2021 October Second Week - Stock Market News

Indian Equity Benchmarks concluded positively as NIFTY surges 2% settled at 17,895 while SENSEX elevated at 60,059 points all-time high.

Sectorally, IT and Energy indices rose the most, while FMCG, Pharma, Realty and Power indices fell the most. Smallcap index was up ~1% while Midcap index was up 0.2%.

1) Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its Monetary Policy maintained its repo rate at 4.0%, reverse repo rate at 3.35% and MSF at 4.25% with MPC members unanimously voting on status quo on rates.

 Reserve Bank of India announced to conduct 14-day Variable Rate Reverse Repo auction for a notified amount of Rs. 4,00,000 on Oct 22, 2021.

2) Mumbai-based real estate firm Macrotech Developers on October 4 said properties worth Rs 1,100 crore were sold last month in one of its London projects and that it expects to sell the entire inventory before the 2023-24 fiscal year.

3) Rail Vikas Nigam has entered into an agreement with Tata Steel for the implementation of infrastructure projects.

4) Adani Green has completed the acquisition of SB Energy Holdings (SB Energy India) in an all-cash deal.

5) Info Edge has invested an additional Rs 15 crore, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, in 4B Networks.

6) TVS Motor has entered into a strategic partnership with Tata Power to set up electric vehicle charging infrastructure across the country.

7) HFCL has bagged an order of Rs 286.96 crore from RailTel Corporation.

8) Vedanta is looking to invest around $20 billion in India, possibly during the privatisation of BPCL, Shipping Corporation and Hindustan Copper.

9) KPIT Technologies Ltd would make significant investments in middleware technologies and infrastructure to accelerate clients’ transformation to software-defined vehicles across both passenger and commercial vehicle segments. 

10) MetLife International Holdings, LLC has entered into a share purchase agreement with IGE (India) Private Limited (“IGE”) and Elpro International to acquire their total combined shareholding of 15.27% in PNB MetLife India Insurance for Rs 1906cr. Elpro would receive Rs 1424.7cr for its 11.4% stake.

11) Gufic Biosciences has approved the proposal for increasing capital expenditure to the tune of Rs 200 crore out of which around Rs 180 crore is proposed to be utilized for setting up of the new manufacturing unit and balance Rs 20 crore for setting up the research & development (R&D) facility, both in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. It will be done through internal accruals and debt.

12) Axis Bank on Tuesday said it has become the first Indian private sector bank to arrange a term Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) linked trade financing deal.

 The secured overnight financing rate (SOFR) is a benchmark interest rate that is replacing the London interbank offered rate (LIBOR). It is the interest rate for dollar-denominated derivatives and loans.

13) Hindustan Copper, Vedanta: The Vedanta Group is reportedly looking to buy government's stake in Hindustan Copper as and when it is put up for disinvestment.

14) Birlasoft: CRISIL has revised credit rating on Birlasoft’s long term bank facilities to AA- from AA, with stable outlook.

15) ICICI Bank announced the launch of a contactless payment service through its banking app, iMobile Pay.

ICICI Bank said it had executed its first term loan and cross-currency swap derivative transactions linked to Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR).

16) Coal India: India's coal ministry has asked Coal India to diversify its interests to areas such as electric vehicles and charging stations.

17) Reliance: Morgan Stanley said that RIL is planning to transform its energy business with a strategy to offer decarbonization solutions globally at a competitive price in a market potentially worth $5 trillion by 2030.

Reliance Mutual Fund acquired 20 lakh shares of Bharti Airtel at an average price of Rs 204.95 per share through bulk deals on the NSE.

Reliance Retail, the retail arm of Reliance Industries, has entered into a master franchise agreement with 7-Eleven and is set to open its first store on October 9 in Mumbai.

Reliance Industries announced the launch of its premium retail destination, Jio World Drive (JWD), in Mumbai’s commercial epicenter, Bandra Kurla Complex. Spanning across an area of 17.5 acres at Maker Maxity, Jio World Drive is Mumbai’s newest, vibrant urban hangout.

18) SBI has moved a plea in the NCLT seeking to initiate insolvency proceedings against Sanjay Singal and Aarti Singal, the promoters of Bhushan Power and Steel (BPSL).

19) TCS announced that its partnership with SBI has been extended for another five years to drive innovation and tech solutions.

20) Tata Steel’s crude steel production rose 2% quarter-on-quarter and 3% year-on-year in the July to September quarter of FY22.

