Sensex Ends 145 Points Lower, Nifty Settles Near 17,300; Power Grid Corp & NTPC Top Losers

Wed, 16 Feb Closing

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Indian share markets witnessed volatile trading activity throughout the day today and ended lower.

Benchmark indices continued to swing amid high volatility, with selling pressure at regular intervals followed by a recovery.

Markets were however, seen recovering after reports said that Russia has announced end of its military drills near the Ukraine border and the troops are pulling back.

At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex stood lower by 145 points (down 0.3%).

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty closed lower by 30 points (down 0.2%).

Divi's Laboratories and ONGC were among the top gainers today.

Power Grid Corp and NTPC, on the other hand, were among the top losers today.

The SGX Nifty was trading at 17,305, down by 44 points, at the time of writing.

The BSE Mid Cap index ended on a flat note, while the BSE Small Cap index ended up by 0.4%.

Sectoral indices ended on a mixed note with stocks in the metal sector, banking sector and engineering sector witnessing most of the selling pressure.

Realty and telecom stocks, on the other hand, witnessed buying interest.

Shares of Blue Star and GMDC hit their respective 52-week highs today.

Asian stock markets ended on a positive note today.

The Hang Seng and the Shanghai Composite ended up by 1.5% and 0.6%, respectively. The Nikkei ended up by 2.2% in today's session.

US stock futures are trading on a flat note today with the Dow Futures trading up by 10 points.

The rupee is trading at 75.07 against the US$.

Gold prices for the latest contract on MCX are trading up by 0.1% at Rs 49,427 per 10 grams.

Speaking of stock markets, Research Analyst at Equitymaster Brijesh Bhatia explains how you should navigate the volatile trends in the market, in his latest video for Fast Profits Daily.

In the video below, Brijesh shows a very simple but effective trading tool which is a proven technique and been around for about 100 years.

In news from the banking sector, IDBI Bank was among the top buzzing stocks today.

Shares of IDBI Bank rose over 5% today after reports emerged indicating that the government is likely to start the process of selling its stake in the lender within the next 3 weeks.

According to sources, the government is looking to kickstart the privatisation of IDBI Bank this month, with its advisor KPMG reaching out to multiple suitors including large private equity buyout funds and long-only funds.

As things stand now, the government is open to selling its entire 94.71% stake. This includes LIC's 49.24% equity stake, which comes with management control. The central government holds another 45.48%. The non-promoter shareholding in the bank currently stands at only 5.29%.

Note that the sale of IDBI Bank will be the first case in India of "voluntary discovery" of the buyer through an open bidding process. Generally, this route has been used to sell banks which are in trouble.

Further, as an insurance company, LIC has to commit to exiting its exposure as a pre-requisite for its initial public offering (IPO).

But people close to the matter said the government might end up retaining a partial stake considering the large size of the stake sale.

The government has already approached the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), seeking relaxation in norms stipulating a promoter shareholding cap of 26% as the new buyer of the state lender will likely hold a higher stake.

An interesting point to note here is that IDBI Bank in fiscal 2021, has turned profitable after five consecutive years of loss. And the market has rewarded its shareholders with over 70% gains in the past one year.

It remains to be seen how the IDBI Bank stake sale pans out as these processes involve many regulatory approvals and take a lot of time.

Speaking of PSUs, have a look at the chart below which shows the performance of BSE PSU index compared to BSE Sensex over the past few years.

As can be seen from the chart above, over the last decade, Rs 100 invested in BSE PSU index would have eroded to Rs 80, compared to almost 3x gains for the Sensex.

Here's what Richa Agarwal, lead Smallcap Analyst at Equitymaster, wrote about PSU stocks in one of the edition of Profit Hunter:

• However, it will be folly to paint all PSUs with the same brush. There are some exceptions in this space, which put their private peers to shame.
  
  In an editorial, I shared an opportunity in a PSU stock that is riding and enabling an irreversible megatrend - digitisation.

Moving on to news from the utilities space, Va Tech Wabag was among the top gainers from the small-cap space.

Shares of Va Tech Wabag surged a massive 16% intraday today on the back of heavy volumes. It hit a high of Rs 340 in early trade.

Why? The sharp rally in the water treatment firm was triggered after global brokerage firm Nomura upped its target price.

The rally is also triggered by the company's strong order book. The company's current order book position is over Rs 100 bn.

Va Tech Wabag had last month announced getting a US$ 100-million order in the UAE. This order is first such work in the Gulf nation.

The order was secured from Green EPC (a Utico FZC subsidiary), which is the prime engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor for the project.

Last week, the company posted a strong growth in its consolidated net profit. Its profit after tax rose to Rs 442 m, despite a 6.3% YoY decline in revenue from operations at Rs 7.5 bn.

The operational performance was aided by higher project mix of industrial & international orders and execution pace resulting in improved operating margins.

Note that the water technology company is betting big on desalination projects across the globe and it sees growth potential in markets like India, North Africa and West Asia - especially in Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

The company said that it is fully prepared to leverage the opportunities in these markets as has technological expertise in the field.

Va Tech Wabag share price ended the day up by 8.1% on the BSE.

To know more about the company, check out Va Tech Wabag's 2020-21 annual report analysis.

And to know what's moving the Indian stock markets today, check out the most recent share market updates here.

For information on how to pick stocks that have the potential to deliver big returns, download our special report now!

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