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Sensex Falls 237 Points, Nifty Ends Below 17,500; HDFC Twins & Maruti Among Top Losers
Wed, 13 Apr Closing

After opening on a firm note, Indian share markets witnessed negative trading activity in the second half and ended near day's low.

Benchmark indices retreated and ended the holiday-truncated week on a negative note, tracking weakness in global markets and some profit-booking.

It appears market participants weighed inflation risks against the start of the earnings season and remained cautious ahead of crucial macroeconomic data announcements.

At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex dropped 237 points, down 0.4%. While the NSE Nifty ended down by 55 points or 0.3%.

Profit booking in financial stocks and banks dragged the Nifty private bank index down by 1% while the metal index added 0.6%.

Maruti Suzuki, HDFC twins, Tata Motors, and Dr Reddy's Lab were among the top losers.

ONGC, ITC, and Sun Pharma, on the other hand, were among the top gainers.

In the broader market, the BSE Midcap index slipped 0.2% while the BSE Smallcap index rose 0.3%.

FMCG, capital goods, oil and gas, and metals stocks rose. While automobile, banks, and realty stocks witnessed selling.

Asian share markets ended on a slightly positive note. The Nikkei gained 1.9% while the Hang Seng was up by 0.3%.

European markets were mixed today as investors looked ahead to the European Central Bank's meeting on Thursday.

On Wall Street, the futures tied to the main indices were up between 0.3% to 0.6%.

The rupee is trading at 76.13 against US$.

Gold prices for the latest contract on MCX are trading up by 0.3% at Rs 53,041 per 10 grams.

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In news from the energy sector, BPCL was among the top buzzing stocks today.

Bharat Petroleum Corporation on Wednesday said it will invest around Rs 2 bn this fiscal to set up 100 fast electric vehicles (EV) charging corridors having 2,000 stations along the busiest 100 national highways.

The public sector oil marketing company recently opened its first EV charging corridor along the Chennai-Trichi-Madurai highway with one charging unit.

The second corridor will come up on the Kochi-Salem section of the National Highway 47 within the next two months, BPCL executive director B S Ravi said.

He also said that for the long-term, the company has plans to have 7,000 fast EV charging stations by fiscal 2025. But he did not disclose the investment details.

BPCL is hoping that the EV ecosystem will grow faster than forecast earlier, and it wants to play a big role in setting up the basic infrastructure for this ambitious drive.

It remains to be seen how the above developments pan out.

BPCL share price ended the day down by 0.4%.

Moving on to news from the automobile sector, passenger vehicle wholesales in India declined nearly 4% to 2,79,501 units last month, auto industry body SIAM said on Wednesday.

Passenger vehicle (PV) dispatches from factories to dealerships in March 2021 stood at 2,90,939 units.

As per the latest data by SIAM, two-wheeler sales also fell 21% to 11,84,210 units as compared with 14,96,806 vehicles in March 2021.

For the whole 2021-22 fiscal, total PV wholesales rose by 13% to 30,69,499 units from 27,11,457 units in 2020-21.

However, total two-wheeler dispatches declined by 11% to 1,34,66,412 units in last fiscal as compared with 1,51,20,783 units in 2020-21.

SIAM President Kenichi Ayukawa noted that the year gone by was full of unforeseen challenges and new learning for the industry.

Here's an excerpt of what he said:

  • Indian auto industry has worked hard against these challenges to keep the value chain running, to indigenise parts, control cost, invest in new technologies, and enhance exports. The government also came out with targeted support like PLI schemes, FAME scheme extension, etc.

It must be noted that PV, commercial vehicles and three-wheelers have witnessed a growth compared to a low base of the industry in 2020-21, but the two-wheeler segments further declined from the previous year.

Moving on to news from the IT sector, Infosys reported a 12% year-on-year (YoY) rise in its consolidated net profit at Rs 56.9 bn for the fourth quarter ended March.

This compared with a profit of Rs 50.8 bn in the year ago period.

The IT services giant's revenue rose nearly 23% to Rs 322.8 bn as against Rs 263.1 bn last year.

The company's CEO and MD Salil Parekh said that Infosys delivered highest annual growth in a decade with broad-based performance driven by deeply differentiated digital and Infosys Cobalt led cloud capabilities, powered by 'One Infosys' approach.

He added,

  • Sustained momentum in FY22, large deal wins and robust deal pipeline give us comfort to provide guidance of 13-15% in FY23. Will scale cloud capacities further, expand automation and strengthen employee value proposition.

Infosys also announced that it will pay Rs 16 per share as the final dividend.

Shares of Infosys ended 0.4% higher on the BSE.

To know more about the company, check out INFOSYS company fact sheet and its latest quarterly results.

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