Photo by Yiorgos Ntrahas on Unsplash
 

After opening the day on a negative note, Indian share markets continued the downtrend as the session progressed and ended the day lower.

Benchmark indices ended lower after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) directed banks to maintain incremental cash reserve ratio (ICRR) at 10 percent, August 12 onwards, in order to reduce liquidity from the system.

Besides, it increased the FY24 inflation forecast to 5.4% from 5.1%, discounting near-term risks. Meanwhile, the Monetary Policy Committee kept the policy repo rate unchanged at 6.5 percent, extending its pause into the third straight policy.

At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex stood lower by 308 points (down 0.5%).

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty closed down by 89 points (down 0.5%).

Adani Enterprises, Adani ports, and ONGC were among the top gainers today.

Asian Paints, Kotak Mahindra Bank, and Apollo Hospital. were among the top losers today.

Check out the NSE Nifty heatmap to get the complete list of gainers and losers.

The Gift Nifty was trading at 19,674, down by 114 points, at the time of writing.

Broader markets ended on a negative note. The BSE Midcap index ended marginally lower, and the BSE SmallCap index fell 0.2%.

Sectoral indices ended on a mixed note with stocks in the metal sector and power sector witnessing most of the buying.

On the other hand, stocks from the telecom sector, FMCG sector, and banking sector witnessed selling pressure.

Shares of Abbott India, Cera Sanitary, and Coforge hit their 52-week highs today.

Now track the biggest movers of the stock market using stocks to watch today section. This should help you keep updated with the latest developments...

Asian share markets ended on a mixed note. The Hang Seng ended flat while the Shanghai Composite rose 0.3% and Nikkei ended 0.8% higher.

The rupee is trading at 82.68 against the US$.

Gold prices for the latest contract on MCX are trading flat at Rs 58,975 per 10 grams.

Meanwhile, silver prices for the latest contract on MCX are trading higher by 0.3% at Rs 70,165 per kg.
 

Why Schneider Electric's share price is rising

In the news from the engineering sector, Schneider Electric reported strong earnings in its recent quarterly results. The company reported a 31.7% year-on-year (YoY) increase in net profit at Rs 349.2 m for the recently ended April-June quarter.

For the June 2023 quarter, the company reported a 33.3% YoY rise in its revenue from operations at Rs 4.9 bn. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) for the quarter were up 71% at Rs 494.6 m. EBITDA margin for the quarter under review expanded by 2.2% to 9.9%.

Schneider Electric Infrastructure is engaged in designing, manufacturing, and servicing high-end electrical distribution products.

Its product range includes transformers, power transformers, switchgear, medium voltage switchgear, electricity distribution management systems, and a software suite for self-healing smart grids among others.

Between July 2022 to July 2023, shares are trading higher by 158%.

Narayana Murthy, the co-founder of Infosys, one of the world's largest IT companies through Catamaran Venture, has made a fresh entry into this smallcap multibagger engineering stock.
 

Why Granules India's share price is falling

Moving on to news from the pharma sector, shares of Granules India was trading almost 5% down on 10 August 2023 afternoon after the company reported a 62.4% year-on-year (YoY) decline in the June quarter net profit at Rs 479 m.

Granules India reported a 3.3% YoY decline in revenue from operations at Rs 9.9 bn.

The earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) were down 35.3% at Rs 1.4 bn. The EBITDA margin contracted by 6.8% to 13.9%.

The company's operations were also hit due to supply issues and delay in clearances, which impacted the quarterly sales by nearly Rs 1.5 bn.

Granules India produces and supplies pharmaceutical raw materials. The company manufactures Active Pharma Ingredients, Pharmaceutical Formulation Intermediates as well as finished dosages.

The healthcare and pharma megatrend is unstoppable in India. 
 

Why Paytm's share price is rising

Moving on to news from the fintech sector, Paytm shares were up 2.5% after the Reserve Bank of India proposed to increase the minimum limit for UPI Lite transactions.

The central bank on August 10 announced that it will increase the limit for UPI-Lite to Rs 500. The minimum limit earlier was Rs 200.

UPI-Lite was launched to facilitate lower-value transactions like the ones for payment of groceries, milk, eggs, etc. The feature was launched so that UPI can handle such continuous transactions and make the process smoother.

After this transaction, there would be no change in the management or control of Paytm, since Sharma would continue as Managing Director and CEO, and the existing Board would continue as is.

Earlier in February, China's Alibaba sold its entire stake in Paytm and exited the company.

Meanwhile, the Japanese investment firm Softbank Group Corp has also been reducing its stake in Paytm through open market deals. Its shareholding stands reduced to 9.18% after its latest deal.

More By This Author: