Indian markets are likely to open on a tepid note on Friday amid mixed global cues. Early trends on SGX Nifty indicated at a flat to negative start benchmark indices BSE Sensex and Nifty 50. Nifty has seen a sharp recovery of around 6% in the last three days. However, it is still down 10% from its January 2022 peak. In contrast, the broader market has witnessed a much sharper sell-off. Going ahead, some consolidation is expected in key indices, and a lot of adjustment would continue to happen in individual stocks. “While the geopolitical and inflation-led uncertainties play out, we find price-value equation turning favourable. The healthy earnings visibility can act as a cushion in an otherwise fragile external situation,” said Siddhartha Khemka, Head – Retail Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd.

Stocks in focus on 11 March 2022, Friday

Reliance Industries: Reliance Retail, a subsidiary of Reliance Retail Ventures (RRVL), has issued notices to terminate sub-leases of 947 Future Group stores. The company plans to reopen them after reconciling stock and inventory positions and rebranding them. RIL had taken over the stores last month as they were sub-leased by it to Future which had defaulted on rental payments. Now, all such stores have been closed by Reliance. Once the reconciling of stock and inventory positions is over, the stores would be rebranded across categories as Reliance Digital, Reliance Smart and Reliance Fresh (groceries), and Reliance Trends.

Future Group: Future Group has received termination notices for 947 stores, which it had sub-leased from Reliance entities. The company on March 7 and 8 received termination notices for 342 Big Bazaar and Fashion (fbb) outlets, 493 small format stores, including easyday and Heritage stores. Meanwhile, Future Consumer said it has decided to terminate a joint venture pact with New Zealand’s dairy firm Fonterra.

Infosys: Infosys and the International Tennis Hall announced a multi-year transformational collaboration making Infosys the ITHF’s Official Digital Innovation Partner and title sponsor of the organization’s annual ATP Tour tournament, the Infosys Hall of Fame Open. The collaboration will help the ITHF amplify its efforts in preserving and celebrating tennis history through digital advances while also identifying and acting on opportunities to enhance fan experience.

Colgate Palmolive: Company’s nomination & remuneration committee has recommended the name of Prabha Narasimhan as its next MD and CEO to the board of directors for her appointment effective from September 1, the company said in its filing.

State Bank of India: SBI is working on a revamp of its Yono mobile application to build it into a pure digital bank. Called ‘Only Yono’, the new platform will be enabled with cloud capability to handle high volumes and offer a superior customer experience. SBI is the second major bank after HDFC Bank to have begun strategic planning for a likely round of digital bank licensing in the near future. A notice put out by the state-owned lender takes note of the Niti Aayog’s November 2021 draft discussion paper on licensing of digital banks, which may lead to formal guidelines by the regulator to establish various types of digital banks in India.

Wipro: The IT major has partnered Pandorum Technologies, a biotechnology company working in the field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Together, the companies will focus on development of technologies that shorten time-to-market and maximise patient outcome during R&D and clinical trials of regenerative medicine.

Lupin: Drug maker Lupin on Thursday said it has opened its first reference laboratory in East India in Kolkata. The new reference laboratory at Kolkata has capabilities to conduct a broad spectrum of routine and specialized tests in the fields of molecular diagnostics, cytogenetics, flow cytometry, histopathology, cytology, microbiology, serology, haematology, immunology and routine biochemistry.