Market Live: Nifty volatile ahead of FO expiry; Sobha, Prestige, Brigade up 5-9%

12:15 pm Earnings Reaction: Shares of infrastructure firm IL&FS Engineering and Construction today surged 5 percent to hit its upper circuit limit on bourses after the company reported robust September quarter results.

The net profit of the company surged to Rs 40.14 crore in the September quarter against a net loss of Rs 81.59 crore in the same quarter of last year.

The company’s income from operations however declined to Rs 340.84 crore in the quarter ending September, from Rs 356.87 crore in the September quarter 2016, the company said in a regulatory filing.

12:05 pm Buzzing: ICICIdirect has initiated coverage with a buy rating on Varun Beverages, citing likely huge growth potential on account of low per capita soft drink consumption and increasing penetration through territory acquisition. The stock gained 6.6 percent.

It has set a price target for the stock at Rs 590. Varun is a strong proxy play for soft drink industry in India, it feels.

The research house sees comfort of earnings visibility and improvement in return ratios.

Due to consolidation of newly acquired territories, new product launches and higher growth potential in operating regions, ICICIdirect expects Varun to report revenue CAGR of 12.4 percent in CY16-19 with EBITDA margin of 21.6 percent in CY19.

Here are the top headlines at 12 pm from Moneycontrol News’ Anchal Pathak

11:50 am Management Interview: The Whirlpool Corporation stock has had a decent 2017 so far with a nearly 70 percent gain. The management recently met analysts where they indicated that they plan to double revenue by 2020 and remain open to acquisitions.

In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Kapil Agarwal, Vice President-Marketing said, “The idea is that we believe that India is an important market and we are under-pitched here in this market.”

It is time to expand. We already have our manufacturing and we are planning to invest in manufacturing within our own plants to increase capacity and also innovations, he added.

According to him, next couple of quarters are going to be slightly tougher compared to the last two quarters. “We are seeing a commodity increase and that would put pressure on our margins and also on pricing,” said Agarwal.

We are looking at a strong double digit for FY18 and we continue to focus on growing double digit quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year basis, he further mentioned.
11:31 am Buzzing: Real estate stocks like Sobha, Prestige Estates, Brigade etc rallied 5-9 percent as PWC says no new tax on unsold inventory proposed by Income Tax authorities.

11:20 am Rural Growth for Britannia: Global brokerage house Jefferies has initiated coverage with a hold rating on Britannia Industries and expects the stock to hit a target price of Rs 4,850 per share.

The research house likes the food company for its strong execution in biscuits via distribution expansion and cost efficiencies. Strong execution in biscuits bodes well for revenue & margin, it said.

Jefferies expects pick-up in rural growth given the distribution efforts in rural India.

Recently, CEO Varun Berry also told CNBC-TV18 that the company has been seeing double digit growth as far as rural is concerned for a very long time.
Hopefully overall rural demand should come up in the coming six months, he had said.

11:05 am Buzzing: Shares of Cadila Healthcare added 1.3 percent intraday as it has received USFDA approval for Candesartan Cilexetil and hydrochlorothiazide tablets.

Zydus Cadila has received the final approval from the USFDA to market Candesartan Cilexetil and hydrochlorothiazide tablets USP in the strengths of 16mg/12.5 mg, 32mg/12.5mg and 32 mg/ 25 mg.

The drug combines an angiotensin II receptor (type AT1) antagonist and a diuretic, hydrochlorothiazide and is used to treat high blood pressure.

The drug will be manufactured at the group’s formulations manufacturing facility at Moraiya, Ahmadabad.
10:51 am Fundraising: India’s largest realty firm DLF has called a board meeting on December 1 to approve its proposals to issue equity shares to institutional investors and warrants or debentures to promoters.

DLF is required to launch QIP (qualified institutional placement) and also issue of warrants or debentures because of proposed infusion of about Rs 10,500 crore by promoters into the company.

Infusion of capital by promoters would lead to increase in promoters stake in DLF to more than 75 percent. So, the company will have to launch a QIP to maintain the minimum public shareholding limit of 25 percent.

10:45 am Buzzing Stock: Shares of Larsen and Toubro (L&T) gained nearly 1 percent intraday Wednesday on the back of outperform rating by Macquarie.

The foreign broking house kept outperform rating on the stock with a target of Rs 1590 per share.

According to the firm the valuations are going to catch up as triggers are in place.

The firm believes that the closure of big ticket orders in Q3/Q4 is a catalyst.

10:30 am Oil prices: Oil prices fell on doubts OPEC and Russia will agree an extended crude production cut that the market has priced in, and after a report of an unexpected rise in U.S. fuel inventories.

US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at USD 57.69 a barrel, 0.52 percent below their last settlement.

