Market continues to end at record closing high; oil stocks lead

3:30 pm Market Closing: Equity benchmarks continued to end at record closing highs on Wednesday, with the Nifty holding 9,800 level for the first time.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 57.73 points at 31,804.82 and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 30.05 points to 9,816.10.

About 1,464 shares advanced against 1,215 declining shares on the BSE.

ICICI Bank, Reliance Industries, HUL, SBI, Tata Motors and ONGC gained 1-2 percent while TCS and M&M declined 1 percent each.

3:15 pm Buzzing: AU Small Finance Bank shares continued to rally for third consecutive session since listing, crossing the Rs 600-mark and hitting a new high of Rs 634.80.

The stock surged more than 77 percent from its issue price of Rs 358.

3:05 pm Market Check: Benchmark indices witnessed subdued movements, with the Nifty holding on to 9800-mark.

The Sensex was up 35.55 points at 31782.64, while the Nifty was up 23.55 points at 9809.60. The market breadth was narrow as 1440 shares advanced against a decline of 1,180 shares, while 151 shares were unchanged.

Hindustan Unilever, ONGC, ACC and Bharti Infratel gained the most on both indices, while Mahindra and Mahindra as well as TCS were the top losers.

2:32 pm Management Speak: Bajaj Electricals has acquired additional 28 percent stake in Starlite Lighting, taking their stake to 47 percent from 19 percent. For a company which has revenues of Rs 120 crore, Bajaj Electricals paid only Rs 3.5 lakh.

Speaking on the above development, CMD Shekhar Bajaj said the company had the right to acquired additional stake at a nominal price. The rates were already pre-determined before they had done investment in Starlite and so this was only a formality.

However, going further no further increase in stake in Starlite is on the anvil.

On the goods and services tax front, he said they have absorbed the impact of 1-2 percent and have taken price cuts to maintain prices on consumer products. Going forward he is hopeful of GST rates for them to come down to 18 percent from 28 percent.

2:15 pm Earnings Estimates: India Inc. will kick start declaring their results for the quarter ended June 30 this week. The revenue growth of the Morgan Stanley's universe of 122 companies is likely to grow 12 percent while the net profit could degrow by 1 percent on a year-on-year (YoY) basis.

The global investment bank expects YoY margin compression of 214bps. For Sensex companies, it expects revenue and profit growth of 8 percent YoY and 4 percent YoY in QE June 2017.

According to analysts at Morgan Stanley, Tata Steel, Dr Reddy and Tata Motors will likely see the fastest net profit growth, while Bharti Airtel, Sun Pharma and Lupin should be the laggards.

1:55 pm Market Check: Benchmark indices continued to be rangebound in afternoon, with the Nifty trading in 35-point range. Oil & gas, infra and select auto stocks gained while technology and HDFC Group stocks were under pressure.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 18.34 points at 31,765.43 and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 18.90 points to 9,804.95.

About 1,404 shares advanced against 1,167 declining shares on the BSE.

1:30 pm Buzzing: Share price of Housing & Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO) added 14 percent intraday on the back of fund raising plan.

The company's board is going to consider issuing debentures up to Rs 100 crore plus greenshoe option on July 14.

On May 19, 2017 the company has made a strong debut with 21.5 percent premium at Rs 72.50 against its initial public offer (IPO) price of Rs 60.

The share price rose more than 50 percent from its issue price of Rs 60.

1:10 pm RIL hits fresh 9-year high: Reliance Industries, the biggest company by market capitalisation, rallied 2 percent intraday Wednesday to hit fresh nine-year high after it announced new tariff plans to retain subscribers.

The stock touched an intraday high of Rs 1,524.50, the highest level since January 17, 2008.

With reiterating a buy call and target price of Rs 1,710 (implying 15 percent upside), CLSA said, "While we await clarity if Reliance will start expensing Jio from Q2FY18, we believe investors will overlook initial losses during promotional periods and focus on subscriber retention and slow monetisation in coming months."

Upcoming AGM on July 21 is the next key event to watch out for as it may provide more clarity on new legs to Jio's growth, i.e., Broadband and 4G feature phones, it added.

Disclaimer: Reliance Industries Ltd. is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd.

12:50 pm JP Morgan on Vedanta: JP Morgan has retained overweight rating on Vedanta with a price target of Rs 310 on the back of diversified resource mix and volume growth across segments.

