&w=3840&q=100)
D-St takes breather amid profit booking; Sensex dips 200 pts, Nifty at 25K
Stock Market Closing Bell, Friday, May 16, 2025: Following a range-bound session, Indian equity benchmarks settled in red on Friday amid lack of fresh triggers and selective profit booking in key sectors such as IT, Metal and Banks.
After hitting day's low of 82,146.95, the Sensex closed at 82,330.59, down by 200.15 points or 0.24 per cent. The Nifty50 closed at 25,019.80 levels, down by 42.30 points or 0.17 per cent. Vinod Nair, head of research at Geojit Investments said that the market witnessed mild profit booking following a sharp rally in the previous session. Despite this, investor sentiment remained upbeat, with sustained momentum in mid- and small-cap stocks, as well as rate-sensitive sectors such as real estate, NBFCs, automobiles, and consumer durables.
However, the broader markets outperformed the benchmarks with sectors like railways and defence witnessing continous buying. The Nifty Midcap 100 index settled 0.94 per cent higher, led by gains in Cochin Shipyard (13 per cent), Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders (10.7 per cent), RVNL (9.18 per cent), Premier Energies (9.6 per cent) and SJVN (6.1 per cent). Among others, Container Corporation of India, HUDCO, Tube Investments, Tata Technologies, Motilal Oswal Financial Services, IREDA, IRCTC and NHPC were up in the range of 3 per cent to 6 per cent.
Nifty Smallcap 100 rose 1.86 per cent, led by gains in IFCI (14.8 per cent), Rites (14.8 per cent), Titagarh Rail Systems (12.7 per cent), Garden Reach Shipbuilders (10 per cent), Data Patterns (9.75 per cent) and Anant Raj up 8.8 per cent.
On the Sectoral front, Nifty IT was the top laggard, followed by Healthcare, Metal, Pharma and Financial Services. Nifty IT fell 0.84 per cent, pulled by selling index heavyweights HCL Tech, Infosys and Wipro.
Nifty Realty and Media rose 1.64 per cent and 1.11 per cent, each. Nifty Auto, Energy, FMCG, Consumer Durables and Oil & Gas also rose up to 1 per cent. Nifty Realty emerged as the top sectoral gainer, led by gains in Anant Raj, Raymond, Brigade Enterprises, Sobha, and Oberoi Realty.
"Defence stocks also continued their upward trajectory, supported by a strong sectoral outlook. Optimism is being fuelled by expectations of imminent resolutions in US-China and India-US trade relations, which are easing concerns over potential economic fallout," Nair added.
Among Sensex constituents, 16 out of 30 stocks closed with gains. The top gainers included Eternal (formerly Zomato) up by 1.38 per cent, Hindustan Unilever (1.10 per cent), Asian Paints (0.98 per cent), ITC (0.80 per cent) and Tata Motors and 0.36 per cent.
According to Ajit Mishra, senior vice president for research at Religare Broking, more than the recovery in the benchmark index, the broad-based rebound has offered greater relief to market participants. Sustained FII inflows and stable global markets are further contributing to the positive sentiment.
"We continue to maintain our bullish outlook and recommend focusing on selective stock-picking. Going forward, corporate earnings and global market trends will remain key factors to watch in the absence of any major events," Mishra said.
Market Technical View
According to analysts at Bajaj Broking, index on weekly chart has formed a sizable bull candle with a higher high and higher low signaling continuation of the up move. The index in the process closed firmly above the December 2024 high (24,857).
Going ahead, we expect Nifty to maintain positive bias and head towards 25,200-25,300 levels being the measuring implication of the recent range breakout. Some consolidation is likely around the 25,200-25,300 levels. While a breakout above 25,300 will open further upside towards 25,750 in the coming weeks.
