If you have not yet filed an ITR for the 2022-2023 financial year, you can file a belated return.
With sentiment for the automotive (auto) sector turning positive, stocks of two-wheeler auto majors have been hitting their 52-week highs. Hero MotoCorp, Bajaj Auto, TVS Motor Company, and Eicher Motors recently reached their yearly highs on strong sales in the festival season and the expectation of faster growth rates ahead. Since the start of this month, listed two-wheeler majors have delivered returns in the 12-17 per cent range, compared to the 7 per cent gains for the S&P BSE Auto Index and 3 per cent for the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex.
The upstream oil and gas (O&G) sector has delivered a stellar performance in the stock market in the recent past. The O&G sector is dominated by PSUs and despite the imposition of a windfall tax, profitability has been impressive. Oil India Limited (OIL) is particularly favoured by investors.
When it comes to electric cars, the electric dream is turning out to be a six-letter word starting with f, ending with y, and having antas in between, notes Suveen Sinha.
Brokerages lowered their earnings estimates following muted results in Q1FY24. While analysts remain optimistic about the stock's medium-term prospects, they highlight near-term concerns stemming from lower realisations due to changes in the product mix and margin pressures resulting from new plane additions.
'Even during the pandemic we did it.' 'We think it's our responsibility to make sure that we manage the uncertainty.'
'While lower steel prices may impact a part of the quarter, this will be offset by softer raw material prices.'
Bolstered by an impressive performance in the global specialty business and outstanding results in the Indian market, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, the largest pharmaceutical (pharma) company in the country, showcased a strong performance in the July-September quarter (second quarter, or Q2) of 2023-24 (FY24).
A potential risk to the rupee's appreciation trajectory lies in the event of a delay in the Federal Reserve's rate cut cycle, particularly if core inflation in the US remains elevated.
Warning that the new year will be riskier than the previous two in terms of growth, inflation and the perils of monetary policy normalisation on consumption demand in particular, along with other external risks, a Wall Street brokerage has pencilled in an 8.2 per cent GDP growth next fiscal, with more downside risks to the projection. The biggest risk to the projection is a derailed consumption demand that has been the main growth driver in the past many years, said the Bank of America Securities India house economists who still believe that consumption demand will remain the key driver of growth next fiscal as well.
The stock of Aditya Birla Fashion Retail is down 10 per cent from its February high. Even as the revenue performance of the apparel retail major in the October-December quarter's for the 2022-23 financial year (Q3FY23) was better than expected, the company saw brokerage downgrades, given the weak operating performance and the pressure on margins. This the second consecutive quarter of margin miss despite strong traction on the sales front.
The Reserve Bank India's (RBI's) decision to ban the onboarding of new accounts on the "bob World" mobile digital platform led to a selloff in the Bank of Baroda (BoB) stock. The stock of the public sector bank dropped by around 3 per cent. The central bank cited "material supervisory concerns"; news reports claimed mobile numbers were randomly linked to accounts to purportedly inflate registrations on bob World.
Shares of online food delivery aggregator Zomato rose above their initial public offering price after more than a year. The stock hit an intraday high of Rs 76.3 per share before settling at Rs 75.8. The company had priced its shares at Rs 76 during Rs 9,375-crore IPO in July 2021.
It won't be easy for the banking sector to better its performance every quarter, predicts Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Public-sector banks (PSBs) in Q3FY23 wrote off bad loans worth Rs 29,000 crore, up from Rs 23,000 crore in the same quarter a year ago, as part of a clean-up exercise. According to estimates by rating agency CARE Ratings, the write-offs by PSBs in April-December 2022, at Rs 81,000 crore, were lower than the Rs 90,000 crore in April-December 2021. Sanjay Agarwal, senior director, CARE Ratings, said a lot of it was driven by regulations, and assets that had 100 per cent provision coverage were written off.
The March quarter (Q4) of the ongoing financial year (FY23) may see cement companies report better financial numbers as input costs ease, pricing action resumes, and cement demand remains firm. While companies have been cautiously optimistic about their outlook, analysts and sector experts remain bullish. In its latest report on the cement sector, brokerage IDBI Capital said that it expected earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (Ebitda) per tonne for cement companies to improve by Rs 200-300 sequentially in Q4.
