Closing Bell: Sensex, Nifty flat; media outperforms, FMCG, metals drag

Indian equity indices ended on flat note amid volatility on August 26. At close, the Sensex was up 13.65 points or 0.02 percent at 81,711.76, and the Nifty was up 7.20 points or 0.03 percent at 25,017.80.

We wrap up today's edition of the Moneycontrol live market blog, and will be back tomorrow morning with all the latest updates and alerts. Please visit https://www.moneycontrol.com/markets/global-indices for all the global market action.

The sentiment has entered an indecisive phase as the Nifty closed with a Doji pattern on the daily chart. The significant presence of both call and put option writers at the 25,000 strike price strengthens the technical setup. As a result, the Nifty is likely to remain range-bound or might experience a slight dip in the near term. On the lower end, 24,800 could act as immediate support, while a rise above 25,100 might push the Nifty towards 25,300.

Trading session lacked momentum due to weak investor participation on account of Janmastami, and ended almost unchanged from its previous close. Weak US market cues and subdued Asian indices prompted local investors to book profit towards the fag-end, indicating that intraday volatility will continue amid growing geopolitical tensions and sluggish global growth.

The domestic market witnessed profit-booking near record highs. While the positive expectations regarding a potential rate cut by the Fed in September remain, the recent geopolitical tensions and rising crude oil prices have made investors cautious amid high valuations.

IT and financial stocks continued to perform well, whereas FMCG and metal stocks saw declines. Further, the recent shift in FII stance towards the domestic market and the anticipation that the RBI will align with the Fed’s actions are expected to foster a positive outlook in the near term.

Rangebound trade ended marginally higher at 25,017.75. With gains of 4 percent, media was the top gainer among the sectors followed by Pharma while FMCG corrected the most.

Consolidation was seen in the broader markets also but it managed to outperform the frontline index.

On the daily timeframe, the Index has made a DOJI candlestick pattern near the record levels indicating indecisiveness between the bulls and bears. A firm close above 25,100 will push the Index higher to the 25,200-25,300 zone; on the flip side, 24,870 will be considered as an immediate strong support.

Indian rupee ended marginally lower at 83.92 per dollar on Tuesday versus Monday's close of 83.90.

Indian equity indices ended on flat note amid volatility on August 26.

At close, the Sensex was up 13.65 points or 0.02 percent at 81,711.76, and the Nifty was up 7.20 points or 0.03 percent at 25,017.80. About 2036 shares advanced, 1746 shares declined, and 86 shares unchanged.

Top Nifty gainers were SBI Life Insurance, Maruti Suzuki, Bajaj Finserv, Shriram Finance and HDFC Life, while losers included HUL, JSW Steel, Titan Company, Tata Motors and Grasim Industries.

On the sectoral front energy, metal and FMCG were down 0.5-1 percent, while bank, capital goods, healthcare, IT, realty, pharma, media were up 0.2-4 percent.

BSE Midcap and Smallcap index rose 0.5 percent each.

A meeting of the board of directors of the company is scheduled to be held on August 30, 2024 to consider the proposal for fund raising by way of preferential issue / warrants convertible into equity shares / private placement of securities for cash / other than cash, including determination of issue price subject to such regulatory/statutory approvals as may be required, including the approval of shareholders of the company.

Insolation Green Energy, a wholly owned subsidiary Insolation Energy has bagged purchase order worth Rs 34.21 crore for the supply of Solar PV Modules.

Indian Rupee declined today on overnight jump in crude oil prices and a surge in commodity prices. However, positive domestic markets and a soft US Dollar cushioned the downside. Crude oil prices rose after Libya halted production, leading due concerns over supply disruption.

We expect Rupee to trade with a slight positive bias on rise in global risk sentiments amid dovish Fed speak and rising expectations of a rate cut by the Fed in September. However, geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and rising crude oil prices may cap sharp upside. Traders may take cues from US consumer confidence data. USDINR spot price is expected to trade in a range of Rs 83.70 to Rs 84.20.

Central Depository Services Ltd (CDSL) has paid Rs 1.3 crore to settle allegations of violations of market regulator's directions.

A settlement order issued by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on August 27 stated that a settlement amount of 1,30,04,550/- (Rupees One Crore Thirty Lakh Four Thousand, Five Hundred and Fifty Only) was recommended by the regulator's High Powered Advisory Committee (HPAC) and was approved by the Panel of Whole-time Members. Read More

Premier Energies' Rs 2,830-crore initial public offering saw a robust subscription on the first day after it was fully subscribed by the afternoon on August 27. Investors bought 4.57 crore equity shares against the offer size of 4.46 crore equity shares.

The company intends to raise Rs 1,291.4 crore via fresh issue, and another Rs 1,539 crore through offer-for-sale (OFS), at the upper end of the price band at Rs 427-450 per share.

Non-institutional investors were at the forefront, buying 2.15 times the portion set aside for them. Retail investors were at the second spot, picking 1.19 times the allotted quota, followed by employees who bought over 2 times their reserved portion. Qualified Institutional Buyers or QIBs are yet to subscribe to the issue.

Tata Investment Corp Ltd jumped over 17 percent amid higher volumes, hitting a high of Rs 7,315 a share. Year to date, the stock has surged nearly 69 percent.

