Investor wealth on Thursday soared by Rs 1 lakh crore, triggered by heavy buying in the stock market, with the BSE benchmark Sensex surging about 382 points to close at near six-week high levels.
The interim Budget proposals that will be presented on February 1 in the backdrop of the general elections scheduled in April/May 2024 are likely to have a hint of populism, believe analysts, but are unlikely to derail the government from its path of fiscal prudence.
Mutual funds (MFs) lapped up shares of new-age businesses in April at a time when most of these stocks have recovered sharply from their 52-week lows. Nykaa and Zomato featured in the list of top 10 most bought shares by MFs last month, with fund houses' holdings in these two stocks rising by over Rs 1,100 crore, shows a report by Nuvama Alternative & Quantitative Research. Shares of Zomato had staged some recovery in April after remaining subdued for an extended period.
Ulhas Joshi, Head -- Sales, Rank MF, a mutual fund investment platform, answers your queries.
Oil-to-telecom conglomerate Reliance Industries (RIL) has emerged as the country's largest wealth creator, adding a staggering Rs 9.6 trillion over the past five years, according to Motilal Oswal's 26th Annual Wealth Creation Study. In doing so, the Mukesh Ambani-led company has beaten its own record of Rs 5.6 trillion generated in 2014-19. The study covered financial year 2015-16 (FY16) to FY21 and ranks the top 100 companies in descending order of absolute wealth created, subject to the company's stock price outperforming the BSE Sensex. The firms were also ranked according to speed (price CAGR during the period).
The top-100 wealth creators generated Rs 49 lakh crore during 2014-19, the highest-ever quantum of wealth added, according to Motilal Oswal's Annual Wealth Creation Study 2019. According to the study, Reliance Industries, Indiabulls Ventures and IndusInd Bank are the biggest, fastest and most-consistent wealth creators, respectively. The number of PSUs in the top-100 wealth creators is only nine, namely IOC, BPCL, HPCL, Power Grid Corporation, Petronet LNG, Indraprastha Gas, LIC Housing, Bharat Electronics and NBCC.
Reliance Industries' (RIL's) consumer business is expected to lead earnings growth in the Q3FY24 performance, according to analysts. While the energy business is expected to show sequential weakness, the consumer business, especially retail, is estimated to show strong growth. The oil-to-telecom conglomerate will announce its Q3FY24 financial results on Friday.
Trading in the equity market this week will be highly influenced by a host of important triggers, with quarterly earnings from IT majors TCS, Wipro, and domestic inflation and IIP data taking the centre stage in dictating the movement in equities, analysts said. Besides, global factors and trading activity of foreign investors will also drive markets. "We are approaching the first quarter earnings season, with HCL Tech, TCS and Wipro set to report their earnings this week.
Omkeshwar Singh, head, Rank MF, a mutual fund investment platform, answers your queries.
Even as the near-term outlook for the quick service restaurant (QSR) industry remains muted, brokerages are positive about the prospects of Sapphire Foods India. Their preference for the QSR chain comes on the back of the steady performance of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), superior execution and reasonable valuations. The Sapphire Foods stock is up 11 per cent since the start of November.
Oil and LNG prices are likely to shoot up if Iran is to block Strait of Hormuz, through which countries like India import crude oil from Saudi Arabia, Iraq and UAE, leading to a spike in inflation, analysts said on the Iran-Israel conflict. The Iran and Israel conflict has escalated over the last few days. Iran first launched drone and rocket attacks on Israel, which retaliated by firing a missile. Crude oil prices have hovered around USD 90 per barrel since the conflict.
India's financial sector is dominated by large government-owned and private-sector banks.
Poor rainfall in rain-dependent central and southern India in the next three weeks could affect agricultural GDP growth in the coming season, a report by broking firm Motilal Oswal has said.
More may follow as market indices gain 80 per cent
A strong performance in the July-September quarter of 2023-24 (Q2FY24), an upward revision in the margin guidance and sustained momentum in US sales has helped the stock of pharmaceutical major Cipla gain about 2 per cent over the last two trading sessions. The brokerages have upgraded the earnings estimates for this financial year (FY24) by 6-9 per cent to factor in the improved margin guidance and sales in the US market. Led by the US market, which rose by 31 per cent, the company posted a 16 per cent growth in revenues.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party received over Rs 785 crore in contributions from individuals, electoral trusts and corporates in 2019-20, which is over five times more than what the Congress received during the same period.
Information technology (IT) companies have been on the road to revival in the past one year. From being the worst-hit sector in 2022 with a loss of 26 per cent, the Nifty IT index closed 2023 with gains of 24 per cent. So far in 2024, the index is up around 7 per cent against the nearly flat Nifty 50 benchmark index. The IT index has been on a continuous decline in the last three sessions.
