During the week ended 25th November, a total of 9 out the 10 most valuable companies on the NSE gained Rs79,798 crore in market cap. That is not surprising as Nifty and Sensex scaled new highs last week. Among gainers, TCS added Rs17,216 crore followed by Infosys Rs15,947, Reliance Rs13,193 crore, HUVR Rs12,535, ICICI Bank Rs6,463 crore, Bharti Airtel Rs5,452 crore, SBI Rs4,284 crore, HDFC Ltd Rs2,675 crore and HDFC Bank Rs2,035 crore. Only Adani Enterprises gave up market value of Rs13,281 crore last week.
For the first 7 months of FY23 ended October 2022, pharma exports from India increased 4.22% to $14.57 billion. Global headwinds and pressure on exports impacted the performance in October. India is expected to end FY23 with total pharma exports of $25-27 billion; at par with last financial year. In term of India’s global pharma market, NAFTA, Europe and Africa account for 68% of the total exports. For the month of October 2022, the overall exports had contracted by 16.6% to $29.8 billion amidst weak global demand.
Shipping stocks may have been out of the limelight for a long time but the stock of GE Shipping has rallied by 126% in calendar year 2022 to touch a new high of Rs672 per share. The stock has rallied by 26% in the last one month itself. Despite lower bulk rate, the spike in crude and product tanker freight rates more than made up. GE Shipping had posted record net profits for Q2FY23. The company is also a very liberal dividend paying stock, having already paid total interim dividend of Rs12.60 per share in the current year.
Hiring has been a big casualty in the IT sector and that is evident from the fact that hiring in the IT and BPO segment fell by 43% in October, compared to the average of the first nine months of 2022. The hiring for senior management positions was down sharply by 68%. Some of the reasons for the slowdown in IT hiring can be attributed to global slowdown concerns, reduction in tech spending, cuts in IT budgets and a simple case of IT companies conserving cash for now. Layoffs in tech sector have been across the globe.
Foreign portfolio investors FPIs are once again back in Indian equity markets having infused close to $4 billion in the month of November so far. August 2022 had seen a sharp turnaround in FPI flows at $6.44 billion. However FPI flows were negative in September and absolutely flat in October. FPIs had sold nearly $34 billion in Indian equities between October 2021 and June 2022. The Fed hawkishness and fears of risk-off investing by FPIs have been the biggest risk factors. The latest Fed minutes came as a consolation.
Adani Enterprises, the incubation flagship of the Adani group, plans to raise Rs20,000 crore or $2.45 billion through the largest follow-on Public Offer (FPO) in India. Funds would be used to bankroll its recent foray into cement and healthcare space. It would also enhance the public float of Adani Enterprises from the current 27.5%. Adani group has committed over $50 billion to alternate energy and green hydrogen and needs to fund these projects. It has also approached Middle East sovereign funds to participate in equity.
L&T Finance Holdings completed the sale of its mutual funds AMC business to HSBC AMC. L&T Finance Holdings got nearly Rs3,484 crore from HSBC AMC. The proceeds will be deployed in strengthening the balance sheet and drive future growth. Exits from the mutual fund business are nothing new in India as bancassurance players have virtually dominated the Indian AMC business. The AUM of L&T AMC is almost 8-times that of HSBC, so the latter gets a business boost. More consolidations could be on the way in MFs.
LIC may book profits of around Rs40,000 crore or $4.9 billion in its equity portfolio; almost similar to the profits booked last fiscal. The LIC equity portfolio is the largest single portfolio of any Indian institution in the Indian markets. LIC is looking to monetize some of its stock market profits as it needs to churn money and show adequate liquidity to get better valuations in the market. Since the IPO, the stock of LIC has fallen by over 30% and the company is already under pressure to show a better stock market performance.