Market Live: Nifty hovers around 9800, Sensex holds gains; ONGC, HPCL rally on merger

: After the recent rally, equity benchmarks started consolidation ahead of earnings of IT bellwethers TCS and Infosys.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was down 5.43 points at 31,741.66 and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 7.25 points to 9,793.30.

TCS declined 0.7 percent and Infosys was flat after rising 6 percent and 4.5 percent in previous two sessions, respectively.

Brokerage houses expect slowdown in banking & financial services and weak retail business to impact revenue growth of these companies while wage hikes and visa cost may hit margin performance.

TCS, which is scheduled to report its first quarter earnings on July 13, is expected to report revenue growth in the range of 2.2-2.5 percent for the quarter while IT bellwether Infosys, which will announce numbers on July 14, is likely to perform better than TCS in terms of revenue growth.

12:00 pm Monsoon worries: The southern states of India are about to face yet another rain deficit year as South West monsoons have come to a standstill for a week after a spectacular beginning for the initial two weeks. Downpours have primarily come to a standstill in states such as Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.

According to six meteorological subdivisions in the country, the quantum of rainfall fell considerably as monsoons entered the second week of July, which is reportedly the month of highest rainfall.

However, the overall rainfall deficit in the country still stands at 1 percent as the north-west region received a surplus rainfall of 31 percent and the Eastern region of Assam is experiencing severe floods.

11:33 am Buzzing: Shares of Aksh Optifibre rose nearly 10 percent intraday as it has been awarded Jaipur smart city project.

The company has been awarded with the Letter of Acceptance (LOA) from Jaipur Smart City, who invited a bid for development of smart road in ABD areas of Jaipur.

The order includes deployment of the OFC network to install the smart city wi-fi network, smart led lighting system for energy efficiency, ip based surveillance system with vehicle identification & counting, environment sensors for monitoring the environment, smart parking system, and smart communication.

11:18 am Order Win: Share price of Steel Strips Wheels advanced nearly 2 percent intraday as the company has won an export order for EU aftermarket.

The company has bagged another exports order for supply of 20000 steel wheels for EU aftermarket.

The total order includes supplies of over 20000 wheels in a period of 3 months, and this to be dispatches from company’s Chennai plant from this month onwards.

The company expects repeat order of 10000 more wheels by end of September 2017. This order will further augments company’s strong presence in the extremely competitive EU aftermarket.

11:06 am Merger: Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said the merger between ONGC and HPCL will be completed in current financial year, reports CNBC-TV18 quoting agencies.

PSU oil & gas stocks gained more than 2 percent, pushing the Nifty Oil & Gas index higher by 1.5 percent.

MRPL also rose 3 percent as ONGC holds 71.63 percent stake in the company and HPCL has 16.96 percent shareholding.

Brokerage houses believe this merger will create Indian oil giant like global peers (Shell, BP etc).

11:00 am NPAs divergence: In its latest annual report, IDBI Bank reported that its gross non-performing assets (NPAs) of Rs 24,875 crore in FY16 were lower than the Reserve Bank’s estimate of Rs 31,691 crore.

This indicates that the public sector bank may have under-reported its GNPAs by Rs 6,816 crore.

In the report, the bank also mentioned that there was a divergence in the bank’s provisions for FY16. IDBI had kept aside Rs 10,232 crore in provisions, while the RBI had estimated it to be around Rs 12,292 crore — a difference of Rs 2,061 crore.

In the month of April, the RBI directed banks to disclose the state of their bad loan divergence in their financial statements if it exceeded 15 percent.

In the case of IDBI Bank, the divergence in GNPAs stood at 27 percent.

10:44 am Buzzing: CCL Products shares fell more than 7 percent intraday after disappointing earnings performance of the company in April-June quarter.

Profit during the quarter plunged 32.9 percent to Rs 27.03 crore compared with Rs 40.3 crore in year-ago quarter, largely hit by weak operational performance.

Revenue from operations also fell 1.9 percent to Rs 246.8 crore from Rs 251.5 crore on year-on-year basis, the company said in its filing.

