Sensex Falls 250 Points, Nifty Below 15,700; Tata Consumer And Nestle Among Top Losers
Asian share markets are trading near seven-month lows as markets continued to digest a storm in Chinese equity markets.
The Hang Seng is up 0.1% while the Nikkei is trading lower by 1.4%. The Shanghai Composite is trading down by 0.6%.
In US stock markets, Wall Street indices fell, ending a five-day winning streak as investors were cautious before results from top tech and internet names and the Federal Reserve announcement.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.2% while the Nasdaq dropped 1.2%.
Back home, Indian share markets have opened on a negative note, following the trend on SGX Nifty.
Market participants will track shares of Maruti Suzuki, Nestle India, Birlasoft, Central Bank of India, and Route Mobile as these companies will release their quarterly numbers later today.
The BSE Sensex is trading down by 217 points. Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty is trading lower by 64 points.
IndusInd Bank is among the top gainers today. Tata Consumer, on the other hand, is among the top losers today.
The BSE Mid Cap index has opened down by 0.5%. The BSE Small Cap index is trading down by 0.2%.
Sectoral indices are trading in red with stocks in the banking sector and finance sector witnessing most of the selling.
Telecom and healthcare stocks are trading in green.
Shares of Heritage Food and Tata Coffee hit their 52-week highs today.
The rupee is trading at 74.45 against the US$.
Gold prices are trading up by 0.3% at Rs 47,585 per 10 grams.
Meanwhile, silver prices are trading down by 1.7% at Rs 65,980 per kg.
In news from the pharma sector, Dr Reddy's Lab is among the top buzzing stocks today.
Pharma major Dr Reddy's Lab on Tuesday reported a 36% drop in its net profit for the first quarter ended June 30.
The Hyderabad-based company also disclosed that it has received a subpoena from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the production of documents pertaining to certain CIS geographies.
Owing to these two developments, investors were disappointed. The stock crashed 10% yesterday.
The lackluster performance by Dr Reddy follows a tepid performance from Alembic Pharma.
Both the companies' performance sent other pharma shares into the red as investors had priced in a better performance for the sector.
During the quarter, Dr Reddy's Lab reported a net profit of Rs 3.8 bn compared with Rs 5.9 bn in the year-ago period.
The bottom line also represented a 32% decline over Rs 5.6 bn in the January-March period.
Topline came in at Rs 49.5 bn over Rs 44.3 bn in the same period of the previous year.
The company had to take a setback of Rs 1.9 bn vis-a-vis a settlement order in favor of Australia's Hatchtech Pty.
The company was also hit by an anonymous complaint that alleged that healthcare professionals in Ukraine and potentially in other countries were provided with improper payments by or on behalf of the company in violation of the US anti-corruption laws.
Dr Reddy's Lab share price has opened the day down by 0.2%.
Here's interesting data on Dr. Reddy's Lab, investing just Rs 100,000 in Dr. Reddy's Labs in 1992, would have given a whopping Rs 4.89 crores in 2014!
Moving on, Adani group stocks are in focus today.
The markets regulator has written to the custodians of foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) owning shares in six Adani group firms, seeking information on their ultimate beneficial owners (UBO).
These funds include Albula Investment Fund, Cresta Fund, and APMS Investment Fund.
A bulk of India's investments in these firms is concentrated in Adani Ports and SEZ, Adani Enterprises, Adani Green Energy, Adani Power, Adani Transmission, and Adani Total Gas.
As per sources, the regulator is looking into the holding structure of these foreign-based funds to ensure there is compliance.
The custodians are directed to provide information in fifteen days.
Last week, the government had informed Parliament that the markets regulator and the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence are investigating a few Adani group firms.
Ever since the probe news came out, Adani group stocks are under pressure.
Note that the accounts of the three foreign funds were frozen in 2016 over the issuance of global depository receipts by certain listed firms. It was later clarified that no freeze was ordered for their holding in other firms.
The confusion arose because the National Securities Depository (NSDL) website continued to show the three FPIs on the list of 'frozen accounts', along with 9,444 other entities, as of 31 May.
How this pans out remains to be seen. Stay tuned for more updates from this space.
Disclosure: Equitymaster Agora Research Private Limited (Research Analyst) bearing Registration No. INH000000537 (hereinafter referred as 'Equitymaster') is an independent equity research ...
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