India's corporate sector is likely to report a slowdown in revenue growth and earnings for the July-September 2023 period (Q2FY24), according to earnings estimates by brokerages, after the country's top listed companies posted higher than expected profits for the first quarter. The combined net profit of Nifty50 companies, based on brokerage estimates, is expected to have grown by 19.6 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) to Rs 1.75 trillion in Q2FY24 - a sharp deceleration from 37.6 per cent Y-o-Y growth in the combined earnings of index companies in the April-June 2023 period. According to estimates, the combined earnings in the second quarter would be down 8.8 per cent on a quarter-on-quarter (Q-o-Q) basis and the lowest in the past three quarters.
UltraTech Cement's results for the fourth quarter results of the 2022-23 financial year (Q4FY23) were broadly in line with the Street estimates. The consolidated revenue, operating profit and net profit stood at Rs 18,700 crore, Rs 3,300 crore and Rs 1,670 crore, respectively, which were up 18 per cent, 8 per cent and 13 per cent YoY, respectively.
Target prices around Rs 400 suggest a significant upside.
Drug shortages in the US are at an all-time high, and price erosion has stabilised, which could benefit Indian pharmaceutical (pharma) companies with a US focus, according to analysts. Nuvama Research analysts said that US price erosion seems to have normalised to its old levels of 6-8 per cent and volumes are picking up with easing of inventory. Similarly, an ICICIdirect analyst noted: "Price erosion intensity has now moderated to a single digit and is expected to tone down a
House economists at the nation's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) have urged the government to budget for nursing the pandemic-ravaged economy and not to focus too much on fiscal consolidation as there is a need for more stabilisation measures to sustain the fledgling recovery. And one of the best way to begin the new fiscal is to complete the share sale of LIC this fiscal. This can go a long way in repairing the overstretched balance sheet which in turn will bring down fiscal deficit to a much lower 6.3 per cent in FY23 as the public coffers will be left with a cash surplus of at least Rs 3 lakh crore to begin the new fiscal, SBI chief economist Soumya Kanti Ghosh said in a pre-Budget note on Wednesday.
An increased brand fee paid by India-listed Vedanta, apart from record dividend, has helped Vedanta Resources (VRL) - the London-based holding company of Vedanta Group - to repay part of its debt. Vedanta paid a brand fee of Rs 2,632 crore ($325 million) for 2022-23 (FY23), according to Nomura report. This was after the Anil Agarwal-owned holding company raised the brand fee to 2 per cent of the turnover for its Indian businesses in 2021.
Corporate earnings grew in double digits during the April-June 2022 (Q1FY23) quarter but the momentum waned. Overall corporate earnings in the quarter were down sharply from their highs in FY22. The combined net profit of 2,981 listed companies across sectors in the Business Standard sample was up 22.4 per cent YoY to Rs 2.24 trillion in the June quarter, driven by a big jump in the earnings of banks, non-banking lenders, oil & producers, and FMCG companies. Also, earnings in the corresponding quarter a year ago were affected because of the second wave of the Covid pandemic, even though the numbers were a lot better than Q1FY21 when there was a nationwide lockdown.
Six states out of 22 major states and Union Territories (UTs) generated fewer formal jobs for the youth in the September quarter than they did in the corresponding quarter a year ago, a Business Standard analysis of the data released by the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) shows. States like Punjab (-12.4 per cent), Himachal Pradesh (-10.3 per cent), Jharkhand (- 7.2 per cent), Assam (-3.7 per cent), Gujarat (-3.4 per cent) and Rajasthan (-.1.1 per cent) saw further decline in the number of net new subscribers in the second quarter (Q2) of FY23 compared to the last year. The analysis did not include northeastern states, except for Assam. This is crucial as the subscribers in the 18-28 age group are seen as first-timers in the labour market, thus reflecting the robustness of the job market.
Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (ZEEL) is seeking rapprochement with Sony Group as it makes a last-ditch effort to resurrect a $10 billion merger, according to industry sources. After the Japanese multinational firm pulled the plug on its $10 billion merger deal in January, the Indian company reached out again to Sony to reconsider the termination and offered for talks this month, a source said. On the other hand, Sony is understood to be evaluating the proposal from Zee.
Coffee Day Global Ltd (CDGL) and its financial creditor IndusInd Bank have reached a settlement, following which NCLAT has set aside an insolvency order against the company which owns and operates coffee chain Cafe Coffee Day. Counsel representing CDGL and IndusInd bank on Wednesday informed the Chennai bench of National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) about the settlement and sought permission to withdraw insolvency litigations. A two-member bench comprising Justice M Venugopal and Shreesha Merla took their submissions on record and set aside the order admitting CDGL to insolvency.