Weak quarter as Margins dented due to higher cost of raw materials

Operating profit margin contracted to 18.5 percent in June quarter 2017 from 24.9 percent in same quarter last year due to higher cost of raw material and employee expenses. Gross margin during the quarter slipped to 37.6 percent from 43 percent YoY.

10.33 am Market Check: Equity benchmarks continued to trade with moderate gains, with the Nifty hovering around 9,800 level. Auto, FMCG, Metal and Pharma indices gained whereas IT and Bank indices were under pressure.

The 30-share BSE Sensex gained 28.83 points at 31,775.92 and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 12.45 points to 9,798.50.

The broader markets were also moderately higher as about 1,221 shares advanced against 949 declining shares on the BSE.

10:00 am Buzzing: Shares of Biocon gained over 8.5 percent intraday as investors turned bullish ahead of the regulator meeting to discuss its breast cancer drug filing.

The US drug regulator’s Advisory Committee (Adcom) will be meeting on July 13 to disucss trastuzumab filing done by Mylan, Biocon’s partner. Trastuzumab is used to treat metastatic (spread) breast cancer. It is effective against tumors that overexpress the HER2/neu protein, according to chemocare.com.

According to Sharekhan, investors could monitor the outcome of this meet closely and if the product is approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, it will be the first Herceptin biosimilar in the US market.

Further, it highlighted that Roche’s Herceptin brand generated global sales of USD 6.7 billion in last calendar year and is slated to lose US patent exclusivity in 2019.

9:50 am USFDA action: Vista Pharmaceuticals shares were locked at 5 percent lower circuit at Rs 32.75 after the US health regulator issued warning letter to company’s Telangana unit.

At 09:48 hours IST, there were pending sell orders of 88,188 shares, with no buyers available on the BSE.

The US Food and Drug Administration has issued two observations for Telangana unit that inspected between September 19 and September 23, 2016, according to CNBC-TV18 reports.

The USFDA said there have been significant violations of current good manufacturing practice regulations for finished drugs.

Vista has been failed to clean, maintain equipment & utensils at appropriate intervals, and also failed to establish procedures to assure drug strength, identity & quality.

9:40 am Earnings Estimates: Saion Mukherjee of Nomura said the Q1FY18 earnings season is likely to be challenging.

For the ex-banks and oil and gas universe, he forecasts a revenue growth of 3.1 percent (YoY).

This is the weakest YoY revenue growth recorded in the past 3 years and the disruptions due to the implementation of GST, rupee appreciation, rising overheads and the impact of higher commodity prices are the factors that are hurting earnings growth in the quarter, he said.

Mukherjee expects a revival in Q2FY18, but the results season is unlikely to drive any earnings upgrade, according to him.

9:20 am Rupee: The Indian rupee opened higher by 8 paise at 64.51 per dollar versus previous close 64.59.

Pramit Brahmbhatt of Veracity said, “The rupee has seen resistance at 64.50/dollar. The trading range for the spot USD-INR pair is seen between 64.50-64.75 for the day.”

The dollar fell to a more than one-week low against a basket of major currencies after US President Donald Trump’s eldest son released an email chain citing Russian support for his father before last year’s US election.

Also read – Buy, Sell, Hold: 2 stocks and 1 sector are on the radar of analysts today

9:15 am Market Check: Equity benchmarks opened moderately higher on Wednesday, with the Nifty climbing above 9,800 level despite weak Asian cues, backed by Reliance Industries, healthcare and auto stocks.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 62.75 points at 31,809.84 and the 50-share NSE Nifty gained 25.45 points at 9,811.50.

IndusInd Bank, ACC, Ambuja Cements, Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and IOC were early gainers.

The broader markets also participated in uptrend on positive breadth. About 761 shares advanced against 244 declining shares on the BSE. Nifty Midcap 100 gained 0.5 percent.

Biocon surged 8 percent while Tilaknagar Industries, Globus Spirits, United Breweries and United Spirits rose 1-10 percent.

HUDCO, CDSL, AU Small Finance and PNC Infratech continued to rally, up 2-6 percent whereas CCL Products and Vista Pharma were down 4-6 percent.
Asian equities were mostly lower as markets stateside digested the release of a series of emails from the son of President Donald Trump.