) ratio across the system.
Footwear companies were among the weakest performers in the consumer discretionary sector during the October-December quarter (Q3) of 2024-25. The combined revenue growth of the top four listed firms was just 2.9 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) - the lowest among major discretionary categories.
'Putin dreams about his legacy. He wants to forcibly restore the Russian empire.' 'Unfortunately, after three years of large-scale war with massive human losses, Putin will not budge from his goal because human life is the cheapest resource in the Russian State.'
The stocks are largely from sectors such as chemicals, finance and cement, which struggled earlier but the worse seems to be behind them.
Despite state-owned Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) reporting an improvement in value of new business (VNB) margin in Q1FY25, analysts believe the growth has not been satisfactory in the context of the insurer's medium-term targets on margins. VNB margin is a measure of profitability of life insurance companies. LIC's VNB margin improved by 20 basis points (bps) to 13.9 per cent in Q1FY25 over the same period last year due to a change in the business mix of the insurer.
Consolidated earnings for oil-to-telecom conglomerate Reliance Industries (RIL) may report sequential weakness, and modest year-on-year (Y-o-Y) growth in the June 2024 quarter (Q1FY25), said analysts. Lower refining margins are expected to moderate gains made from other businesses. RIL is slated to report its financial performance for Q1FY25 on July 19.
Exchange-traded currency derivatives volumes are likely to drop in view of new Reserve Bank of India (RBI) rules, casting a cloud over further participation of retail investors and proprietary traders. There are concerns that existing positions without any underlying exposure will need to be liquidated. Also, weighed down by dollar demand from local oil companies and weakness in its Asian peers, the rupee on Wednesday (April 3) ended at a new closing low of 83.44 versus the US currency.
The Mumbai-based real estate developer Oberoi Realty has been one of the top-performing companies in its segment and most brokerage remains bullish on the stock. The company's stock price is 52 per cent in the last 12 months beating the broader market by a huge margin. The benchmark BSE Sensex is up just 6.5 per cent during the period.
Capital goods companies are likely to report double-digit growth in sales and profit for the first quarter of the 2023-24 financial year (Q1FY24), according to analysts. The performance will ride on lower raw-material costs and healthy execution of orders. Sales by capital goods companies are likely to increase 13-20 per cent year-on-year (YoY), five domestic brokerage firms said.
Among the Sensex firms, Larsen & Toubro, UltraTech Cement, JSW Steel, Titan, Bajaj Finance, Wipro, Tech Mahindra and Nestle were the major laggards. Maruti, Power Grid, Axis Bank, State Bank of India, NTPC, HDFC Bank, ITC and IndusInd Bank were the gainers.
Bharat Forge, the Pune-based automotive component maker, has been one of the top-performing companies in its segment. The company's stock price is up 39.3 per cent since the beginning of the 2023 calendar year, surpassing other leading automotive component makers such as Bosch and Samvardhana Motherson International. The stock also outperformed the benchmark BSE Sensex, which is up 17.3 per cent year to date so far.
The decision by the Reserve Bank of India to introduce a unified regulatory framework on connected lending for all the regulated entities (RE) is expected to reduce the influence of business conglomerates in the Indian lending space, said bankers and experts. "Connected lending pertains to lending to related parties within the same business group. "While the RBI might appear more agreeable to allowing business conglomerates to own banking licenses, it deems it crucial to bolster regulations that would prevent conglomerate-owned banks from gaming the system," said Shivaji Thapliyal, head of research and lead analyst, YES Securities.
Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) have pulled out over Rs 10,000 crore from Indian equities in the first three weeks of September, primarily due to rising US interest rates, recessionary fears, and overvalued domestic stocks. Before the outflow, FPIs were incessantly buying Indian equities in the last six months from March to August and brought in Rs 1.74 lakh crore during the period. Mayank Mehra, smallcase, manager and principal partner at Craving Alpha,believes that strong economic growth prospects, attractive valuations, and government reforms could support foreign investment flows in the next month.
Market participants attribute the stability to the Reserve Bank of India's timely intervention in the foreign exchange market, both in terms of selling and buying dollars.
The two-wheeler segment is, however, still far from its H1FY19 peak of 9.7 million units
Brokerages have cut their estimates of listed diagnostics players for the financial year 2023-24 (FY24) after mixed December quarter results and muted near-term outlook. Their volumes and realisations will be under pressure due to weakness in Covid-adjusted performance and higher competitive pressures, the brokerages believe. In a post-Q3 results note on Dr Lal Pathlabs, Bhavesh Gandhi of YES Securities pointed out that there has been a lack of volume revival in recent quarters, with an increasing likelihood that FY24 too would be a work-in-progress year for the company's initiatives to bear fruit.
Shares of telecom services providers - Reliance Industries (parent of Reliance Jio), Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea - have shed up to 23 per cent so far in the current calendar year as growth in the wireless subscriber segment begins to plateau amid higher tariffs and rising costs of smartphones. By comparison, the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex, and sectoral index BSE Telecom have dipped 1.8 per cent, and 12.6 per cent, respectively, ACE Equity data shows. However, analysts expect the trend to reverse soon as telecom services providers focus on the next leg of growth -- fixed broadband (FBB) segment.