21) Titan Company today became the second firm in the Tata Group to enter the Rs 2 lakh crore club in terms of market value, after TCS.

22) Piramal Enterprises: The board of directors of Piramal Enterprises have approved the demerger of the company’s pharma operations.

23) Srei Infrastructure Finance: The Bombay High Court dismissed Srei Group's plea against the RBI superseding the boards of Srei Infrastructure Finance Ltd (SIFL) and Srei Equipment Finance Ltd (SEFL).

24) HPCL: Moody's revised the Long Term Issuer Default Rating outlook of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited to "stable" from "negative".

25) NTPC signed a memorandum of understanding with Paris headquartered Électricité de France S.A. to explore potential power project opportunities in Asia, Europe and Africa.

26) Tata Sons, the founders of Air India have won the bid to re-acquire the national carrier for a price of Rs 18,000 crores.

The Tata Group had handed over the ownership and operations of Air India to the Centre 68 years ago.

27) Bharti Airtel and equipment maker Ericsson they have conducted India’s first 5G network trial in a rural location, demonstrating the potential that 5G can unleash in bridging the digital divide. The demonstration took place in Bhaipur Bramanan village on the outskirts of Delhi-NCR using 5G trial spectrum allocated to Airtel by the Department of Telecom.

28) Diversified gaming and sports media platform Nazara Technologies said on October 6 that its board has approved a preferential allotment of fresh equity to raise Rs 315.3 Crores from marquee institutional investors that includes Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC-managed investment firm Gamnat Pte Ltd and Ahmedabad-based Plutus Wealth Management.

29) Sutherland, a leading global digital transformation company based out of Rochester, NY, USA and StackRoute, an NIIT Venture, have entered a partnership to launch an immersive training program designed to identify the right talent and develop them as high-quality Full Stack IT Professionals, handling critical roles at Sutherland. 

30) Bharat Biotech said it has submitted data from its COVID-19 vaccine trial in children aged 2 to 18 years to India's drug regulator, becoming the country's first company to have tested its shot in very young children.

31) IndiGo: The Delhi HC refused to allow a plea moved by Rakesh Gangwal seeking to enforce an arbitration award that was awarded by the London Court of International Arbitration.

32) Dixon Technologies has tied up with Acer for contract manufacturing of laptops.

33) ZEE: National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has given ZEE two weeks to file its final reply to Invesco's request to hold an extraordinary general meeting (EGM).

34) Private equity group TPG is in advanced discussions with the Tata Group to invest $1 billion or more in the electric vehicles (EV) division of Tata Motors. The country's largest vehicle maker is in the process of transferring its passenger vehicles division, including its EV portfolio, to a step-down subsidiary.

35) Ramkrishna Forgings, one of the leading suppliers of rolled, forged and machined products, on Thursday announced that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with a US based technology partner for the development of Electric Vehicle Powertrain components for the Indian EV market.

36) Hero MotoCorp said it has launched an all-new XPulse 200 4 Valve bike priced at Rs 1.28 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi). The bike is a powerful addition to the company's X-range of the premium portfolio, the two-wheeler major said in a statement. The new motorcycle comes with the 200cc BSVI engine that offers 6 per cent more power and 5 per cent added torque, it added.

37) Mutual Funds: Net equity inflow in equity and equity-oriented mutual funds at Rs 6,456.4 crore in September fell from Rs 8,056.79 crore in previous month. The systematic investment plan (SIP) inflow crossed Rs 10,000 crore for the first time, in September 2021, at Rs 10,351 crore against Rs 9,920 crore in previous month.

Sebi modified the rules on minimum percentages of monthly trades to be administrated by mutual funds on the Request For Quote (RFQ) platform of stock exchanges. As per the revised norms, mutual funds are compelled to undertake a minimum of 25% of their total secondary market trades by value in corporate bonds and 10% of their total secondary market trades by value in commercial papers by placing/seeking quotes through one-to-many mode on the RFQ platform.

38) GST collections for September 2021 remained healthy at ₹ 1.17 lakh crore. which was 4.5% more than the previous month and 22.5% higher than a year ago.

39) Banks borrowed Rs. 306 crore under the Central Bank’s marginal standing facility on Oct 06, 2021 compared to that of Oct 05, 2021 when banks borrowed Rs. 235 crore.

40) Godrej Industries plans to raise funds selling commercial papers maturing in three months at a coupon of 3.67% and has received commitments worth around Rs. 75 crore.