Movers & Shakers on D-Street: Bajaj Auto, Biocon, JustDail, Ranbaxy, PNB, DLF, BHEL

After hitting a record high, the Sensex ended with a marginal gain of just 69.94 points, or 0.33 per cent, to close at 21,133.56 for the week ended Friday (January 24), while the Nifty was up 5.10 points to close at 6,266.75.

On Friday, realty, capital goods, consumer goods and bank stocks were among the top losers after equity market ended its four-day winning streak. Ranbaxy, JP Associates, PNB, Ambuja Cement, DLF, Bank of Baroda, BHEL, IndsInd Bank and Tata Steel were among the top Nifty losers.

Realty stocks declined after RBI governor Raghuram Rajan on Thursday said inflation is a destructive disease that was forcing the central bank to keep interest rates high. While realty major DLF declined 3.68 per cent to Rs 153.10, HDIL, Sobha Developers and Unitech lost between 2 per cent and 4 per cent.

Shares of Ranbaxy Labs declined 19 per cent to Rs 336.50 after the company suffered a fresh setback as USFDA banned drug imports from the company’s Toansa factory, citing manufacturing norm violations.

JP Morgan upgraded Bajaj Auto from ‘Underweight’ to ‘Neutral’ and set a target price of Rs 2,075. The brokerage feels that Bjaja’s domestic motorbike volumes have bottomed out and will rise from hereon, given product refreshes of the ‘Discover’ range of executive segment bikes. Shares of Bajaj Auto ended marginally lower at Rs 1,932 on Friday.

The BSE Mid-Cap index underperformed the Sensex by losing 1.66 per cent. Info Edge, JustDial, Biocon, Oriental Bank of Commerce, KPIT Technologies losing between 5 per cent and 9 per cent were the major losers among midcap stocks.

Elara Global has maintained its ‘Buy’ rating on Cairn India with a target price of Rs 418 as the oil company maintains its guidance of exit production of 200,000 boepd from the Rajasthan block.

Shares of metal companies plunged after China’s HSBC Purchasing Managers’ Index fell to 49.6 in the month compared with a final reading of 50.5 in December. Tata Steel declined 3.31 per cent to Rs 376.25, while Hindustan Copper lost 2.45 per cent to Rs 65.70.

Shares of Novartis India declined over 4 per cent to Rs 419.45 after the pharma major reported a 47.5 per cent decline in net profit for the quarter ended December 2031.