Stocks in focus: RIL, Axis Bank, Reliance Home Finance, Maruti Suzuki, Bank of Maharashtra, auto stocks

Nifty futures were trading 219.50 points or 1.51 per cent higher at 14,744 on Singaporean Exchange on Monday morning. In the previous week, markets tumbled 3 per cent due to global correction led by the sharp spike in global bond yields along with a sudden increase in Covid-19 cases in a few Indian states. In today’s session, markets will react to GDP data for the October-December quarter of the current fiscal. India’s GDP grew 0.4 per cent in the Oct-Dec 2020 period compared with the same period a year back. Market participants will also track movements in brent crude oil and rupee-dollar. According to a technical analyst, the market has established a series of ‘lower top and lower bottom’ that would be negative for the medium-term trend of the market. Shrikant Chouhan, Executive Vice President, Equity Technical Research at Kotak Securities, said that the Nifty / Sensex would find support at 14300/48000 this week. If the market falls to 14300-14350 / 48200 without meaningful bounce, then it would be a buying opportunity for short term / medium term traders/investors.

Stocks in focus today:

RIL: Reliance Strategic Business Ventures Limited (RSBVL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited, announced that it has acquired additional equity stake in its investee company skyTran Inc. for a consideration of $26.76 million increasing its shareholding to 54.46 per cent on a fully diluted basis.

Axis Bank on Saturday said its board has approved a proposal to reclassify United India Insurance Company Ltd (UIICL) as a public shareholder category investor in the bank from promoter category.

Reliance Home Finance (RHFL) has defaulted on repayments of around Rs 100 crore to lenders for December 2020, according to different disclosures on the stock exchanges. The mortgage lender was not able to make timely repayments to Bank of Baroda, Punjab National Bank, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Canara Bank, Bank of India and Indian Bank, among others.

South Indian Bank: South Indian Bank (SIB) said on Friday that it has got its board’s approval to raise Rs 240 crore by issuing equity shares on a preferential basis from HDFC Life Insurance Company, Kotak Mahindra Life Insurance Company, SBI Life Insurance Company and ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company.

The Reserve Bank of India on Friday said it has imposed a monetary penalty of Rs 2 crore on Bank of Maharashtra for non-compliance with certain direction on fraud classification and reporting.

Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) on Saturday said it has achieved the milestone of 20 lakh cumulative exports.The auto major achieved the milestone as a batch of products comprising S-Presso, Swift and Vitara Brezza left for South Africa from the Mundra Port in Gujarat

Auto stocks: Automobile companies will start pouring in February sales data from Monday. Stocks like Maruti Suzuki, Ashok Leyland, Hero MotoCorp, Bajaj-Auto, Mahindra & Mahindra among others will be in focus today.