Sensex Skids Over 1,600 Points, Dow Futures Down by 90 Points

Mon, 12 Apr 12:30 pm | Ayesha Shetty, TM Team

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Share markets in India are presently trading on a negative note.

The BSE Sensex is trading down by 1,685 points, down 3.4% at 47,905 levels.

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty is trading down by 508 points.

Cipla and Dr Reddy's Laboratories are among the top gainers today. Tata Motors and Adani Ports & SEZ are among the top losers today.

The BSE Mid Cap index is trading down by 5.5%.

The BSE Small Cap index is trading down by 4.9%.

On the sectoral front, barring the healthcare sector, all sectors are trading in red with stocks from the real estate sector, witnessing most of the selling pressure.

US stock futures are trading lower today, indicating a negative opening for Wall Street indices.

Nasdaq Futures are trading down 21 points (down 0.2%) while Dow Futures are trading down 90 points (down 0.3%)

The rupee is trading at 74.84 against the US$.

Gold prices are trading up 0.1% at Rs 46,623 per 10 grams.

Gold prices edged lower in Indian markets today amid a hardening of US bond yields. On MCX, gold futures slipped marginally to Rs 46,580 per 10 grams, extending losses to the second day. In the previous session, gold had dropped 0.5% but for the week posted strong gains.

Note that in India, gold prices have rebounded from year-low levels of Rs 44,000 hit earlier this month. A jump in global rates, rupee's depreciation and renewed concerns over Covid-19 cases have supported gold at lower levels. Gold had hit a record high of Rs 56,200 last August.

Speaking of the precious metal, India's #1 trader, Vijay Bhambwani talks about how the Indian consumer has started to take the price of gold and silver higher, in one of his latest videos for Fast Profits Daily.

Tune in here to find out more:

And to know more about gold, check out our article on how to invest in gold here: How to Invest in Gold?

Moving on to stock specific news...

Among the buzzing stocks today is Solara Active Pharma Sciences.

Shares of Solara Active Pharma Sciences gained the most in more than two months after the bulk drug maker approved a merger of Aurore Life Sciences with itself in an all-stock transaction.

The shareholders of Aurore will have a 27% ownership in the merged entity, Solara said in an exchange filing. After the merger, Solara will hold a 67% stake in Aurore Pharma, while promoter shareholding in Solara will rise to 55.2% from 42.6%. Aurore Group consists of Aurore Life Sciences and its ownership in Aurore Pharma.

The move, the filing said, aims to create the nation's second-largest pure-play active pharmaceutical ingredient/contract research and manufacturing company.

Solara's board also approved the merger of Empyrean Lifesciences and Hydra Active Pharma Sciences with itself. "The combination creates a pure play API company of scale with strong presence in regulated markets, emerging markets, a broad product portfolio, robust operations infrastructure, excellent R&D capabilities and clear synergies to further accelerate growth for the combined entity" the filing said.

Revealed: 3 Stocks for Potentially Massive Gains

The merger, according to Solara, is EPS accretive and is in line with its strategy of accelerating growth through inorganic actions. Solara also said the merger will lead to significant synergistic opportunities in operations and cost savings through economies of scale.

"The combination will provide a compelling value proposition for both our generic APIs and CRAMS (Contract Research and Manufacturing Services) customers," Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Bharath Sesha was quoted as saying in the filing.We will keep you posted on updates from this space. Stay tuned.

At the time of writing, shares of Solara Active Pharma Sciences were trading up by 8.1% on the BSE.

Moving on to news from the start up space...

Flipkart Joins Hands with Adani Group to Boost Supply Chain

Flipkart, one of India's largest e-commerce firms, has entered into a strategic and commercial partnership with the Gujarat-based Adani Group for logistics and data centre-related businesses.

In this partnership, Flipkart will work with Adani group's entity Adani Logistics to strengthen Flipkart's supply chain infrastructure and enhance its ability to serve its customers.

"As part of this partnership, Adani Logistics will construct a massive 534,000 sq. ft. fulfilment centre in its upcoming logistics hub in Mumbai that will be leased to Flipkart to address the growing demand for e-commerce in Western India and support market access of several thousands of sellers and MSMEs in the region," according to a jointly-released press note.

The centre is expected to be operational in the third quarter of 2022 and will have the capacity to house 10 million units of sellers' inventory.

In addition, Flipkart will set up its third data centre at AdaniConneX, its Chennai-based facility, leveraging AdaniConneX's expertise and data centre technology solutions.

AdaniConnex is a new Joint Venture formed recently between EdgeConneX and Adani Enterprises.

"The AdaniConneX data centre is a brand-new facility enabling Flipkart to design the data centre to its growing infrastructure needs with a significant focus on security and keeping data locally within India," the statement added.

In addition to strengthening Flipkart's supply chain infrastructure, the company expects the facility to enhance local employment and create 2,500 direct jobs and thousands of indirect jobs.

How this partnership pans out remains to be seen. Meanwhile, stay tuned for more updates from this space.

Speaking of the stock markets, a right investing process can help you win in the long term. It might offer some unexpected and undesirable results in the short term but lets you fare well when you average the outcomes.

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Her smallcap service Hidden Treasure has had its fair share of failures. But sticking to a disciplined process meant that internal rate of return (IRR) increased to 24.38% since inception.

This compares favorably to the IRRs of 9.6% for the Sensex, and 8.8% for the smallcap index in the same period (February 2008 - June 2020) as can be seen in the chart below.

The service's performance did suffer in the short term after the 2018 crash in smallcaps. However, the long term track record and the post Covid-19 rebound underscores the strength of stock picking process.

If you are interested in becoming a Hidden Treasure subscriber, here's where you can sign up.

And to know what's moving the Indian stock markets today, check out the most recent share market updates here.

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