Equity benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty settled higher on Thursday, powered by a rally in banking and power stocks amid a largely firm trend in global markets. The stock markets mostly traded range-bound in the absence of any major trigger and persistent foreign capital outflows, traders said. The 30-share BSE Sensex rose 144.31 points, or 0.18 per cent, to settle at 81,611.41.
From the Sensex pack, Adani Ports & Special Economic Zones, Mahindra & Mahindra, Reliance Industries, HDFC Bank, Larsen & Toubro, NTPC, State Bank of India, UltraTech Cement and Kotak Mahindra Bank were the major gainers. In contrast, Tata Steel, Titan, Bajaj Finserv, JSW Steel, Bajaj Finance, Hindustan Unilever, ITC, Tata Motors and Tata Consultancy Services were among the laggards.
'There is more expansion in the industry happening in retail lines, so we will continue to focus on those lines.'
Banks have issued Rs 7.78 trillion worth of CDs in the current calendar year until August 2024, compared to Rs 4.9 trillion in the same period of 2023, registering a 59 per cent growth
This is not for the first time that the customers of the bank have faced service outage. In fact, the bank has been penalised by the Reserve bank of India (RBI) for two major outages in the past. In December, the RBI temporarily barred HDFC Bank from launching new digital banking initiatives and issuing new credit cards after taking a serious view of service outages at the lender over the last two years.
Competition in the fast-growing quick commerce sector is heating up as Swiggy Instamart faces a tough challenge in narrowing the gap with Blinkit, which currently dominates the market. In the second quarter (Q2) of 2024-25 (FY25), Instamart's gross order value (GOV) rose by 42.1 per cent quarter-on-quarter (Q-o-Q) and 75.5 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y), reaching Rs 3,382 crore.
Life insurance companies reported a 13.16 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) growth in new business premium (NBP), totting up Rs 30,347 crore in October, even as the number of policies sold saw a sharp decline. The growth was largely driven by strong performance from private sector life insurers.
Most lenders that have reported their April-June business update posted slower growth in deposits sequentially as compared to the loan growth in the April-June quarter of 2024-25 (FY25). Current and savings account (CASA) deposits continue to face pressure. Private-sector lenders YES Bank, Bandhan Bank, and RBL Bank saw their deposit growth contract by 0.5 per cent, 1.5 per cent, and 2 per cent, respectively.
From the 30 Sensex firms, Mahindra & Mahindra, Bajaj Finance, Asian Paints, Nestle, Bharti Airtel, UltraTech Cement, Hindustan Unilever, ITC, and HDFC Bank were the major laggards. In contrast, Infosys, Tech Mahindra, Tata Motors, Axis Bank, Tata Consultancy Services and State Bank of India were among the gainers.
'We have seen something do very well when the times are good but maybe not as well when the times are bad.'
In the quarter gone by (Q3 of FY22), private lender HDFC Bank issued around 950,000 credit cards, its highest ever credit card issuance in any single quarter. Since the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) revoked the embargo on it in August 2021 to issue new credit cards, the lender has issued 1.37 million credit cards. This is according to a senior bank executive, who was present in an analysts' call after the lender's Q3 earnings. In Q3, we achieved the highest ever issuance, with 950,000 card issuances.
One97 Communications (OCL), the company that operates brand Paytm, received a nod from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to onboard new Unified Payments Interface (UPI) users. This comes nearly nine months after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) placed an embargo on OCL to add new customers.
India's financial sector is dominated by large government-owned and private-sector banks.
From the 30 Sensex firms, Tata Consultancy Services and HCL Technologies dropped over 3 per cent each. Infosys, Tech Mahindra, Sun Pharma and Tata Motors were the other major laggards. Bajaj Finance, Bajaj Finserv, Nestle, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and State Bank of India were among the biggest gainers.
Among the 30 Sensex firms, Bajaj Finance, Infosys, Adani Ports, JSW Steel, HCL Tech, Bharti Airtel, IndusInd Bank and Tata Motors were the biggest laggards. ICICI Bank, Bajaj Finserv, Titan, Nestle and HDFC Bank were among the gainers.
'Asset allocation should be driven much more by long-term factors rather than the market scenario at any particular point in time.'
ITC, State Bank of India, HCL Technologies and IndusInd Bank were the other big laggards. NTPC, UltraTech Cement, HDFC Bank and Mahindra & Mahindra were among the gainers.
In HDFC Life, the company has to pare 1.43 per cent, and in HDFC Ergo, it has to pare only 0.58 per cent.
These 10 stocks represent the best mix of value and growth, offering relatively low price-to-earnings and price-to-book ratios, a high return on equity, and sufficiently high potential from current levels.
From the 30 Sensex firms, NTPC, Nestle, Titan, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Maruti, Hindustan Unilever, Bharti Airtel and HDFC Bank were the biggest gainers. HCL Technologies, Tata Consultancy Services, Adani Ports, Larsen & Toubro, JSW Steel, State Bank of India, Tech Mahindra and Bajaj Finance were among the laggards from the pack.
If growth reverts to the pre-Covid level, a lot of people may have to temper their rosy optimism, points out Debashis Basu.
With the banking regulator lifting restrictions on HDFC Bank's digital initiatives, the largest private sector lender is now girding up to launch a clutch of customer-facing applications (apps), which will act as stepping stones in its journey to morph into a technology (tech)-led bank from a conventional one. Following repeated outages in its digital offerings, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had barred HDFC Bank from issuing new credit cards in December 2020 and prevented it from going ahead with its digital launches. The embargo on issuing credit cards was lifted in August 2021 and the ban on digital launches was lifted last week.
