INDICES TRADE WITH SMALL GAINS, NIFTY ABOVE 19,400

The headline equity indices pared all the losses and traded with tiny gains in afternoon trade. The Nifty traded a tad above the 19,400 level. Metal, oil & gas and financial services stocks advanced while media, auto and IT shares declined.

At 13:30 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 25.38 points or 0.04% to 64,857.58. The Nifty 50 index added 8.65 points or 0.05% to 19,403.95.

In the broader market, the S&P BSE Mid-Cap index gained 0.23% while the S&P BSE Small-Cap index rose 0.40%.

The market breadth was positive. On the BSE, 1,905 shares rose and 1,680 shares fell. A total of 158 shares were unchanged.

Gainers & Losers:

NTPC (up 1.28%), ONGC (up 1.17%), Tech Mahindra (up 1.84%), JSW Steel (up 0.94%) and UltraTech Cement (up 0.85%) were major Nifty gainers.

Hero MotoCorp (down 2.01%), Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) (down 1.83%), HCL Technologies (down 1.15%), Apollo Hospitals Enterprise (down 1.09%) and Titan Company (down 0.91%) were major Nifty losers.

M&M declined 1.83%. The auto major`s standalone net profit surged 66.92% to Rs 3,451.88 crore in Q2 FY24 as against Rs 2,068 crore recorded in Q2 FY23. Revenue from operations increased 16.59% year on year (YoY) to Rs 25,772.68 crore in the quarter ended 30 September 2023.

During the quarter, M&M sold 2,12,078 vehicles, recording a growth of 18% as against 1,79,673 vehicles sold in the same quarter a year ago. Total tractors sold in Q2 FY24 stood at 89,101 units, down 4% from 92,590 units sold in Q2 FY23.

Stocks in spotlight:

Muthoot Finance slipped 3.76%. The company reported consolidated net profit of Rs 1,095.28 crore in Q2 FY24, higher from Rs 901.62 crore posted in Q2 FY23. Total income rose to Rs 3631.94 crore in Q2 FY24 from Rs 2841.85 crore in Q2 FY23.

Piramal Enterprises tumbled 3.78%. The company reported consolidated net profit of Rs 48.19 crore in Q2 FY24 as against net loss of Rs 1,536.39 crore reported in Q2 FY23. Total income fell 3% to Rs 914 crore in Q2 FY24 as compared with Rs 943 crore posted in corresponding quarter last year.

Rail Vikas Nigam (RVNL) declined 2.46%. The company reported 3.42% increase in consolidated net profit to Rs 394.26 crore in Q2 FY24 as compared with Rs 381.22 crore in Q2 FY23. Revenue from operations increased marginally to Rs 4,914.32 crore in Q2 FY24 from Rs 4,908.90 crore reported in Q2 FY23.

Global markets:

Markets in Europe and Asian declined on Friday, retreating from small gains made in the previous session amid a downbeat tone set by U.S. markets overnight.

US stocks declined on Thursday, effectively ending the S&P 500`s eight day win streak that delivered a gain of more than 6%. The decline in stocks came after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell made hawkish comments during a panel discussion at an International Monetary Fund conference.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell said in a speech Thursday that the central bank thinks more may be needed to bring down inflation. �The Federal Open Market Committee is committed to achieving a stance of monetary policy that is sufficiently restrictive to bring inflation down to 2% over time; we are not confident that we have achieved such a stance,� he said in his prepared speech.

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