The recent breakout zone, along with last week low placed near 24,400–24,500 levels is expected to serve as a crucial support for the Nifty. Stock specific action will continue to remain in focus as we progress through the Q4 FY25 earning session.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Economic Times
22 minutes ago
- Economic Times
12-15% earnings growth likely in FY26-27; PSBs and select commodity stocks offer value: Gautam Duggad
Live Events You Might Also Like: Expect a lot of wealth creation in equity market over next 5 years: Gautam Duggad You Might Also Like: FY26 earnings growth to rebound to 12-13% for Nifty 50 companies: Varun Goel (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our ETMarkets WhatsApp channel , Head Of Research, Director - Institutional Equities,, says the fourth quarter of FY25 showed strong earnings. It surpassed previous quarters. Growth reached 10% against a 2% expectation. Most sectors and companies exceeded forecasts. Midcaps led with 19% earnings growth. Largecaps also posted 10% growth. Government capex spending increased significantly in March and April. Commodity prices remain a concern. Overall, a 12-15% earnings growth is expected for further says that despite a significant rally in PSU market capitalization, the PSU index's PE ratio remains elevated at 14-15, exceeding its historical average. Defence stocks are trading at high PE ratios of 40-50, limiting further rerating potential. PSU banks and select commodity stocks are the only areas within the PSU sector offering reasonable valuations.I beg to differ. Q4 was a very strong quarter. The spread, the quality, the number of beats that we have seen in this quarter we have not seen in any quarter of FY25. This is the best quarter of FY25. We have exited a very good momentum. Compared to an expectation of 2%, we got 10% growth. Out of 22 sectors for which we forecast earnings, 19 delivered numbers which are better or ahead of of 300 companies that we forecast earnings for, 220, that is roughly 75% of the coverage universe, have delivered numbers either in line or ahead of expectations. This is a far better number because this number usually is between 60% and 65%. So whichever way you slice and dice the earnings, the fourth quarter was one of the best quarters that we have had both from an absolute earnings point of view as well as the spread and quality and internals of that corporate fact, if you dig slightly deeper, out of the 10% earnings growth, midcaps earnings have grown at 19% in our coverage universe and we cover 100 midcaps. Around 85 to 90 largecaps posted 10% earnings growth. And smallcap earnings were flat, except financials. So, the fourth quarter earnings have set the pace now. We are entering FY26 with a good is a lot of support from the macros coming in. RBI delivering 100 basis point rate cut, government cutting income tax rate, inflation trending close to 3%, that leaves more room for RBI in second quarter of FY26 to cut another 25-50 basis points. Liquidity conditions are improving. GST data is strong. Your E-Way bill numbers are strong. So, 12% to 15% earnings growth is not a very far-fetched expectation to have. Yes, the sectoral mix within that 12-15% expectation that we have might change along the way. Some other sectors will contribute versus what we are thinking right broadly, I would also expect the capex cycle to revive. The large part of FY25 is spent on the slowdown in capex. But look at the March numbers. The government spent Rs 2.4 lakh crore. For context, this number was the total annual spend in FY25 which we now spend in one month. April also began on a strong note. We spent 1.6 lakh crore in capex. So, between March and April, we spent close to Rs 4 lakh crore. Slowly, capex spending will also come back might grow at 10-11% or maybe slightly higher because the government has budgeted about 10% growth for FY26 at about Rs 11.5 lakh crore; we closed at Rs 10.5 lakh crore last year versus budgeted estimate of Rs 10.2 lakh crore. Nobody would have thought that the government will exceed the capex spend for FY25 if you had asked them in February or even the first week of March. So, March came like that big slog over where the government completely achieved the target and exceeded by 2-3%.So, those are some of the contributing factors for earnings in my view. The only place where we have our reservations is on global commodities because they are completely difficult to forecast. The underlying mark to market on the commodity prices basis the moment that we are seeing in commodities that takes a huge toll on Nifty earnings because commodities contribute 20% of the profit pool. If you look at the number ex of commodities, even FY25 Nifty earnings growth is about 10%, and that is giving us the confidence that given the many parameters which are in play at both macro and micro level on consumption, capex, financials, the 12-15% earnings growth that we are projecting for FY25 to FY27 is in the realm of you look at PSUs, there are the cohorts – multiple subsegments within that. There is banking, utility, commodity and defence. If you look at defence, on July 24, the peak defence market cap was close to Rs 11 lakh crore. From there to February 25, the market cap came down to Rs 7 lakh crore, almost a 35% decline. Now between February to June that is a four-month period, the market cap has crossed the previous high of Rs 11 lakh it is almost trending towards Rs 11.5-12 lakh crore. So, there has been a 70% increase in market cap in four months for defence PSUs. A large part of the defence market cap is contributed by PSUs. In the same breath, railways have had a phenomenal rally from 2021 to 2024. The combined market cap of a railway plus defence used to be Rs 2 lakh crore in July '21. It went to Rs 18 lakh crore in July '24. From there, both the sectors had that, defence has rallied and crossed its earlier peak but the Railways is still to cross it. PSU banks have been flatlining for almost a year now. So, where are we positive? We are positive on select PSU banks, which is why I am still overweight on PSUs in our model portfolio in financials, even though our bigger overweight stems from non-lending financials and capital market plays where we are far more bullish. Then, selectively in commodities, we like Coal India, Power Grid. One cannot have a basket approach because of the underlying undervaluation of PSUs prevailing in 2020. A large part of that got corrected between 2020 and 2024.A year-and-a-half back, we had detailed in the PSU strategy note where we said that despite the big rally in the market cap for PSU companies, the PSU index was still trading at 14-15 PE while its average used to be eight-nine times. I do not think the PE has more room for rerating, even in defence stocks now because now even defence stocks are trading at 40-50 PE. The only place where valuations are reasonable in PSU space today is PSU bank and some commodity stocks.