While HDFC Bank has vowed to recoup its lost market share in the credit card segment in three to four quarters by aggressively sourcing new cards, brokerages believe it is a little hard to come by, given how competitive the landscape has become, with other players in the market becoming equally aggressive to gain market share. Kotak Institutional Equities in its report on Monday said, "We would like to believe that the recovery in market share is likely to be gradual, if any. "All the key players, including Axis Bank, are now willing to expand their credit card portfolios as they have tested quite well against Covid-19."
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has granted approval to Paytm to onboard new UPI users, subject to the adherence to all procedural guidelines and circulars, according to the company. The move is expected to come as a relief to Paytm, which had suffered a blow following the Reserve Bank of India's restrictions earlier this year on associate company Paytm Payments Bank Limited (PPBL) in onboarding new UPI users on the Paytm app. In March, the NPCI gave approval to Paytm to participate in UPI as a Third-Party Application Provider (TPAP).
From the 30-share pack, Asian Paints, Reliance Industries Limited, Bajaj Finance, Mahindra & Mahindra, Indusind Bank, Bajaj Finserv, Maruti Suzuki, HDFC Bank and UltraTech Cement were the major gainers, jumping up to 5.56 per cent.
The Indian financial and payments systems remained largely unaffected by the Microsoft services outage, though about 10 banks and NBFCs faced minor disruptions which have either been resolved or are being fixed.
From the 30 Sensex firms, Mahindra & Mahindra, JSW Steel, Maruti, Tata Steel, Larsen & Toubro, ICICI Bank, Power Grid, Nestle, Bharti Airtel and Adani Ports were the biggest gainers. Tata Consultancy Services emerged as the only laggard.
From the 30-share pack, Titan, Tech Mahindra, Maruti Suzuki India, Wipro, Nestle India, TCS, Larsen & Toubro, HCL Technologies, Tata Steel and HDFC Bank were among the major laggards. NSE Nifty declined 69.75 points to settle at 17,153.
The Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) has stayed a Sebi order which imposed a fine of Rs 1 crore on HDFC Bank for invoking securities pledged by stock broker BRH Wealth Kreators, till further orders. Sebi had imposed the fine and also directed the bank on January 21 to transfer Rs 158.68 crore along with 7 per cent interest per annum into an escrow account till the issue of settlement of clients' securities is reconciled. "The fact that the circulars have been violated or not and whether the securities have been rightly invoked by the appellant requires consideration," the tribunal said in an order dated February 19 while giving three weeks time to Sebi to file a reply.
Major credit issuers, including the largest - HDFC Bank - have integrated their systems with the Bharat Bill Payment Systems (BBPS) for receiving credit card repayments via third-party applications.
Among the 30 Sensex firms, Bajaj Finance, Mahindra & Mahindra, NTPC, Power Grid, Bajaj Finserv, Bharti Airtel and Tata Consultancy Services were the biggest gainers. In contrast, Tata Motors, HDFC Bank, Reliance Industries, Tech Mahindra and ITC were among the laggards.
Fuelled by the $57.8-billion merger of HDFC twins (HDFC Ltd and HDFC Bank), M&A (merger and acquisition) transactions in India touched a record high of $124.2 billion in the first half of 2022-23. Bankers said with several transactions, including the government's stake sale in IDBI Bank and Hindustan Zinc in the pipeline, the ongoing financial year will end up as the best year for M&A activity in the country. Apart from the HDFC transaction, the $6.5-billion acquisition of Holcim stake by the Adani family and L&T's $3.2-billion acquisition of Mindtree added to the record transactions in the first half of FY23.
Even as the high inflation figure for October has ruled out any possibility of a rate cut by the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) monetary policy committee (MPC) in December, a rate cut in February also looks uncertain due to global uncertainties. Economists told Business Standard that unless domestic growth slows markedly, the outlook on rate cut remains unclear. India's headline inflation touched a 14-month high of 6.2 per cent in October, breaching the MPC's upper tolerance band of 6 per cent.
Citing some news reports about alleged unfair business practices, and that the lender had also missed analysts' estimates on profits for the first quarter ended June FY21, Rosen Law Firm said it is preparing a securities lawsuit.
Hyundai Motor India (HMIL) raised Rs 8,315 crore from anchor investors on Monday, setting the stage for the country's biggest-ever maiden share sale. The Indian arm of the South Korean carmaker Hyundai Motor Company (HMC) allotted 42.4 million shares to 225 funds at Rs 1,960 apiece, the higher end of its price band. Among the investors receiving allotments were the Singapore government's sovereign wealth fund (GIC), New World Fund, and Fidelity.
From the Sensex pack, Tata Motors, Asian Paints, HDFC Bank, JSW Steel, Hindustan Unilever, Nestle and Titan were the major laggards. In contrast, Bharti Airtel, Power Grid, NTPC, Mahindra & Mahindra, Larsen & Toubro and HCL Technologies were among the major gainers.
Quarterly earnings of corporates, trading activity of foreign investors and inflation data are the key factors that are expected to drive the momentum in the equity markets this week, analysts said.
From the Sensex stocks, Maruti Suzuki India, Tata Motors, JSW Steel, Larsen & Toubro, Tata Steel, Mahindra and Mahindra, Tata Consultancy Services, Tech Mahindra, HCL Technologies and Infosys were the laggards. HDFC Bank, Sun Pharmaceuticals, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Nestle India and Asian Paints were among the gainers.
'Developers are into profit-making. And there's not too much money in the affordable segment.' 'So, they don't do affordable housing.'
Among the 30 Sensex firms, HCL Technologies, NTPC, Bajaj Finserv, Tech Mahindra, JSW Steel, Titan, Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Steel, Larsen & Toubro and Tata Consultancy Services were the biggest gainers. Kotak Mahindra Bank, IndusInd Bank, Maruti and Hindustan Unilever were among the laggards.
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