RIL share price gains 2% as Morgan Stanley expects strong growth in retail, telecom

Shares of Reliance Industries rose more than 2 percent intraday on January 9 after Morgan Stanley said it expects strong growth in retail and telecom businesses.

The stock gave 40 percent return in the last one year due to consistent growth in consumer businesses - telecom and retail. At 11:30 hrs Reliance Industries was quoting at Rs 1,541.80, up Rs 27.85, or 1.84 percent.

While having overweight rating on the stock with a target price at Rs 1,753 per share, Morgan Stanley said company's Q3 earnings should be steady despite headwinds of oversupplied petrochem markets.

"We estimate earnings to be flattish YoY and down 2 percent sequentially," said the brokerage which feels gross refining margin may average $9.40 a barrel (flat QoQ and up 7 percent YoY).

Morgan Stanley expects telecom EBIDTA to rise 13 percent QoQ given the company started recovering interconnect cost.

"We estimate 15 percenet QoQ and 21 percent YoY decline in petrochemical EBIDTA, but we estimate retail revenues to rise 31 percent YoY, largely similar to Q2 growth," the research house said.

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