The change in debt fund taxation is seen as boosting the demand for hybrid funds. It is no surprise then that asset management companies (AMCs) have launched a raft of new products in the multi-asset category. However, they seem to be divided on the asset mix and approach. The multi-asset space, which provides fund houses ample scope to innovate, has seen five launches in as many months.
India's second-largest information technology (IT) firm Infosys has decided to reduce the average variable payout of employees to 70 per cent due to falling operating margins in the first quarter (Q1) of 2022-23 (FY23), said people in the know. "The margin impact in the current quarter has reflected on the performance bonus for this cycle," the company told its employees over email. "While 70 per cent is the correct figure, an important point is we have been told that the company will not defer any variable payment. "It is being paid according to schedule," said a person.
The recent price correction in broader markets has hit cement companies hard. So far in the current month, smallcap firms like Visaka Industries, Andhra Cements NCL Industries, Sahyadri Industries, and KCP have lost 19.7 per cent, 14.3 per cent, 13.8 per cent, 13.5 per cent, and 11.5 per cent, respectively. On the contrary, largecap companies, while registering losses for the month, have seen a softer blow.
Benchmark interest rate hiked by 50 basis points to 3-year high at 5.90 per cent. Economic growth projection for FY23 cut to 7% from 7.2% estimated in August. GDP expected to grow at 6.3% in September quarter, 4.6% each in December and March quarters.
The small-cap universe outperformed large-caps, but failed to match the returns generated by mid-caps in August. The Nifty Smallcap 100 Index rose 4.9 per cent. By comparison, the Nifty50 Index rose 3.5 per cent and the Nifty Midcap 100 soared 6.2 per cent. This was only the third calendar month in 2022 when the small-cap index has outperformed the large-cap-oriented Nifty50 Index.
Hindalco's first quarter (Q1FY23) results indicate healthy domestic volumes for aluminium and copper, and lower cost of production. Subsidiary Novelis saw weak volume trends but it managed to push operating profit margins on a better mix and pricing hikes. The weak global outlook on aluminium is a cause for ongoing concern.
India's private and state government-owned ports (non-major ports) continued to grow faster than those owned by the Centre (major ports) through the first three quarters of 2023-24 (FY24), cargo handling data shows. At 604 million metric tonnes (mmt), cargo at major ports grew by 5 per cent between April and December, while non-major ports' cargo traffic growth was 11 per cent at 531 mmt. During December 2023, central government-owned ports in India handled cargo volumes of 69.9 mmt, a tepid year-on-year (Y-o-Y) growth of 0.7 per cent.
Leading economists have pencilled in a high 13-15.7 per cent uptick in the economy in the first quarter of 2022-23 with an upward bias. Soumya Kanti Ghosh, the group chief economic adviser at State Bank of India, on Tuesday said he expects the GDP to clip past 15.7 per cent in the first quarter with more chances of the final numbers printing in higher, while Aditi Nayar, the chief economist at the rating agency Icra, said the economy will grow much lower at 13 per cent in the June quarter. The national statistical office will announce the first quarter GDP numbers later next week.
Of the top four companies, which collectively hold more than half of India's market share, two have pitted Shah Rukh Khan and Sunny Deol against each other.
Hybrids have helped Maruti acquire leadership in SUVs, a segment that was never its forte. Toyota has also risen with the hybrid tide to clock its highest-ever annual sales in 2023.
The stock of Colgate-Palmolive (India) surged after the company delivered a better than expected operating performance for the March quarter of the 2022-23 financial year (Q4FY23) recently. The stock, however, has given up most of these gains over the last one week as the Street awaits recovery in the core toothpaste segment and sustained recovery in market share. The country's largest listed oral care company posted a gross margin expansion of 100 basis points (bps) on a sequential basis to 66.9 per cent, led by pricing and efficient sourcing.
There has been a sharp recovery in the headline corporate earnings in the April-June 2023 quarter (Q1FY24), after a dismal showing by early bird companies. The combined net profit of the 983 listed companies that have declared their quarterly results, so far, was up 64.7 per cent year-on-year to record a high of Rs 2.68 trillion in the first quarter, but growth in earnings remained lopsided because most of the incremental gains came from a handful of companies. Moreover, the quarterly numbers showed a continued slowdown in revenue growth.
'In staples, we have still managed in rural areas.'
HDFC Asset Management Company (HDFC AMC) reported a healthy profit after tax (PAT) of Rs 430 crore for the July-September quarter (Q2) of financial year 2023-24 (FY24). It rose 20.2 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) and decreased 8.4 per cent quarter-on-quarter (Q-o-Q). This was driven by good equity returns, leading to a sequential improvement in revenue yields.
