Sensex, Nifty sluggish; Reliance most active, Axis Bank dips 3%
1:51 PM Europe check: Euorpean markets have all opened in the green. The FTSE 100, DAX and CAC 40 gained over 0.30 percent in early morning trade on the indices.
1:43 PM Expert Speak: With inflation coming off and macro indicators starting to look stable, the domestic economy looks quite positive, says Hemant Kanawala, Head of Equity at Kotak Mahindra Old Mutual Life Insurance.
He has a positive view on the consumer discretionary space. He also likes the banking space as he does not expect any further deterioration going forward.
Most stocks in this sector have not come back to their highs after correcting last year and considering it shows good signs of growth, the sector can be looked at from a three-five year perspective, he says.
1:33 PM UK drug regulator on Indian pharma: India is the key supplier of generic medicines to both US and UK and other parts of Europe. So, it is not surprising that the focus is on India, said Gerald W Heddell, Director-Inspection, Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
Speaking from the sidelines of the India Pharmaceutical Forum 2017, Heddell said that there are problems in other parts of the world and not just India and Indian companies are doing their best to come up with solutions.
“I have noticed commitments from companies and I have beginning to see the fruits of their efforts as Indian companies are addressing issues that have been previously reported.”
1:20 PM Vodafone ex-CEO on consolidation: The Indian telecom industry needs to consolidate to enable economies of scale and spectrum availability, but pricing power can only come through innovation says Arun Sarin, Former Global CEO of Vodafone. In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Sarin shared his views on the likely merger of Vodafone and Idea Cellular.
Freebies launched by Reliance Jio in September sent the telecom industry scampering for mergers and acquisitions to build size and take on the competition.
Sarin believes, eventually, the industry will be left with just three players – Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone – cornering 90 percent of the market share. This, he says, would be good for the customer as the companies will compete aggressively on pricing. Currently, there are about 13 players in the industry.
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The market saw subdued trade in the afternoon session as investors awaited assembly elections results that will be announced on March 11. Reliance tried to keep the indices in the green, while Axis Bank was a drag on both the indices.
The 30-share Sensex was up 17.67 points at 28910.64 on the BSE, and the Nifty fell 14.40 points to 8925.10. The market breadth remained in favour of declines as 1349 shares fell against 1,238 shares gaining.
Reliance Industries contributed the most in indices’ gains. The stock was up over 5 percent following an upgrade in target price from Morgan Stanley. The strong rally helped it to cross Rs 4 lakh crore-mark in market recapitalisation, for the first time since January 18, 2008. Currently, it is the second highest valuable stock in market capitalisation terms after TCS that is valued at Rs 4.88 lakh crore.
Experts stated that the stock was coming out of consolidation after a decade. The stock can still have an appreciation of 20-25 percent going forward on the back of futuristic businesses the company is getting into, Porinju Veliyath, MD, Equity Intelligence India, said. “Reliance can be a decent compounder from these levels,” he added.
(Disclosure: Reliance Industries owns Network 18 that publishes Moneycontrol.com.)
