Stocks In Action: October 16, 2012

Index heavyweight Reliance Industries reported its financials for the September 2012 quarter in which its net profit shows an increase by 20 per cent QoQ to Rs 5,376 crore in line with the market expectation. The total income increased by 16 per cent to Rs 92,447 crore as against Rs 79,671 crore a year ago. Its gross refining margins (GRMs) went up by 25 per cent to USD 9.5 a barrel in the July-September quarter of 2012 from USD 7.6 a barrel in a year ago period. Shale gas contributed USD 198 million to earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) in the first half of FY13. The revenues from its retail division stood at Rs 4,910 crore for the first six months of the current financial year 2012-13. The revenues from its petrochem division increased by 1 per cent QoQ to Rs 22,058 crore and its EBIT margin declined by 12 basis points QoQ to 7.88 per cent during the same quarter. The scrip will remain volatile in today’s trade.

Yesterday evening HT Media announced its result for the September 2012 quarter. Its consolidated profit after tax (PAT) declined by 24.01 per cent to Rs 33.31 crore due to a drop in advertising revenue. The company had posted a net profit of Rs 43.84 crore for the same period last year. The net sales of the company, however, rose to Rs 500.93 crore for the second quarter as against Rs 481.27 crore in the same period last year. Commenting on the results, HT Media Chairperson and Editorial Director Shobhana Bhartia said: “We continue to operate in a tough macro economic environment with advertising revenues across our print businesses facing headwinds. This, combined with persistent inflation in costs, has put pressure on our profitability for the quarter. The company has posted weak numbers for the quarter especially in terms of the bottomline and therefore one can see a negative momentum in the scrip today.”

Tata Motors’ global vehicle sales fell by 4 per cent in September from a year earlier, the company said, with sales at its key Jaguar Land Rover subsidiary also falling by 4 per cent. Tata Motors, part of the salt-to-steel Tata Group conglomerate, sold a total of 1,03,656 vehicles in September. The overall passenger car sales stood at 48,895 vehicles, down by 11 per cent from a year earlier. Tata sold 26,461 Jaguar Land Rover vehicles in the month. The sales of its commercial vehicles rose by 3 per cent to 54,761. The stock may see some correction in today’s trade.

Engineering and construction firm Unity Infraprojects has received orders worth Rs 315.8 crore, as per a BSE filing yesterday. It stated that the company has been awarded a project for the construction of an administrative building, girls’ hostel and a laboratory at the Bihar Agriculture University and the said project is to be completed within a period of 24 months. The company also bagged a project worth Rs 118 crore for composite work for the construction of a data centre complex at Bengaluru, it said. The project is to be completed within 22 months, it added. This is positive news for the company and one may see some positive movement in the stock today.

SEBI has imposed a fine of Rs.1 lakh each on two senior executives of Gujarat Heavy Chemicals Limited (GHCL) for allegedly getting involved in fraudulent trading in the company’s shares. A probe carried out by Sebi found that promoter entities of GHCL and the top officials colluded to disclose inflated shareholding to the exchanges, according to Business Standard. This would negatively affect the stock price of GHCL today.

Among the companies that are to announce their Q2FY13 results today are Automotive Stampings, Essar Ports, Mindtree, NIIT Tech, Swaraj Engines, Tinplate and Zensar Tech. The stock prices of these stocks are likely to see volatility today with the market direction depending on the result.