Business News Highlights: Stock Market Settles Higher, Sensex Closes Near 74,750, Nifty At 22,660.95
Business News Highlights: Please follow this space for all the breaking news and latest updates from the stock market, economy, and corporate world
Jana Small Finance Bank announced on Monday that it will offer life insurance products to the bank customers in partnership with Kotak Mahindra Life Insurance Company. The lender issued an official filing and said, "The partnership will help 52 lakh customers of the bank with a wide range of life insurance products offered by Kotak Life, including long-term savings and retirement solutions."
The rupee closed on Monday on a flat note at 83.31 (provisional) against the US dollar, after the support from domestic equities was negated by a strong American dollar in the overseas market. In the last trading session on Friday, the domestic unit closed at 83.31 against the greenback.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) revealed on Monday that telecom subscribers in India clocked a marginal rise of 0.38 per cent to 119.7 crore in February 2024, against the previous month. TRAI published the monthly subscriber report and revealed that urban telephone subscriptions grew at a sequential growth rate of 0.40 per cent, while the growth rate of rural telephone subscriptions was 0.34 per cent. The overall broadband subscribers stood at 91.67 crore as of February end, against 91.10 crore in January end.
The stock market witnessed a major bull run on Monday and touched fresh highs during the session. The BSE Sensex closed the session at 74,742.50, climbing almost 500 points, while the NSE Nifty50 ended trading at 22,660.95, rallying ahead by about 150 points.
Prestige Estates Projects Ltd announced on Monday that it logged a 63 per cent jump in sales bookings to Rs 21,040 crore in the 2023-24 fiscal year, against Rs 12,931 crore clocked in the preceding 2022-23 fiscal year. The firm attributed the boost in sales to a surge in demand for residential properties. The sales figure for FY24 touched a fresh peak, the realty firm said.
MakeMyTrip announced on Monday that it will be expanding its services to become accessible in more than 150 countries. The online travel firm issued a statement and said, “MakeMyTrip has expanded its reach to several countries, including major travel markets like the UK, Germany, Japan, Italy, France, and many others, from previously being operational in India, the US, and the UAE.”
The Piramal Group announced on Monday that it will invest Rs 110 crore in Biodeal Pharmaceuticals and infuse the funds via convertible instruments from Piramal Alternatives' Performing Credit Fund.
Muthoot Microfin announced on Monday that the firm's assets under management (AUM) climbed 32 per cent to Rs 12,194 crore, as of March end, 2024, against Rs 9,208 crore registered during March end, 2023. The firm issued a statement and said, "It has seen a substantial growth in FY24 with a healthy mix of credit expansion, rising margins and declining credit cost. Asset quality remained robust during the year. Our key focus areas for the next year include Assets Under Management (AUM) Growth, Asset Quality, digital inclusion, customer retention and geographic expansion."
The market capitalisation of the firms listed on the BSE hit a fresh peak of Rs 401.10 lakh crore on Monday morning, after domestic equities rallied ahead on the first trading session of the week. The equity benchmark, Sensex, reached its lifetime peak of 74,673.84 in early trade, climbing more than 400 points. Amongst the 30 firms listed on the Sensex, Maruti, M&M, Reliance, JSW Steel, Axis Bank, and L&T were some of the gainers, while the laggards on the index included Nestle, Sun Pharma, HDFC Bank, and Wipro, among others.
Aakash Educational Services Ltd, group firm of Byju's, announced on Monday that Deepak Mehrotra will be taking over the role of MD and CEO for the firm, with immediate effect. Mehrotra will assume the position, after Abhishek Maheshwari resigned from the firm in September 2023.
Hyundai Motor Co and Kia Corp announced on Monday that they have entered into a partnership with Exide Energy Solutions Ltd for localise their EV battery production. Hyundai issued a statement and said that the auto firms have signed a MoU with the battery maker and will focus on lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) cells keeping in line with their plans to expand the EV segment in the Indian market. "This strategic move will position them as the pioneers in applying domestically produced batteries in their upcoming EV models in the Indian market," the statement added.
The Indian rupee appreciated 8 paise to touch 83.23 against the US dollar in early trade on Monday, backed by strong domestic equities and fresh inflow of foreign funds. The forex traders noted that the market sentiment got boosted by a fall in crude oil prices, however, the strong American dollar impacted the gains of the domestic currency. In the last trading session on Friday, the rupee settled at 83.31 against the greenback, marking an appreciation of 8 paise.
The stock markets entered the trading week on a positive note and inched ahead in the pre-open session on Monday. As of 9:15 AM, the BSE Sensex stood at 74,507.43, climbing more than 250 points, while the NSE Nifty50 traded at 22,571.45, at a gain of over 50 points.
Vistara announced on Sunday that it is implementing a reduction of 10 per cent in its flight capacity in an attempt to stabilise operations. The disruption-hit carrier has been recently facing issues due to non-availability of crew and has taken the step to help provide some relief in the rosters. The airline will cut back about 25-30 flights daily and has informed that most of the cancellations will be in the domestic flights.
"We are carefully scaling back our operations by around 25-30 flights per day, i.e. roughly 10 per cent of the capacity we were operating. This will take us back to the same level of flight operations as at the end of February 2024, and provide the much-needed resilience and buffer in the rosters," the Tata Group airline said in an official statement.
Background
Business News Highlights: Hello and welcome to ABP Live's Business LIVE blog. Please follow this space for all the breaking news and latest updates from the stock market, economy, and the corporate world.
The markets will enter the holiday-shortened trading week on the lookout for cues from global trends, domestic macroeconomic announcements, currency fluctuations, and investors’ activities. The stock market in the week will remain closed on Thursday to mark the festival of Eid-Ul-Fitr.
The indices closed last trading week on a slightly higher note, amidst major volatility seen throughout the week. In the last trading session on Friday, the S&P BSE Sensex ended the session at 74,248, registering a gain of about 21 points, while the NSE Nifty50 closed trading at 22,514, inching ahead by 1 per cent.
This week will mark the beginning of the earnings season for Indian companies for the January to March quarter of the 2023-24 fiscal year. TCS will kick off the season and is scheduled to reveal its Q4 earnings on Friday. Further, India is also set to release its inflation data in the latter half of the week.
Sharing an outlook on the week ahead, Santosh Meena, Head of Research, Swastika Investmart Ltd, noted, “Indian companies are set to enter a new corporate earnings Q4 season this week. Leading the pack is IT services giant TCS, set to kick off the earnings season for the quarter ending March 2024. Its results for the fourth quarter of FY24 will be announced on April 12, 2024, after market trading hours. Apart from that India's industrial production data will also be announced on 12th April 2024. On the same day, inflation for March will be declared.”
Notably, the foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) reversed the trend in Indian equities and withdrew Rs 325 crore from the segment in April so far. The investors turned cautious amidst the relatively surging valuations and the upcoming general elections in the country. The official data with the depositories revealed that investors remained bullish on the Indian debt market and pumped Rs 1,215 crore in the segment as of April 5, 2024.
The overall inflow from FPIs in the Indian equities stood at well over Rs 10,500 crore, while the Indian debt market saw an infusion of more than Rs 57,000 crore in the year so far.
- - - - - - - - - Advertisement - - - - - - - - -