Deccan Herald
24 minutes ago
- Deccan Herald
India moves to conserve its rare earths, seeks halt to Japan exports, sources say
In a recent meeting with auto and other industry executives, Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal asked IREL to stop its exports of rare earths, mainly neodymium, a key material used in magnets for electric vehicle motors, one of the sources said.
The Hindu
36 minutes ago
- The Hindu
Why have special economic zones rules been relaxed?
The story so far: The Government of India has been taking various steps to boost the production of semiconductors and electronics in India, in a bid to reduce our dependence on imports. Some previous measures include the Semicon India programme launched in 2022 with an outlay of ₹76,000 crore. Now, the government has gone a step further and has relaxed key rules related to Special Economic Zones (SEZs) to further encourage the domestic manufacture of semiconductors and electronics. Why are semiconductors important? Semiconductors lie at the heart of an increasingly electronic society, with AI and machine learning only the latest in a long trend of increased digitisation and automation. Semiconductors are the tiny chips processing vast amounts of information that make all of these processes possible, in one's phone, computer, tablet, smart TV, smart speaker, car, and every other electronic gadget. According to the Semiconductor Industry Association, China accounted for about 35% of all semiconductors manufactured in the world in 2021. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, much of the world, including India, realised that the concentration of supply chains in one country posed huge risks for any country dependent on those supplies. Therefore, they started trying to boost the domestic manufacture of such key components. What are the latest steps by the Indian government? On June 9, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry announced that it had notified several modifications to the Special Economic Zones (SEZ) Rules, 2006, a week earlier, to enhance the domestic manufacture of semiconductors. One of these tweaks was to Rule 5, which dealt with the size of the SEZ. Earlier, an SEZ set up exclusively for the manufacture of semiconductors or electronic components needed a minimum contiguous land area of 50 hectares. This has now been significantly reduced to 10 hectares. This reduced size will allow companies to make smaller investments but still avail of SEZ benefits such as tax exemptions, duty-free imports, and infrastructure support. Another amendment to Rule 7 of the SEZ Rules now allows the Board of Approval for SEZs to relax the condition that had required SEZ land to be 'encumbrance-free'. Land is deemed to be encumbrance-free if it does not have any legal claims, liens, or charges against it, and when clear title of ownership and transfer can be established. With India's complicated and often-archaic land record mechanisms, and lengthy legal processes, such a requirement would have stymied a lot of SEZs. Relaxing this rule will allow SEZs to come up faster. A third amendment was to Rule 18, allowing SEZ units in semiconductor and electronics component manufacturing to supply domestically, after paying the applicable duties. Conventionally, SEZs are exclusively export-oriented. Allowing domestic sales not only shields the SEZs from the ongoing global trade uncertainty, but also ensures a steady supply to the domestic market itself. What has been the impact? Given the changes are so recent, one can't immediately establish long-term impacts. However, following the tweaks, two new SEZs have already been approved with a total investment of ₹13,100 crore. Micron Semiconductor Technology India will establish an SEZ facility in Sanand, Gujarat for the manufacture of semiconductors with an estimated investment of ₹13,000 crore, while Hubballi Durable Goods Cluster, a part of the Aequs Group, will establish an SEZ facility for the manufacture of electronic components in Dharwad, Karnataka, at a cost of ₹100 crore. Micron's plant is to be 37.64 hectares in area and the Aequs plant is expected to be 11.55 hectares.