From its lows this month, the stock of Sona BLW Precision Forgings is up 10 per cent on better-than-expected results. The stock rose by 4 per cent in the trading session on Tuesday after Japan's Nikkei Group said the Indian automotive component major has topped its rankings in terms of competitive advantage. The rankings are based on sales, profit margin, capital expenditure, research and development, and market capitalisation.
'Exposure to small and midcap stocks exceeded desired levels in many portfolios, prompting rebalancing.'
Pharmaceutical major Matrix Laboratories, public sector oil producer Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and Ranbaxy Laboratories have emerged as the fastest, biggest and the most consistent wealth creators for year 2006
HDFC Bank's market capitalisation (market cap) touched Rs 13 trillion in Thursday's (December 28, 2023) intra-day trades as the largest private sector lender is set to report its sharpest monthly rally in the past two years. At 10:33 AM; HDFC Bank's market cap stood at Rs 13.03 trillion, the BSE data shows. The stock was up 1 per cent at Rs 1,717.90 in intra-day trades on December 29, inching towards its record high of Rs 1,757.80 touched on July 3, 2023.
The Union Government's decision to ban futures trading in rubber, soya oil, potato and chana for four months, in a bid to tame spiralling inflation, is unfortunate and may hit market sentiments badly, industry players said.The four commodities have a combined daily turnover of about Rs 1,200 crore (Rs 12 billion) on the Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd. and the National Commodities and Derivatives Exchange Ltd., the nation's biggest bourses.
At a time when exchange-traded funds (ETFs) were unloading Jio Financial Services from their portfolios, some active fund managers were placing large bets on the demerged financial services arm of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), a report by Nuvama Alternative & Quantitative Research shows. Motilal Oswal Mutual Fund and Quant Mutual Fund were the top MF buyers of the stock in August. They bought around 60 million shares each, together investing around Rs 2,800 crore.
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.
India's corporate sector, including public sector enterprises (PSEs), continues to go slow on investments and capital expenditure (capex). According to data from Motilal Oswal Financial Services (MOFSL), corporate investments declined for the second consecutive quarter in the April-June period (first quarter, or Q1) of 2023-24 (FY24). After a contraction of 0.5 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) in the 2022-23 (FY23) January-March quarter, corporate investments likely fell 6.2 per cent Y-o-Y in Q1FY24, write Nikhil Gupta and Tanisha Ladhaa of MOFSL in their recent report on corporate investments.
Call it a revival of the information technology (IT) industry or increase in demand from non-IT sectors, office lease and sale transactions have picked up by 10 to 15 per cent in the past quarter.
rediffGURU Ulhas Joshi answers your personal finance and mutual fund queries
Despite the uncertainties created by rising bond yields and oil prices, fund managers have been proactively deploying fresh flows into the equity market. The cash available with equity fund managers, which has remained lower at around 5 per cent in the past few months, hit a 16-month low of 4.8 per cent in September, shows a Motilal Oswal Financial Services report. Cash holdings in equity schemes had topped 6 per cent in February amid subdued equity market sentiment.
Bankers expect RBI to drop rates though there may not be any increase in aggregate liquidity as banks are parking surplus funds with the central bank. Some sectors like the small and medium enterprises, real estate have not been getting adequate funds and RBI may extend a refinance line or special facility whereby they can borrow at a subsidised rate.
How domestic financial players are re-inventing themselves to get a larger share of the pie.
Given the uncertainty on the US economic outlook, the rising rupee, and the lack of clarity on imposition of fringe benefit tax on stock options, analysts believe the companies may strike a note of caution on FY08 earnings.
Last fortnight, 206 companies from the BSE-500 hit 52-week lows as investors sold heavily in counters with dimmed prospects.
Apart from RIL, home-loan lender HDFC, pharma company Sun Pharma, auto major Hero Honda and software exporter Infosys have emerged among the top 100 wealth creators in the past one decade.
Midcaps to remain at a significant discount to large caps
With another quarter of steady growth in demand, cement companies are expected to report strong year-on-year (Y-o-Y) growth in earnings, according to analysts. The September quarter (Q2FY24) also witnessed a resumption of price hikes in certain markets. UltraTech Cement, India's largest cement producer, reported a 15 per cent Y-o-Y increase in cement sales in the country for the quarter under review.
Omkeshwar Singh, Head, Rank MF, a mutual fund investment platform, answers your queries.
The BSE sensex now trades at a discount to S&P 500 and has corrected by 35 per cent from its peak of 20,873 points to close the quarter at 13,462 point in FY 08. The Sensex hovered around 13,349 on Tuesday. Over CY 04-07, the Indian markets delivered 40 per cent returns each year, the most consistent and superior retuns amongst all the global markets over this period.
Valuations of broking companies have halved since January 2008. Patient investors can start accumulating selective stocks with a long-term perspective.