Sensex sheds 237 points dragged by HUL, RIL, Infosys; Nifty ends below 18,050
Equity markets ended Friday’s choppy trade with nominal cuts pulled down by losses in select heavyweights such as Reliance(1 per cent), HUL( 4 per cent), Asian Paints (3 per cent) and Infosys (1 per cent).
The BSE Sensex closed 237 points lower at 60,622 after it touched an intra-day high of 61,001. The NSE Nifty reached the day’s high of 18,145 before fizzling out gains and closing 80 points down at 18,028.
The other top frontline drags included Bajaj twins, Nestle, L&T, Bharti Airtel, Maruti, Tech M, Sun Pharma, JSW Steel and HDFC Life, which lost 1-3 per cent.
While Coal India, Power Grid, HDFC twins, ITC, ICICI Bank, SBI, Tata Motors, Axis Bank, and NTPC were among the handful of index gainers.
Broader markets bled more than benchmarks with the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices falling up to 0.7 per cent.
Within sectors, Nifty consumer durables, FMCG, metals, realty and pharma indices suffered the most losses ending around 1 per cent lower each, while bank and financial pockets held ground and logged fractional gains.
Union Bank of India Q3 net more-than-doubled to Rs 2,245 crore for the quarter ended December 2022, against Rs 1,085 crore in the corresponding quarter a year ago. Net Interest Income grew 20.3 per cent YoY to Rs 8,628 crore.
Coforge jumped 7% after Q3FY23 results beat Street estimate. The firm upgraded its fiscal year 2023 annual revenue growth guidance to 22 per cent in constant currency terms and reaffirmed adjusted EBITDA annual margin guidance.
Unilever’s India unit falls as royalty fee rise overshadows profit beat. Shares of Hindustan Unilever (HUL) fell as much as 4.3% on Friday, as a deal to pay its UK parent higher royalty fees took the shine off a bigger-than-expected rise in quarterly profit.
Shares of Hindustan Zinc (HZL) dipped 9 per cent to Rs 342.20 on the BSE in Friday’s intra-day trade as investors booked profit at the counter after the company announced the acquisition of Zinc International business from Vedanta for a cash consideration not exceeding $ 2,981 million.
Shares of Mphasis sank 3.5% as Q3 earnings slide sequentially. The information technology company’s consolidated revenue from operations fell sequentially to Rs 3,506.2 crore in Q3FY23 from Rs 3,519.82 crore reported in Q2FY23. Net profit, meanwhile, slipped to Rs 412.27 crore in the recently concluded quarter vs Rs 418.46 crore seen in Q2FY23.
Here are some picks from the week gone by.