The research firm sees a strong growth potential in its oil & gas segment over the next tree years based on FY19-20 estimates of USD 55/barrel oil.

It is of the view that Vedanta has an aggressive vision of growth from its oil segment and is targeting a 500kboepd versus 165kboepd with a near-term target of 300kboepd.

JP Morgan believes that Vedanta's key oil asset is the Barmer basin which has seven hydrocarbon-bearing reservoir systems has started exploration.

12:40 pm Europe opening: European bourses opened higher as investors look ahead to earnings reports and monitor the latest political developments in the US.

France's CAC, Germany's DAX and Britain's FTSE gained 0.4-0.6 percent.

12:18 pm Market Check: After the recent rally, equity benchmarks started consolidation ahead of earnings of IT bellwethers TCS and Infosys.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was down 5.43 points at 31,741.66 and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 7.25 points to 9,793.30.

TCS declined 0.7 percent and Infosys was flat after rising 6 percent and 4.5 percent in previous two sessions, respectively.

Brokerage houses expect slowdown in banking & financial services and weak retail business to impact revenue growth of these companies while wage hikes and visa cost may hit margin performance.

TCS, which is scheduled to report its first quarter earnings on July 13, is expected to report revenue growth in the range of 2.2-2.5 percent for the quarter while IT bellwether Infosys, which will announce numbers on July 14, is likely to perform better than TCS in terms of revenue growth.

12:00 pm Monsoon worries: The southern states of India are about to face yet another rain deficit year as South West monsoons have come to a standstill for a week after a spectacular beginning for the initial two weeks. Downpours have primarily come to a standstill in states such as Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.

According to six meteorological subdivisions in the country, the quantum of rainfall fell considerably as monsoons entered the second week of July, which is reportedly the month of highest rainfall.

However, the overall rainfall deficit in the country still stands at 1 percent as the north-west region received a surplus rainfall of 31 percent and the Eastern region of Assam is experiencing severe floods.

11:33 am Buzzing: Shares of Aksh Optifibre rose nearly 10 percent intraday as it has been awarded Jaipur smart city project.

The company has been awarded with the Letter of Acceptance (LOA) from Jaipur Smart City, who invited a bid for development of smart road in ABD areas of Jaipur.

The order includes deployment of the OFC network to install the smart city wi-fi network, smart led lighting system for energy efficiency, ip based surveillance system with vehicle identification & counting, environment sensors for monitoring the environment, smart parking system, and smart communication.

11:18 am Order Win: Share price of Steel Strips Wheels advanced nearly 2 percent intraday as the company has won an export order for EU aftermarket.

The company has bagged another exports order for supply of 20000 steel wheels for EU aftermarket.

The total order includes supplies of over 20000 wheels in a period of 3 months, and this to be dispatches from company's Chennai plant from this month onwards.

The company expects repeat order of 10000 more wheels by end of September 2017. This order will further augments company's strong presence in the extremely competitive EU aftermarket.

11:06 am Merger: Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said the merger between ONGC and HPCL will be completed in current financial year, reports CNBC-TV18 quoting agencies.

PSU oil & gas stocks gained more than 2 percent, pushing the Nifty Oil & Gas index higher by 1.5 percent.

MRPL also rose 3 percent as ONGC holds 71.63 percent stake in the company and HPCL has 16.96 percent shareholding.

Brokerage houses believe this merger will create Indian oil giant like global peers (Shell, BP etc).

11:00 am NPAs divergence: In its latest annual report, IDBI Bank reported that its gross non-performing assets (NPAs) of Rs 24,875 crore in FY16 were lower than the Reserve Bank's estimate of Rs 31,691 crore.

This indicates that the public sector bank may have under-reported its GNPAs by Rs 6,816 crore.

In the report, the bank also mentioned that there was a divergence in the bank's provisions for FY16. IDBI had kept aside Rs 10,232 crore in provisions, while the RBI had estimated it to be around Rs 12,292 crore - a difference of Rs 2,061 crore.

In the month of April, the RBI directed banks to disclose the state of their bad loan divergence in their financial statements if it exceeded 15 percent.

In the case of IDBI Bank, the divergence in GNPAs stood at 27 percent.

10:44 am Buzzing: CCL Products shares fell more than 7 percent intraday after disappointing earnings performance of the company in April-June quarter.