Traders said WTI was pulled down by a report from the American Petroleum Institute (API) late on Tuesday which showed US crude inventories rose by 1.8 million barrels in the week to Nov. 24 to 457.3 million barrels.

10:10 am Market Check: Equity benchmarks continued to consolidate in morning ahead of expiry of November derivative contracts on Thursday.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 10.87 points at 33,629.46 and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 0.10 points to 10,370.20.
About 1,276 shares advanced against 793 declining shares on the BSE.

10:04 am Management Interview: NCC expects things to normalise from next quarter and expects earnings to improve due to fastrack orders.

“EBITDA growth is likely to continue in second half of FY18 and we are targetting EBITDA margin over 9 percent for FY18,” YD Murthy, Executive VP-Finance, NCC said in an interview to CNBC-TV18.

He expects EBITDA to grow faster than revenue growth. With order execution has been increasing, working capital requirement may go up, he feels.

“We are looking at further reduction of finance cost and for that, we are talking to banks to restructure working capital loan,” Murthy said.

Here are the top headlines at 10 am from Moneycontrol News’ Anchal Pathak

9:50 am Rupee Trade: The rupee is trading flat after seeing depreciation of 10 paise to 64.51 against the US dollar in opening at the interbank foreign exchange due to appreciation of the American currency overseas.

Yesterday, the rupee had gained further ground against the US currency and finished at a new two-month high of 64.41, appreciating by 9 paise after sustained dollar unwinding by exporters and corporates.

9:40 am Alkem Labs in focus: Alkem Laboratories share price rallied as much as 8.5 percent in morning after Motilal Oswal has upgraded its rating to buy from neutral on the stock, citing likely strong domestic business growth.

The research house has hiked its price target on the stock to Rs 2,500 per share (from Rs 1,950) as it expects domestic business to grow at 20 percent over the next three quarters.

“We expect strong growth over the next three quarters, given a low base of second half of FY17 (impacted by demonetisation) and Q1FY18 (impacted by GST) and likely recovery of 8-10 days of sales in Q3FY18 due to channel restocking post GST,” Motilal Oswal said.

The domestic business EBITDA margin has historically been more than 21 percent.

9:31 am Buzzing: Share price of Genus Power Infrastructures gained further on the back of order win from EESL.

The company has won an order from EESL for supply of 13.5 lakh smart meters for the states of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

This tender was opened in October by EESL for the supply of 50 lakh smart meters where company emerged as L2 bidder.
Post this order, the total order book of the company stand at Rs 1226 crore.

The company is expecting the supply to commence from Q1FY19.

9:25 am Order Win: Shares of Technofab Engineering has locked at 20 percent upper circuit on the back of order won worth Rs 281 crore.

The company has received new order in the domestic water sector valued at Rs 281 crore

The project is funded by Asian Development Bank.

This order gives a further impetus to the company’s standing in the water sector, soon after securing orders in Bhutan and Uganda, and recently completed projects in Tanzania and Zimbabwe, company said in press release.

9:20 am Stake Sale: Reliance Communications said it will sell its DTH arm Reliance BIG TV to Pantel Technologies and Veecon Media & Television, a move aimed at reducing debt.

The company has entered into a binding share purchase agreement with Pantel Technologies Ltd and Veecon Media & Television Ltd for sale of its subsidiary Reliance BIG TV Limited (RBTV), RCom said in a statement without disclosing the deal amount.

“The transaction will help reduce the liability of unsecured creditors, benefiting all stakeholders, including lenders and shareholders of RCOM. The transaction is in consonance with RCOM’s stated objective to focus on B2B businesses of the new RCOM,” RCom said.

The buyers will acquire the entire shareholding of RBTV with business on an “as-is, where-is” basis, it added.

9:15 am Market Check: Equity benchmarks were mildly higher in opening trade, shrugging off North Korea’s latest missile launch, and tracking positive Wall Street close.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 34.86 points at 33,653.45 and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 16.90 points to 10,387.20.

About 896 shares advanced against 317 declining shares on the BSE.

Cipla, Coal India, NTPC, ONGC, Hindalco Industries and L&T were early gainers while Axis Bank and Tech Mahindra were under pressure.

Alkem Labs gained 4 percent on US FDA nod for Capecitabine tablets.

Bhansali Engineering, INEOS Styrolution, Shankara Buildcon, ADF Foods, RPP Infra, Balaji Telefilms, SpiceJet, Jet Airways, Godrej Consumer, United Breweries up 1-6 percent. TechnoFab Engineering rallied 20 percent.

Wall Street stocks surged to fresh records on Tuesday after a key Senate committee advanced the Republican tax cut plan, moving the long-awaited measure closer to the finish line.
All three major US indices set new records by the closing bell, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 1.1 percent to 23,839.26.