The headline for corporate profit growth has been very encouraging in the July-September quarter (Q2) of 2023-24 (FY24), with the combined net profit of listed companies up by 38 per cent year-on-year. However, the earnings distribution has been very lopsided, with most of the growth coming from public-sector oil-marketing companies (OMCs), banks, non-bank lenders, automobile (auto) companies, and cement producers. By comparison, companies from information technology services, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), retail, and consumer durables were disappointed, experiencing a sharp slowdown in net sales growth and a relatively muted increase in reported net profit.
From the Sensex pack, NTPC, Tata Motors, Titan, Larsen & Toubro, Reliance Industries, IndusInd Bank, Infosys, HDFC Bank and Power Grid were among the major gainers. Wipro and Tech Mahindra were the laggards.
The Indian financial services space seems to be in a sweet spot as foreign investors have made a net investment of Rs 14,205 crore ($2.1 billion) in the sector in November amid strong credit growth and manageable non-performing loan portfolio. The investment comes following a net withdrawal of Rs 4,686 crore from financial services stocks in October on account of profit booking. Overall, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) have made a net investment of Rs 36,238 crore in the country's equity markets in November.
The recent sell-off in IT stocks such as Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has resulted in a sharp decline in the IT sector weighting in the Nifty50 index. The sector's weighting in the index has slipped to a five-year low of 12.2 per cent, down from the 17.7 per cent at the end of March 2022. The top IT companies - TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCL Technologies, and Tech Mahindra - accounted for 13.6 per cent of the index at the end of March this year.
With raw material prices rising sequentially in Q4 FY23, margins of fast moving electrical goods (FMEG) companies could witness pressure as they refrain from hiking prices and demand remains soft. Transition to a new regulatory regime-fans moved to new BEE standards from January 1-poses additional risk for firms. Business depends on volume trends in summer for key sub-segments, which account for a significant chunk of the sector's overall sales pie.
Unlike any other business, banking is a turf where the captain's role is the most critical. Often a bank is defined by the personality of the CEO who runs it. Both HDFC Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank are the creation of their CEOs, notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Yes Securities, the broking and investment arm of Yes Bank, on Wednesday said the Supreme Court directive on loan moratorium due to pandemic has brought the much needed clarity and there will not be any financial impact on the banks as the compound interest waiver is to be reimbursed by the government. On its verdict on a batch of pleas seeking moratorium extension beyond August 31, 2020, the apex court on Tuesday said it is a policy decision, refusing to interfere with the Centre's and RBI's decision to not extend the loan moratorium beyond the limit. However, it observed that the benefit of moratorium should go to all set of borrowers irrespective of the loan amount and asked to refund any amount collected as penal interest and compound interest during March-August 2020.
Stock market investors are expecting a balanced Budget with a focus on job creation, increased spending on infrastructure, reigning in the deficit, and bringing the economy back on track, experts said on Wednesday. Stock markets have been subdued in the run-up to the Union Budget with BSE's benchmark Sensex is almost flat so far this month. Even the corporate earning season failed to excite the markets, while some indices like IT and bankex have seen some positive movements.
Trading volumes for the equities cash segment remained soft, even as the benchmark indices rallied nearly 9 per cent in July. Meanwhile, volumes in the futures and options (F&O) market dipped marginally, but continued to hover at record levels. In July, the average daily turnover (ADTV) for the cash segment was Rs 46,602 crore, up 4.5 per cent month-on-month (MoM), but 26 per cent lower than the preceding 12-month average.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) is working on a new payment system for the secondary market, which could prevent brokers from accessing their client funds. It will be on the lines of the Application Supported by Blocked Amount (ASBA) process used for subscribing to initial public offerings (IPOs), where funds move out of an investor's bank account only after the trade is confirmed. Sebi chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch on Wednesday said that despite the challenges, the new system would be ready in a few months.
A new generation of investors has taken to stock trading on mobile phones with a renewed zeal, driven mainly by social changes after the Covid-19 pandemic breakout. The proportion of the cash market turnover ascribed to mobile phones has jumped from 5.3 per cent in June 2019 to 18.7 per cent in June this year, reveals BSE data. The share of mobile trading on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) for June this year stood at 19.5 per cent.
Sixteen merchant banks are in the fray to act as book running lead managers (BRLM) for the initial public offering of Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC). These merchant banks will have to make a presentation before the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) on August 24-25. The shortlisted banks are BNP Paribas, Citigroup Global Markets India, BofA Securities, Goldman Sachs (India) Securities, HSBC Securities and Capital Markets(India), J.P. Morgan India, Nomura Financial Advisory and Securities (India), Axis Capital, DAM Capital Advisors, HDFC Bank, ICICI Securities, IIFL Securities, JM Financial, Kotak Mahindra Capital, SBI Capital Market, and Yes Securities India.
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