Sensex, Nifty to open higher; ACC, Ambuja, Adani Enterprises, Paytm, DMart shares in focus

Indian equity benchmarks, the BSE Sensex and the NSE Nifty, are set to open higher on Monday amid a bout of calmness in global markets. The positive trends on SGX Nifty also indicated a gap-up opening for the domestic bourses, with SGX Nifty futures trading 50 points, or 0.31%, higher at 15,822 on the Singapore Stock Exchange at 7:50 AM. With no major economic event lined up today, investors will keep an eye on the developments around the Russia-Ukraine war and China’s Covid-19 situation for cues. Going ahead, LIC listing, WPI inflation numbers, and U.S. Federal Reserve’s speech will be key drivers this week. Investors will also react to the mega deal between billionaire Gautam Adani-led Adani group and Swiss cement major Holcim to acquire the latter's listed cement companies in India.

On Friday, the domestic bourses closed lower for the sixth straight session as weak global cues, sustained fund outflows by foreign investors amid rate hike concerns triggered sell-off in the market. Reversing early gains, the BSE Sensex ended 137 points, or 0.26%, lower at 52,794, and the NSE Nifty fell 26 points, or 0.16%, to settle at 15,782. Last week, the benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty dropped nearly 4%, with Reliance Industries, Tata Consultancy Services, HDFC Bank, Infosys, ICICI Bank, State Bank of India, HDFC and Bharti Airtel emerging as top laggards.

Shares to focus

ACC, Ambuja: Shares of cement majors will be in focus as Adani group has acquired Swiss cement major Holcim's stake in Ambuja Cements and its subsidiary ACC for $10.5 billion (around ₹81,361 crore), including the open offers.

Reliance Industries: Billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led company reportedly plans to acquire dozens of small grocery and non-food brands as it aims to build its own $6.5 billion consumer goods business to compete with foreign players such as Unilever.

Adani Enterprises: AMG Media Networks, a unit of the Adani group company, has proposed to acquire 49% stake in Raghav Bahl-curated digital business news platform Quintillion Business Media Pvt Ltd for an undisclosed sum.

Maruti Suzuki: The auto major plans investment of more than ₹11,000 crore in the first phase to set up a new plant as it has completed the process of allotment of an 800-acre site in Haryana for its proposed unit.

Tech Mahindra: The IT major has reported a 10% sequential rise in its consolidated net profit to ₹1,506 crore for the quarter ended March 2022. On a quarter-on-quarter basis, the consolidated revenue from operations rose to ₹12,116 crore for the reported quarter.

One97 Communications (Paytm): The company unveiled its business performance for the month of April, saying that Paytm’s lending business has recorded an annualised run-rate of ₹20,000 crore of disbursement through its platform, and its device deployment crossed the 3 million mark.

Future Retail: The cash-strapped firm’s Chief Financial Officer C P Toshniwal has resigned from the company, effective May 12. The company has seen a string of resignations recently after the ₹24,713-crore deal with Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries was scrapped.

Union Bank of India: The public sector lender’s net profit increased 8.26% year-on-year to ₹1,440 crore in the fourth quarter ended March 2022, helped by improvement in net interest margins. The bank’s board has recommended a dividend of ₹1.9 per equity share (of face value of ₹10) for 2021-22, subject to shareholders’ approval.

DMart: Radhakishan Damani-promoted retail chain has posted 7% YoY growth in net profit at ₹466 crore for the quarter ending March 31, 2022. The revenue rose 18% YoY to ₹8,606 crore during the quarter ending review.

Shipping Corporation of India (SCI): The state-owned shipping company has recorded a 77.42% YoY jump in its consolidated net profit to ₹152.16 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 2022. The total consolidated income rose to ₹1,364.62 crore during the quarter under review against ₹900.73 crore in the year-ago period.

Bharti Airtel: The telecom major is reportedly planning to set-up a new technology centre in Pune to support digital services in the Western region and will be hiring around 500 digital engineering professionals by the end of the current fiscal.

Here are the key things investors should know before the market opens today:

Wall Street ends higher

On Friday, all three major U.S. indices closed higher, led by rebound in beaten-down tech and tech-adjacent stocks, which saw sharp selling in recent sessions. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.47%, the S&P 500 added 2.39%, and the Nasdaq Composite rallied 3.82%. Despite Friday’s rally, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq recorded their sixth straight weekly loss as fear of policy tightening by the Federal Reserve amid rising inflation as well as the Russia-Ukraine crisis spooked investors’ sentiments.

Asian stocks rebound

Shares in the Asia-Pacific region started the week on a positive note following a rebound in Wall Street after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell again downplayed speculation of more aggressive interest-rate hikes. Investors kept an eye on Chinese economic data slated to be released later in the session.

Regional heavyweight Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.5%, the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong climbed 0.6%, while South Korea’s KOSPI fell 0.2%.

The Straits Times Index in Singapore gained 0.8%, Australia’s ASX 200 added 0.3%, and Taiwan’s Weighted index jumped 0.9%.

In mainland China, the Shenzhen Component and the Shanghai Composite rose 0.2% each in early trade.

Crude prices fall on demand concerns

The price of Brent and U.S. crude fell over 1% in early trade on Monday after rallying more than 4% on Friday as slowing demand growth along with rising production from other major oil economies eased supply concerns. Investors also awaited a pending ban by the European Union on Russian oil exports which will tighten global supplies of crude and fuels.

In Asian trading hours on Monday, the Brent oil for July delivery was down 1.38% at $110.02 per barrel, while the U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude June futures fell 1.33% to $107.18 a barrel.

Foreign investors withdraw ₹25,200 in May so far

Continuing its selling spree, foreign investors pulled out a little over ₹25,200 crore from the Indian equity market in the first fortnight of this month, on hike in interest rates globally and concerns over rising Covi19 cases. Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) had withdrawn over ₹1.65 lakh crore from Indian equities in April 2022, extending its selling spree for the seventh month.

Corporate earnings

The companies that are slated to release their earnings numbers today include Ami Organics, Bharat Forge, Dodla Dairy, Fino Payments Bank, Glaxosmithkline Pharmaceuticals, Greenply Industries, MCX, Nava Bharat Ventures, Rane Engine Valve, RateGain Travel Technologies, Raymond, Shankara Building Products, Uttam Sugar Mills, and VIP Industries.