After staging a gap-down opening, Indian share markets recovered losses in early trade and traded on a lacklustre note throughout the session.
The US Fed raised interest rates by 75 basis points as it battles against inflation, requiring borrowing costs to rise further.
Benchmark indices felt the pressure of the Fed's hawkish statements on future interest rates but cut some of their losses towards the end flat. The sentiment was further weighed by weekly F&O expiry.
At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex stood lower by 70 points (down 0.1%).
Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty closed down by 30 points (down 0.2%).
SBI, Titan, and HUL were among the top gainers today.
Tech Mahindra, Hindalco, and Power Grid Corporation, on the other hand, were among the top losers today.
Share price of Relaxo Footwears fell 5% after reporting a 67% fall in the September quarter profit to Rs 224 m.
The SGX Nifty was trading at 18,118, down by 45 points, at the time of writing.
The BSE Midcap index ended higher by 0.2% while the BSE SmallCap index ended higher by 0.1%.
Sectoral indices ended on a mixed note with stocks in the realty sector, banking sector, and FMCG sector witnessing most of the buying.
On the other hand, stocks from the power sector, IT sector, and auto sector witnessed selling pressure.
Shares of Raymond, SBI, and Karnataka Bank hit their 52-week highs today.
Outside the home ground, Asian share markets ended on a weak note.
At the close in Tokyo, the Nikkei ended the day lower by 0.1%, while the Hang Seng dived 3.1% lower. The Shanghai Composite ended 0.2% lower.
The rupee is trading at 82.9 against the US$.
Gold prices for the latest contract on MCX are trading down by 1% at Rs 50,084 per 10 grams.
Meanwhile, silver prices for the latest contract on MCX are trading down by 2.35 at Rs 57,464 per 1 kg.
Speaking of stock markets, the Nifty has crossed the 18,000 mark. But there are a lot of questions. Will it stay above the mark? What stocks are driving the rally?
HDFC and HDFC Bank shares are up by more than 4% in the last couple of trading sessions.
On charts, they are breaking out of the consolidation zone but underperforming against the Nifty50. With a ~14% weightage of HDFC twins in Nifty50, can they take the index to an all-time high?
Chartist Brijesh Bhatia answers this question in the below video.
In the news from the FMCG sector, Adani Wilmar was among the top buzzing stocks today.
The company reported a 73% YoY decline in the second quarter profit, down to Rs 487 m from Rs 1.8 bn a year ago. This decline was due to the dull demand from rural areas and input cost inflation.
The revenue from operations climbed more than 4% year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 141.5 bn as against Rs 135.6 bn. The fall in growth pace was due to a decline in edible oil revenue.
Commenting on it, Adani Wilmar, in exchange for the filing, said,
It further reported 9% volume growth, which was on the back of robust growth in Food and FMCG.
Also, the market share for the company in the Edible Oil category increased by 30 basis points (bps) to 18.5%.
Over the year, Adani group stocks have remained the most popular stocks in the stock market. Most of the stocks of the company have given multibagger returns in 2022.
Adani Wilmar being no exception has rallied over 150% since its listing in 2022.
Moving on to the news from the pharma sector, shares of Alembic Pharmaceuticals soared 7%.
The company received final approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) for its Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) for Ketorolac Tromethamine Injection. It is the second injectable product from its general sterile facility to get approval.
This injectable injection has an estimated market size of US$59 m for twelve months ending June 2022.
Alembic has a cumulative total of 174 ANDA approvals (150 final approvals and 24 tentative approvals) from the USFDA.
Alembic Pharma is a small-cap company involved in manufacturing of pharmaceutical products, pharma substances and intermediates.
Since small-cap stocks interest you, here's a proven approach on investing in small-cap stocks.
Moving on to the news from the finance sector, Housing Development Finance Corporation on Thursday reported an 18% YoY rise in the net profit for the quarter to Rs 44.5 bn.
The revenue of the company jumped 23% YoY to Rs 150.3 bn.
The net interest income for the September quarter rose 13% YoY to Rs 46.4 bn. Meanwhile, the net interest margin for the half-year ended September came in at 3.4%.
On an AUM basis, the growth in the individual loan book was 20%, and the growth in the total loan book was 16%.
Its gross individual non-performing loans came in at 0.9% of the individual portfolio, while the gross NPLs of non-individual loans stood at 3.9% of the non-individual portfolio.
The gross NPLs as on September 30, stood at Rs 9,355 crore. This is equivalent to 1.59% of the portfolio
For the September quarter 2022 the collection efficiency for the individual loans on the cumulative basis stood at over 99%.
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