Sensex Trades Marginally Higher; Dow Futures Up By 99 Points
Share markets in India are presently trading marginally higher.
The BSE Sensex is trading up by 87 points, up 0.2% at 49,579 levels.
Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty is trading up by 15 points.
UPL and IndusInd Bank are among the top gainers today. HCL Technologies and Wipro are among the top losers today.
The BSE Mid Cap index is trading up by 0.2%.
The BSE Small Cap index is trading up by 0.1%.
On the sectoral front, stocks from the capital goods sector and energy sector are witnessing most of the buying interest.
On the other hand, stocks from the metal sector, are witnessing most of the selling pressure
US stock futures are trading mixed today.
Nasdaq Futures are trading down by 12 points (down 0.1%) while Dow Futures are trading up by 99 points (up 0.3%).
The rupee is trading at 73.11 against the US$.
Gold prices are trading down 0.8% at Rs 48,905 per 10 grams.
In global markets, gold prices were lower today amid higher US Treasury yields and a stronger dollar. Bond yields and the dollar rose today after a report indicated that US President-elect Joe Biden plans a massive COVID-19 relief package of about US$ 2 trillion.
In domestic markets, gold prices fell sharply with MCX February futures slumping below the Rs 49,000 level. Gold was down 0.9% or Rs 450 to Rs 48,860 per 10 grams.
Note that the precious metal is now down about Rs 7,500 from record highs of Rs 56,200, hit in August.
Moving on to stock-specific news...
Among the buzzing stocks, today is Wipro.
Wipro on January 13 posted a strong set of numbers for the December quarter. The company's revenues during the period stood at Rs 156.7 billion while net profit was at Rs 29.7 billion.
The operating margin of the company expanded sequentially by 243 bps to 21.7%, significant growth in the last 22 quarters. The company surpassed all market estimations and gave revenue guidance of 1.5%-3.5% for the March quarter.
Wipro CEO and MD Thierry Delaporte said: "Optimisation of operations and sub-contracting has really worked for us. We have also closed a US$ 700 million five-year deal with Metro AG, extendable to four more years with a scope of touching a billion dollars, during this quarter."
The management also announced an interim dividend of Rs 1 per equity share with the record date of January 25.
Wipro has seen growth across all geographies, led by the US with a 57.6% contribution to the revenue. Five out of the seven business sectors have grown sequentially by over 4% for the company, which has further added to the strong numbers.
The company's operating cash flows also grew 45% year-on-year (YoY) with a significant improvement in outstanding receivables.
Digital now contributes to over 46% of the company's revenue, which includes cloud, data analytics, AI, and digital platforms, and Banking and Financial Services (BFSI) continues to be a large contributing business segment with 30.5% of the revenue. With new energy, telecom, media, and manufacturing deals in the pipeline, the company has given a revenue estimate of US$ 2.1-2.2 billion for Q4FY21.
Recently, Wipro extended work from home for its employees till April 2021, with over 98% of the employees continuing to work remotely. The management has maintained employee utilization of 86% with no furloughs. Localized hiring and remote workforce will continue to be the trend for the company till the end of fiscal 2021.
We will keep you posted on more updates from this space. Stay tuned.
At the time of writing, Wipro's share price was trading down by 1.8% on the BSE.
Moving on to news from the steel sector...
Government of India Plans to Sell Up to 10% Stake in SAIL Through Offer for Sale
The government of India plans to sell up to 10% equity in the Steel Authority of India (SAIL) through an offer for sale today (January 14) and January 15.
The government will sell 5% equity in the central public sector enterprise under the Steel Ministry while keeping the greenshoe option, or option to sell further equity of 5%, in case of an over-subscription.
The floor price of the offer will be Rs 64 per equity share.
The offer for sale (OFS), which will be at a discount from the market price of the stock, has opened today for non-retail investors and will open on January 15 for retail investors. A minimum of 12.5% of equity shares will be reserved for retail investors, while 25% of the offer shares will be reserved for mutual funds and insurance companies.
The government holds a 75% stake in SAIL and is estimated to earn over Rs 26 billion from the present sale. The proceeds will help in moving close to the divestment target of Rs 2,100 billion sets for FY21. It had last sold a 5% stake in December 2014.
SAIL is India's largest steel producer with an annual capacity of about 21 million tonnes per annum (MTPA). The company reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 4.4 billion in the September quarter this year, on the back of strong operational performance, versus a net loss of Rs 2.9 billion in the same quarter of the previous fiscal.
How this offer for sale pans out remains to be seen. Meanwhile, stay tuned for more updates from this space.
Speaking of the stock markets, according to Richa Agarwal, Senior Research Analyst at Equitymaster, any investment process should not be judged based on individual outcomes. Instead, it should have stood the test of the time.
Her smallcap internal rate of return (IRR) increased to 24.3% 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.
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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