Domestic bourses saw a gap-up opening on bargain hunting after a prior four-day slide. At 9:27 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 336.77 points or 0.99% at 34,184. The Nifty 50 index was up 115.50 points or 1.14% at 10,262.30. The Sensex regained the psychological 34,000 level in opening trade.
The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was strong. On the BSE, 1116 shares rose and 291 shares fell. A total of 42 shares were unchanged.
Overseas, most Asian stocks fell amid concerns about the corporate earnings outlook in an environment of tightening financial conditions.
US stocks fell yesterday, 23 October 2018 as a big drop in the Chinese market revived fresh questions about the global economy. Sentiment remained fragile after Caterpillar repeated a warning from earlier this year about rising costs due to higher steel prices and US tariffs.
Back home, Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) rose 1.74%. On a consolidated basis, APSEZ's net profit fell 38.10% to Rs 614.23 crore on 3.63% decline in net sales to Rs 2,608.01 crore in Q2 September 2018 over Q2 September 2017. The company said its profit was hit by forex losses that stood at Rs 570 crore in Q2 September 2018 compared with a loss of Rs 78 crore in Q2 September 2017. The result was announced after trading hours yesterday, 23 October 2018.
There was nil SEZ port led development revenue in H1FY2019, as the company has sold CT4 Terminal to CMA CGM Joint Venture, the company said in a filing. The company had reported Rs 504 crore revenue from the segment in the year-ago quarter.
Karan Adani, chief executive officer and whole time director of APSEZ said amidst fears of trade war and its impact on Indian cargo, the company has been able to achieve record cargo throughput of 100 MMT in H1FY2019. APSEZ does not foresee any impact on Indian imports and exports. APSEZ is on course of achieving 200 MMT cargo volume in FY2019. Port EBITDA margins are set to increase from 70% to 71%. Automation and using technology to handle cargo, sweating of enhanced capacity and better cargo mix will drive this margin expansion.
HCL Technologies shed 0.02%. On a consolidated basis, HCL Technologies' net income rose 5.7% to Rs 2540 crore on 7.1% increase in revenue to Rs 14861 crore in Q2 September 2018 over Q1 June 2018. Earnings before interest & tax (EBIT) rose 8.7% to Rs 2,966 crore in Q2 September 2018 over Q1 June 2018. The result was announced after trading hours yesterday, 23 October 2018.
The company sees FY2019 revenues growth between 9.5% to 11.5% in constant currency. FY2019 operating margin (EBIT) is expected in range from 19.5% to 20.5%.
C.Vijayakumar, President & CEO, HCL Technologies said that the company continues to deliver strong and consistent QoQ revenue and margin growth performance. This quarter the company posted 3% revenue growth in constant currency fueled by global infrastructure services, engineering and R&D and Mode 2 next-gen services. Additionally, the company's Mode 3 revenue continues to accelerate and achieved the billion dollar annual run-rate milestone. The company remains confident of retaining this growth trajectory going forward.
Prateek Aggarwal, CFO, HCL Technologies said that the company delivered a robust performance of 10.5% YoY revenue growth in constant currency and EBIT margin at 19.9%, near the mid-point of its guided range. Net Profit has crossed a milestone of Rs 10000 crore on run-rate basis. At Rs 2540 crore for the quarter, the net profit was up 5.7% QoQ and 16.1% YoY. Further, the firm successfully concluded the Buyback programme of Rs 4,000 crore on Oct 11th and have posted robust Return on Equity at 25.8% on LTM basis.
The board of directors has appointed Roshni Nadar Malhotra as the vice chairman of the board of directors of the company with effect from 22 October 2018. She continues to be the non-executive director of the company.
Ambuja Cements dropped 3.01%. On a consolidated basis, Ambuja Cements' net profit rose 12.73% to Rs 396.01 crore on 11.87% decline in net sales to Rs 6,017.58 crore in Q3 September 2018 over Q3 September 2017. The result was announced after trading hours yesterday, 23 October 2018.
In its outlook, Ambuja Cements said that GDP growth in the last quarter was encouraging backed by good monsoon. Continued focus on GDP growth and infrastructure projects by the Government and a strong push on Housing for All and affordable housing led to good demand growth in the cement sector. Going forward the company expects this to continue and accelerate further. The company is well placed to benefit from the above initiatives taken by the Government.
Powered by Capital Market - Live News
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)