• Hindustan Aeronautics: Government proposes to sell 15% stake in the company through an Offere for Sale. It plans to sell 3.34 crore shares (10% stake) at a floor price of Rs 1,001 per share for Rs 3,347 crore, with an oversubscription option of another 1.67 crore shares (5% stake). The floor price is a discount of 15% to Wednesday's closing price. On full subscription of the OFS, government's stake in the company to come down to 74.47% from 89.97%. OFS opens for non-retail investors today and for retail investors on August 28.
• The government of Maharashtra has decided to temporarily reduce stamp duty on flats to 2% from 5% till December 31. The stamp duty will be 3% from January 1 to March 31. The move is to boost the stagnant real estate market which has been badly hit due to Covid-19. Stocks like Oberoi Realty, Godrej Properties, Sunteck Realty, Kolte-Patil Developers will be in focus.
• ICICI Securities: ICICI Bank approves sale of 64.42 lakh equity shares or 2% stake in the company via open market sale. This is being done to comply with minimum public shareholding requirements. As of June 30, the bank's stake in the company stood at 79.22%.
• Mahindra & Mahindra: Signed a pact with Israel’s REE Automotive for electric commercial vehicles. The partnership will support REE Automotive’s global customer need for 2 lakh - 2.5 lakh electric commercial vehicle units over a few years, including Mahindra’s potential domestic and international volumes.
• Jindal Stainless: Board approved raising Rs 162.8 crore via issue of convertible equity warrants to promoter group Virtuous Tradecorp and Kotak Group’s Alternative Investment Fund.
• Rossari Biotech: SBI Mutual Fund increased stake to 5.26% from 4.8% on August 25.
• Lakshmi Vilas Bank: Board approved raising Rs 1,000 crore via issue of equity shares and Rs 500 crore via NCDs. Board also approved increase in authorized share capital to Rs 1,000 crore from Rs 650 crore.
• Non-Nifty Earnings Today: Avanti Feeds, Himatsingka Seide, ICRA, IDFC, NMDC, Edelweiss Financial, PNC Infratech, GMR Infra.

To know more about earnings reported after market hours, key brokerage updates and more, click here.

Good Morning!

The monthly futures and options series for August will expire on Thursday. The Nifty and Sensex, that have risen 4% ad 3.5%, respectively, so far this August contract, are set for their third straight F&O series gain.

The Nifty Bank has been the outperformer as it gained 8%, or close to 1,800 points in this series — 1,400 of which have come during the last four trading sessions.

Futures, however, are indicating a flat start to trade on Thursday. The Singapore-traded SGX Nifty, an early indicator of the Nifty 50 Index’s performance in India, was little changed at 11,576 as of 7:30 a.m.

The street will watch out for stocks like ICICI Securities and Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. following stake sale news, and Lakshmi Vilas Bank and Jindal Stainless on fundraising plans.

Indraprastha Gas, NACL Industries and Atul Auto may react to quarterly results reported late Wednesday, while Avanti Feeds, Himatsingka Siede, NMDC, Edelweiss, IDFC are set to announce their financials on Thursday.

Globally, Asian markets have opened mixed as investors await a speech from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell at the Jackson Hole Symposium later tonight. Markets in Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong are declining, while those in China are flat.

The offshore yuan trades at the highest level since January this year, while the U.S. dollar is steady.

West Texas Intermediate crude is flat at $43.4 per barrel, while gold fell 0.5% to $1,945.9/Oz.

Short on time? Well, then listen to this podcast for a quick summary of All You Need To Know before the opening bell.