The recent rally in the stock follows a four-month period of subdued performance. Between March and July, the stock dropped nearly 13 percent after soaring over 100 percent during January and February 2024. Read More

Shares of Tata Elxsi zoomed 15 percent in trade on August 27, riding on the back of heavy trading volumes in the counter. With this, the stock not just extended its upward trend to the fourth straight session, but also gained over 22 percent in just two days. As much as 38 lakh shares of Tata Elxsi changed hands on the exchanges so far, a meteoric spike as compared to the one-month daily traded average of one lakh shares. READ MORE

The company has appointed Vadiraj Kulkarni as the Business Head (Designate) Cellulosic Fibres, Senior Management Personnel of the Company with effect from 1st October 2024

#1 Acquisition of Paramount TPA represents one of the largest TPA deals in India

#2 Acquisition will increase market share in group segment by 6 percent & 4 percent in health

#3 Deal values Paramount at Rs 400 crore, implying 2.5x FY24 sales & 39x FY24 P/E

#4 Deal value is reasonable given the scale of Paramount

The company launched its qualified institutions placement (QIP) issue on August 26, with the floor price fixed at Rs 183.83 per share

Amarjothi Spinning Mills, Jai Corp, KDDL, KSE, Manorama Industries, Panchsheel Organics, United Drilling Tools, Windsor Machines

#1 Annual report analysis indicates greater sustainability focus

#2 Gradually improving across the environmental and social metrics

#3 Increased its focus on utilising more solar energy & green building certifications

#4 Paying a greater proportion of workers above minimum wage than in FY23

#5 Remain positive on the outlook for the stock

#6 Company remains a long-term cost-leader in Indian retail

The Sensex was up 118.78 points or 0.15 percent at 81,816.89, and the Nifty was up 33.90 points or 0.14 percent at 25,044.50.

LG Electronics Inc. is considering an initial public offering for its India business, tapping a booming stock market to help hit a target of USD 75 billion in electronics revenue by 2030.

Sanjeev Singhal, Director (Finance), has been entrusted with the additional charge of Chairman & Managing Director (CMD) of the company for five months, effective August 1. Sanjeev currently serves as the Director (Finance) of the company.

The automotive component manufacturer has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Blaer Motors. Both companies will leverage their combined expertise and resources towards the design and development of electronic components, including motor controllers ranging from 500 watts to 2 kilowatts.

The hotel chain has signed a new property, Lemon Tree Hotel, Civil Lines, Ayodhya. The 80-room hotel property is expected to open in FY28 and will be managed by its subsidiary, Carnation Hotels.

RailTel Corporation of India has received the work order from Eastern Railway for works amounting to Rs 70,93,58,570 (Including Tax).

The company has received a GST demand order from the Office of the Deputy Commissioner, State tax, Raipur Division, Chhattisgarh for an aggregate amount of Rs 0.53 crore (which includes tax demand of Rs 0.29 crore, interest of Rs 0.22 crore and penalty of Rs 0.02 crore).

Ceigall India shares surged as much as 7 percent on August 27 as investors cheered for the company's upbeat earnings for the April-June quarter. The road infrastructure developer's net profit for the quarter surged nearly 69 percent on year to Rs 79.4 crore in Q1 of FY25, up from Rs 44.2 crore in the same period last fiscal.

Bottomline growth was aided by an equally impressive topline growth of over 32 percent to Rs 820 crore, as against Rs 620 crore in the base period. The operational performance also improved as the EBITDA margin expanded sharply to 17.5 percent as compared to 13.4 percent in the same period last year. Read More

Overall – 0.75 times

QIB – 0.0 times

NII - 1.47 times

Retail – 0.84 times

Employee Reserved - 1.73 times

The global technology company has announced an extension of its strategic AI-driven engineering services and digital process operations (DPO) partnership with Xerox. HCLTech will support the newly formed Xerox Global Business Services organization (GBS) in driving key business metrics.

The Board of Directors has appointed Sanjay Agarwal as Group Chief Financial Officer of the company, effective August 26, following the retirement of Manikantan Viswanathan (Chief Financial Officer) from the company.

Airtel and Apple entered into a strategic partnership to bring exclusive offers of Apple TV+ and Apple Music to customers in India.

The management committee of the board of directors of the company at its meeting held on August 27, 2024, approved the issuance of up-to 5,000 U unsubordinated, listed, secured, transferable, redeemable non-convertible debentures having face value of Rs 1,00,000 each at par on private placement basis.

The dollar and yen eased on Tuesday, paring some of their safe-haven gains from the start of the week in the wake of a major missile exchange between Israel and Hezbollah that stoked fears of a wider escalation.

Imminent US rate cuts also remained at the top of investors' minds and further pressured the greenback, though currencies were mostly rangebound on the lack of major news in the Asian session.

The yen was last 0.1% lower at 144.65 per dollar, having risen to a three-week high of 143.45 in the previous session on a flight to safety.

The euro and sterling rose about 0.1% each to $1.1172 and $1.3201 respectively, hovering near their recent multi-month highs.

The Canadian dollar strengthened slightly to 1.34875 per U.S. dollar, having touched a five-month peak on Monday as oil prices surged.

Shares of Jai Corp, a steel-to-spinning yarn manufacturer, gained by over a percent to Rs 393 apiece on August 27 after the NCLT approved merger of promoter company Pet Fibres with Mega Pipes.

With this merger, shares of Pet Fibres, which holds 2 lakh equity shares or 0.1 percent stake in Jai Corp will be transferred to reflect the new entity - Mega Pipes. Read More

Ace investor Ashish Rameshchandra Kacholia sold a 1.22% stake in the company at an average price of Rs 625 per share. However, JVS Joyrass Holdings bought a 0.7% stake at the same price.