Profit during the quarter plunged 32.9 percent to Rs 27.03 crore compared with Rs 40.3 crore in year-ago quarter, largely hit by weak operational performance.

Revenue from operations also fell 1.9 percent to Rs 246.8 crore from Rs 251.5 crore on year-on-year basis, the company said in its filing.

Weak quarter as Margins dented due to higher cost of raw materials

Operating profit margin contracted to 18.5 percent in June quarter 2017 from 24.9 percent in same quarter last year due to higher cost of raw material and employee expenses. Gross margin during the quarter slipped to 37.6 percent from 43 percent YoY.

10.33 am Market Check: Equity benchmarks continued to trade with moderate gains, with the Nifty hovering around 9,800 level. Auto, FMCG, Metal and Pharma indices gained whereas IT and Bank indices were under pressure.

The 30-share BSE Sensex gained 28.83 points at 31,775.92 and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 12.45 points to 9,798.50.

The broader markets were also moderately higher as about 1,221 shares advanced against 949 declining shares on the BSE.

10:00 am Buzzing: Shares of Biocon gained over 8.5 percent intraday as investors turned bullish ahead of the regulator meeting to discuss its breast cancer drug filing.

The US drug regulator's Advisory Committee (Adcom) will be meeting on July 13 to disucss trastuzumab filing done by Mylan, Biocon's partner. Trastuzumab is used to treat metastatic (spread) breast cancer. It is effective against tumors that overexpress the HER2/neu protein, according to chemocare.com.

According to Sharekhan, investors could monitor the outcome of this meet closely and if the product is approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, it will be the first Herceptin biosimilar in the US market.

Further, it highlighted that Roche's Herceptin brand generated global sales of USD 6.7 billion in last calendar year and is slated to lose US patent exclusivity in 2019.

9:50 am USFDA action: Vista Pharmaceuticals shares were locked at 5 percent lower circuit at Rs 32.75 after the US health regulator issued warning letter to company's Telangana unit.

At 09:48 hours IST, there were pending sell orders of 88,188 shares, with no buyers available on the BSE.

The US Food and Drug Administration has issued two observations for Telangana unit that inspected between September 19 and September 23, 2016, according to CNBC-TV18 reports.

The USFDA said there have been significant violations of current good manufacturing practice regulations for finished drugs.

Vista has been failed to clean, maintain equipment & utensils at appropriate intervals, and also failed to establish procedures to assure drug strength, identity & quality.

9:40 am Earnings Estimates: Saion Mukherjee of Nomura said the Q1FY18 earnings season is likely to be challenging.

For the ex-banks and oil and gas universe, he forecasts a revenue growth of 3.1 percent (YoY).

This is the weakest YoY revenue growth recorded in the past 3 years and the disruptions due to the implementation of GST, rupee appreciation, rising overheads and the impact of higher commodity prices are the factors that are hurting earnings growth in the quarter, he said.

Mukherjee expects a revival in Q2FY18, but the results season is unlikely to drive any earnings upgrade, according to him.

9:20 am Rupee: The Indian rupee opened higher by 8 paise at 64.51 per dollar versus previous close 64.59.

Pramit Brahmbhatt of Veracity said, "The rupee has seen resistance at 64.50/dollar. The trading range for the spot USD-INR pair is seen between 64.50-64.75 for the day."

The dollar fell to a more than one-week low against a basket of major currencies after US President Donald Trump's eldest son released an email chain citing Russian support for his father before last year's US election.

9:15 am Market Check: Equity benchmarks opened moderately higher on Wednesday, with the Nifty climbing above 9,800 level despite weak Asian cues, backed by Reliance Industries, healthcare and auto stocks.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 62.75 points at 31,809.84 and the 50-share NSE Nifty gained 25.45 points at 9,811.50.

IndusInd Bank, ACC, Ambuja Cements, Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and IOC were early gainers.

The broader markets also participated in uptrend on positive breadth. About 761 shares advanced against 244 declining shares on the BSE. Nifty Midcap 100 gained 0.5 percent.

Biocon surged 8 percent while Tilaknagar Industries, Globus Spirits, United Breweries and United Spirits rose 1-10 percent.

HUDCO, CDSL, AU Small Finance and PNC Infratech continued to rally, up 2-6 percent whereas CCL Products and Vista Pharma were down 4-6 percent.

Asian equities were mostly lower as markets stateside digested the release of a series of emails from the son of President Donald Trump.