BPCL reports 159 percent surge in profits, PB Fintech loss narrows

Opening Bell:

SGX Nifty is up by 22.5 points in the early morning trade, indicating a positive opening for Indian stock market.

Asian markets are mixed today. The Nikkei 225 is up 0.80% while the Hang Seng gained 0.18%. The Shanghai Composite is off 0.05%. Wall Street finished mixed on Monday, with the Nasdaq helped by gains in Alphabet and Meta Platforms, while the S&P 500 ended near flat as investors refrained from big bets ahead of a fresh round of talks about raising the U.S. debt ceiling. The S&P 500 up by 0.01%. while the Nasdaq Composite is up by 0.50%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average down by 0.42%.

Stocks News:

👉Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) on May 22 reported a 159 percent surge in standalone net profit at Rs 6,478 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2023, beating Street estimates. According to CNBC-TV18 poll, the company was expected to report a net profit of Rs 3,981 crore. The government-owned downstream oil producer had reported a net profit of Rs 2,501 crore in the year-ago period.

👉PB Fintech, the parent company of Policybazaar, reported sharp narrowing of losses in the fourth quarter at Rs 8.9 crore. Revenue from operations jumped 61% year-on-year to Rs 869 crore for the January-March period.

👉Shree Cement posted a net profit of Rs 546 crore in the three months ended March period. Revenue from operations came in at Rs 4,785 crore in the same period.

👉Indiabulls Housing Finance net profit rose 14% to Rs 262 crore for the fourth quarter. NII for the quarter was up 13% to Rs 734 crore.

👉Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) have net purchase shares worth Rs 923 crore on Friday. DIIs, on the other hand, stock purchase worth Rs 604 crore.

Domestic and International Events

• India’s economy is likely to see downside risks to growth and upside risks to inflation, partly due to challenges in the country’s external sector as well as weather-related uncertainties, the finance ministry said in its Monthly Economic Review for April on Monday.
• Tax experts on Monday sought clarity on the applicability of TCS on foreign payments of over Rs 7 lakh made via credit cards, saying it would be difficult for the I-T department to differentiate between personal and business visits. The government on May 16 issued a notification under Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), which effectively imposed a 20 per cent TCS on international credit cards (ICC) spends in foreign exchange. ICC spending was brought under the RBI’s liberalised remittance scheme (LRS).
• Oil prices climbed for a second day on Tuesday as investors expect a tighter market led by a seasonal rise in gasoline demand and supply cuts from OPEC+ producers, though concerns over the risk of a U.S. debt default capped gains.
• Gold prices edged higher on Monday after rising over 1% in the previous session following less-hawkish comments from the U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, with uncertainty around the U.S. debt ceiling outcome and over the banking sector’s stability adding to safe-haven bullion’s gains.

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