Mapping the market: BHEL gets re-energised, SpiceJet flies sky high; bank stocks most active

NEW DELHI: From a promising start to a tepid close, the benchmark equity indices could not script a rally for the third day on Wednesday as heavyweight banking and IT stocks refused to participate any more.

Global markets were lethargic and talking more about on them seems highly unwarranted. It was certainly not a good day for the indices, but select stocks.
And the stock that hogged limelight most was BHEL. That said, despite a 15.5 per cent jump, the stock hardly left an imprint on the equity benchmarks.

The BSE Sensex slipped below the 29,000 mark, while the NSE’s Nift50 at best managed to hold above the 8,900 level. What moved up for the day was fear gauge India VIX, which jumped 3 per cent for the day.

Here are a couple of stocks and sectors that stole limelight in an otherwise muted trading session:

Smallcap index fights back: While the largecap and midcap indices lost ground, the BSE Midcap index rose 0.41 per cent to 12,816. Federal-Mogul Goetze, Subros, Unitech Spicejet were some of the smallcap stocks that surged up to 20 per cent. Alok Industries jumped 12.46 per cent to Rs 3.61.

BHEL showed it could still perform: The stock zoomed 15.5 per cent to Rs 159.80 after the company reported a 54 per cent YoY jump in net profit at Rs 77 crore for the June quarter, beating an ET Now poll estimate of Rs 10.40 crore loss. The company had reported a net profit of Rs 50 crore for the corresponding quarter last year.

SpiceJet flew sky high: The aviation stock surged 15.88 per cent to Rs 65.30 after the company reported its Q1 numbers way ahead of peers Jet Airways and InterGlobe Aviation. The airline reported 104 per cent year-on-year growth in net profit at Rs 149 crore for the quarter ended June 30.

Vedanta gained nothing, Cairn fell on merger nod: Shares of Vedanta ended flat at Rs 174 on BSE after rising nearly 4 per cent to hit a 52-week high in morning trade. Cairn India lost 1.23 per cent to Rs 200 after rising 3 per cent earlier. The stocks reacted after promoter Vedanta Resources received shareholders’ approval to merge the two group companies.

Brokerage turned cautious on Petronet LNG: This stock fell 3.18 per cent to Rs 345 amid concerns that valuations have turned rich on the counter. Centrum Broking in a note said Petronet has historically traded at higher valuations when the RoE was about 28 per cent, but low RoE over the forecast period, lack of pricing power, risk of hair-cut in regas tariffs and risk of non-recovery of take-pay charges made it go underweight on the stock.

Oil India pared gains, ended 1% up: Shares of Oil India settled 1.18 per cent higher at Rs 393 after an initial 4 per cent spike. The oil major post market hours of Wednesday reported a 33.48 per cent decline in June quarter net profit to Rs 494 crore, compared with Rs 743.21 crore in the corresponding quarter last year.

ICICI Bank, SBI among most active stocks: BHEL was the most actively traded stock on NSE in terms of traded value. The counter witnessed trading worth Rs 1,217 crore during the session. It was followed by ICICI Bank (Rs 1.94 crore) and SBI (Rs 821 crore). Maruti, Tata Motors, Axis Bank and TCS were the other highly traded stocks of the day.

BHEL, oil counters saw spurt in OI: Stock futures of BHEL saw the biggest spurt in open interest (OI) at 40.58 per cent. Petronet LNG, Oil India and ONGC saw their open interest rise by up to 40 per cent. Stocks such as Mindtree and Jubilant Foodworks ended up with deep cuts. A rise in OI and fall in stock price is as negative setup or vice-versa.