Sensex, Nifty Open Flat; ITC in Focus Post Q3FY21 Results

Fri, 12 Feb 09:30 am | Monish Vora, TM Team

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Asian share markets are trading mixed today with the Nikkei trading lower by 0.24%.

In US stock markets, Wall Street indices ended positively on Thursday with the Nasdaq ending 0.38% higher.

Back home, Indian share markets have opened the day on a flat note, tracking mixed global cues.

Market participants are tracking Bharat Forge share price and Grasim Industries share price as these companies are scheduled to announce their December quarter earnings today.

The BSE Sensex is trading up by 154 points. Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty is trading higher by 16 points.

Wipro is among the top gainers today.

ITC, on the other hand, is among the top losers today.

The BSE Mid Cap index has opened the day flat while the BSE Small Cap index has opened up by 0.3%.

Sectoral indices are trading mixed with stocks in the energy sector and IT sector witnessing buying interest.

FMCG stocks and telecom stocks, on the other hand, are trading in red.

The rupee is trading at 72.80 against the US$.

Gold prices are trading flat at Rs 47,493 per 10 grams.

BREAKING: India's Top Trader Reveals #1 Investment of the Decade

Speaking of stock markets, in his latest video for Fast Profits Daily Brijesh Bhatia talks about why the bull market is still intact.

Will the market continue to go up? Should long-term investors hold on to their shares?

Brijesh answers these questions in the video below. Tune in to find out more:

In news from the IPO space...

State-owned RailTel Corporation of India has fixed a price band of Rs 93-94 a share for its initial share-sale, which will open for public subscription on February 16.

The initial public offer (IPO) is entirely an offer-for-sale through which government will offload 87,153,369 equity shares, amounting to 27.16% stake, the company said in a statement.

At the upper end of the price band, the government would raise a little over Rs 8.2 billion.

The three-day issue would close on February 18 and the anchor investors portion would be open for subscription on February 15.

The mini-ratna PSU is one of the largest neutral telecom infrastructure providers in the country owning an optic fiber network on exclusive Right of Way (RoW) along railway track.

The company provides broadband telecom and multimedia network across the country.

Half of the issue is reserved for qualified institutional buyers, 35% for retail investors, 15% for non-institutional bidders.

As on June 30, 2020, the company's optic fiber network covers over 55,000 kms and 5677 railway stations across towns and cities in the country.

How the above IPOs sail through remains to be seen. Meanwhile, we will keep you updated on the latest developments from this space. Stay tuned.

Moving on to stock specific news...

ITC is among the top buzzing stocks today.

Cigarette-FMCG-to-hotel major ITC has posted a 11.4% year-on-year (YoY) decline in consolidated profit at Rs 35.8 billion in the quarter ended December 2020, impacted by slower revenue growth and weak operating performance in cigarette business.

Consolidated profit in the corresponding period stood at Rs 40.5 billion.

Consolidated revenue from operations grew by 6.1% YoY to Rs 141.2 billion in Q3FY21, with cigarette business showing 2.5% YoY growth in operating revenue.

The company reported revenue from its cigarette business, which contributed 43% to total business, at Rs 60.9 billion for December quarter 2020, compared with Rs 59.4 billion in corresponding period.

Cigarette business' earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) fell 8.7% YoY to Rs 36.5 billion in Q3FY21.

FMCG-Others segment registered a 13% YoY growth in revenue at Rs 37.5 billion with its EBIT showing a massive 123.8% YoY rise at Rs 2.4 billion for the quarter ended December 2020.

The group's hotel business was badly hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, reporting a sharp 56.7% YoY decline in revenues at Rs 2.4 billion in Q3FY21, and at the operating level, its EBIT loss stood at Rs 722 million in Q3FY21 against profit at Rs 889 million in the corresponding period last year.

The company's agri-business also turned out to be strong in the quarter ended December 2020, showing a 19.3% increase in revenues at Rs 26.9 billion.

However, paperboards, paper and packaging segment's revenue fell 5% to Rs 14.7 billion and its EBIT dropped 14.6% YoY.

The company declared an interim dividend of Rs 5 per ordinary share for the financial year ending March 2021.

To know more about the company, you can check out our ITC 2019-20 Annual Report Analysis.

In news from the auto sector, Tata Motors stock price will be in focus today.

The Delhi transport department has issued a show-cause notice to Tata Motors, seeking its reply in connection with a complaint that one of its electric car models failed to meet the specified range on a single charge.

The complainant claimed that the model (Nexon EV) of the electric car purchased by him from a dealer at the Safdarjung Enclave and registered on December 3, 2020 has failed to provide the specified 312-km range on a single charge.

The show cause notice issued to Tata Motors said that it has been informed that while the vehicle model is specified to provide a 312-km range on a single charge, the vehicle owned by the said customer has never provided a range of more than 200 km.

The notice has directed the OEM to depute its representative to appear before a transport department officer at 12 noon on February 15.

In case no representative of the OEM appears before the transport officer on the designated date and time, further action including "delisting" of the said model from the subsidy-eligible e-vehicles' list can be considered, the notice stated.

We will keep you updated on how this development pans out.

Speaking of electric vehicles, note that the power ministry has approved setting up 2,636 electric vehicle charging stations across 62 cities in 24 states.

Here's what co-head of Research at Equitymaster, Tanushree Banerjee wrote about electric vehicles in one of her editions of

• 106 public and private entities have approached the government for permissions to set up about 7,000 EV charging stations.
  
  This clearly shows the vehicle manufacturers have enough incentive to capture this latent demand.
  
  The tax benefit in terms of a lower GST rate (at 5%) is a further shot in the arm of the EV industry.

As per Tanushree, electric vehicles are very much on their way to invading Indian roads. The threat of disruption in this era is something you cannot ignore.

Tanushree believes one of the companies manufacturing lithium ion batteries for powering electric cars will be a key catalyst for the

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