Weekly Wonders! 10 stocks that rose 25% in April expiry week

Bulls were in charge of D-Street in an action-packed week. Benchmark indices broke above key resistance levels on strong results from India Inc. except for Axis Bank. Falling rupee kept the IT and pharma pack buzzing.

Amid all the noise some stocks rallied up to 25 percent in just five trading sessions including the likes of Astra Microwave Products (up 24.94 percent), Zensar Technologies (up 21 percent), Indiabulls Ventures (up 19.8 percent), L&T Infotech (up 18 percent), and GATI (up 18 percent).

Astra Microwave is a manufacturer of defence, sub-systems, space, MMIC, antennas, telecom, V-SAT, meteorological and security products, RF, microwave, millimeter-wave, cellular and broadband products.

The stock has been under pressure so far in the year 2018, down by about 10 percent. The recent price action could be on the expectation of strong earnings. Edelweiss Securities which maintains a buy rating on Astra Microwave Products expects the company to report a 106 percent QoQ rise in net profit for March quarter to Rs 34 crore.

“We expect revenue growth of 11 percent and margins of 30.6 percent for Q4FY18. Order intake continues to remain the key monitorable,” it said. The company has not set a date to announce March quarter earnings yet.

Zensar Technologies reported better than expected numbers for the quarter ended March. The net profit rose by 23 percent on a QoQ basis to Rs 73 crore whole revenue in rupee terms grew by 2.9 percent QoQ to Rs 819 crore. The board also approved a stock split in the ratio of five shares for every one share held.

Indiabulls Ventures rallied after reporting strong number for March quarter. The net profit rose by 188 percent on a YoY basis to Rs 61 crore compared to Rs 21 crore reported in the year-ago period. Revenues rose by 204 percent to Rs 425 crore.

Sectors such as energy, realty and pharma gained by 4.7 percent, 2.3 percent, and 1.9 percent, respectively during the week. There was some bout of profit booking in Metals which slipped by 3.3 percent and IT by 0.8 percent for the week.

“The BSE-30 index gained 1 percent over the past week to close at 34,970 on strong 4QFY18 corporate earnings, except Axis Bank, all the companies in the BSE-30 Index reported ahead of our estimates,” Sanjeev Zarbade, vice-president-PCG Research at Kotak Securities told Moneycontrol.

“Crude prices continued to rise and INR depreciated. FPIs sold equities worth USD 253 million over the past five trading sessions, while DIIs bought USD 285 million during the same period,” he added.

Top Losers

More than 50 percent of stocks in the S&P BSE 500 index gave negative return this past week which include names like Reliance Naval, DCM Shriram, PC Jeweller, Vakrangee, Reliance Communication, and JBF Industries.

Reliance Naval and Engineering Ltd (RNAVAL) reported widening of standalone loss at Rs 408.6 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2018 in the week gone by.

The company - formerly known as Reliance Defence and Engineering Ltd - had posted a loss of Rs 139.92 crore in the year-ago period.

Apart from weak numbers, auditors of Anil Ambani-led Reliance Naval and Engineering have raised doubts over the company’s ability to “continue as a going concern” which kept the stock under pressure, said a PTI report.

DCM Shriram came under pressure after the net profit declined by 67.57 percent to Rs 50.71 crore in the quarter ended March 2018 as against Rs 156.35 crore during the previous quarter ended March 2017.

Shares of PC Jeweller crashed by about 20 percent in this past week. The management clarifies that it finds no justification or reason for the fall.

PC Jeweller said on Friday: "We would like to clarify that we make timely disclosures of all the events, information that have a bearing on the operation/performance of the company which includes price sensitive information."

It said: "Further, we wish to clarify that presently the company is not having any such information, which requires disclosures as aforesaid. We do not find any justification or reason behind sudden decrease in price of equity shares of the company in recent past."

The company said it would, however, like to "once again assure our investors, shareholders and other stakeholders" that the fundamentals of the company remain strong and it continues to move ahead as per its plans.

"We want to confirm that there is no change in the management control and growth strategy of the company and also there is no change in the company's operating effectiveness," it said.