Fines for L&T, SoftBank’s Delhivery Stake Sale, Bajaj Finance’s EMI Card Suspension

Opening Bell:

Gift Nifty is down by 9.5 points in the early morning trade, indicating a negative opening for Indian stock market.

Asia markets traded higher on Monday with Japanese shares hitting three-decade highs amid strong earnings and offshore demand. Investors awaited a decision on China’s benchmark lending rates. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan edged up 0.1%, having climbed 2.8% last week to a two-month high. Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.12% and the Topix gained 0.15%. South Korea’s Kospi added 0.13%, while the Kosdaq was up 0.35%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index futures were higher at 17,728, compared to the HSI’s close of 17,454.19. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.18%.

US stock market indices ended marginally higher on Friday as led by gains in energy stocks while 10-year Treasury yields touched a roughly two-month low. Comments from the US Federal Reserve officials clouded the outlook about when the US central bank might start cutting interest rates. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose or 0.01%, while the S&P 500 gained 0.13%, The Nasdaq Composite ended 0.08%, higher. For the week, the S&P 500 added 2.2% while the Nasdaq composite rose 2.4% and the Dow climbed 1.9%.

European markets closed higher Friday after a reversal of momentum in the previous session. The pan-European Stoxx 600 index closed around 1% higher, with all sectors and major bourses in positive territory.

Stocks News:

👉 Larsen & Toubro: Qatar’s General Tax Authority has fined the company ₹111.31 crore for 2016-2017 and ₹127.64 crore for 2017-2018. The company has filed an appeal, saying the fines are arbitrary and unjustified.        

👉 Delhivery: Japanese conglomerate SoftBank has sold a nearly 2.5% stake in the integrated logistics provider for ₹739 crore through an open market transaction. Data from the NSE showed that SoftBank affiliate SVF Doorbell (Cayman) Ltd offloaded 1,83,05,480 shares at an average price of ₹403.51.

👉 Bajaj Finance: The company has temporarily suspended the issuance of Existing Member Identification Cards (EMI cards) to new customers till such time that the deficiencies observed by RBI are rectified to their satisfaction. The company continues to offer financing to new and existing customers at dealer stores in the normal course of business. This will not have a material financial impact on the company.

👉 Exide Industries: Exide Industries Ltd has settled its trademark dispute with the UK’s Vertiv Company Group Ltd. and India’s Vertiv Energy Pvt. VCGL and VEPL have agreed that the trademark Chloride and its variants in India are registered by Exide, according to an exchange filing issued on Friday.  

👉 Foreign institutional investors net sold shares worth Rs 477.76 crore, while domestic institutional investors offloaded Rs 565.48 crore worth of stocks on November 17, provisional data from the National Stock Exchange showed.       

Domestic and International Events

• In October, 411 infrastructure projects with investments over Rs 150 crore faced cost overruns exceeding Rs 4.31 lakh crore, as per the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. Out of 1,788 projects, 411 reported cost overruns, and 837 faced delays. The total original cost was Rs 24.78 trillion, with an anticipated completion cost of Rs 29.09 trillion, resulting in an overall overrun of Rs 4.31 trillion (17.39% of the original cost). As of October 2023, Rs 15.27 trillion had been spent, constituting 52.49% of the projects’ anticipated cost.

• After sustained selling in the last two and a half months, FPIs bought Indian equities worth Rs 1,433 crore thus far in November, mainly due to the decline in US treasury bond yields and crude oil prices. Foreign Portfolios Investors (FPIs) were net sellers till November 15. However, they reversed the selling trend by infusing money during November 16-17, data with the depositories showed.

• Oil prices rose on Friday, a day after sinking 5% to a four month-low on growing worries about burgeoning non-OPEC supply and cooling demand. The West Texas Intermediate contract for December rose $2.21, or 3.03%, to $75.11 per barrel, while the Brent contract for January rose 3.2%, or $2.49, to $79.91 a barrel.

• Gold prices held steady on Friday but registered a big weekly gain as the dollar and Treasury yields weakened amid growing expectations that the U.S. Federal Reserve is done with its monetary policy tightening. Spot gold was steady at $1,980.13 after rising to a two-week high earlier in the session. Prices were up about 2.3% this week. U.S. gold futures settled down 0.1% at $1,984.70.   

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