After the Indian benchmark indices BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 fell to 52-week low in the previous session, they are likely to extend losses, and start trade on a muted note on Friday as well, as global cues turn negative amid recession fears. Ahead of today’s trading session, the SGX Nifty Futures quoted 15,330 levels, signaling that Nifty is headed for a gap-down start. “Markets are likely to stay under pressure amidst worry over significant economic slowdown. Further delay in monsoon is also denting sentiments as it might further push the rural demand recovery,” said Siddhartha Khemka, Head – Retail Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services.

Stocks in focus on 17 June, Friday

HDFC: The mortgage lender has invoked 50 lakh pledged shares of Ansal Housing as part of recovery of its outstanding dues from the developer. “For the purpose of recovery of part outstanding dues against loans availed by certain pledgers/borrowers, the Corporation on June 15, 2022, invoked the pledge on 50,00,000 shares of Ansal Housing Ltd (Ansal) aggregating 8.42 per cent of its paid-up share capital, pledged with the Corporation by the said pledger/borrower,” HDFC said in a regulatory filing.

Bharti Airtel: Telecom company Bharti Airtel on Thursday announced the launch of its Fiber-To-The-Home (FTTH) broadband service – Airtel Xstream Fiber – in Ladakh and Andaman & Nicobar Islands. By 2025, Airtel Xstream Fiber plans to scale its footprint to 2000 towns, according to a statement by the company. “Airtel Xstream Fiber expands FTTH network to India’s farthest corners… launches high-speed broadband services in Ladakh and Andaman and Nicobar Islands,” the company said.

Dr Reddy’s: LIC has raised its shareholding in Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories over a period of over nine months. Post the acquisition, the public sector insurer now holds a 5.646% stake in the pharmaceutical major. “Life Insurance Corporation’s shareholding in “DR REDDYS LABORATORIES LTD” has increased from 60,64,345 to 93,96,801 Equity Shares increasing its shareholding from 3.644% to 5.646% of the paid-up of the said Company,” according to an exchange filing from LIC.

Future Retail: The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) will continue to hear Amazon’s plea that opposed Bank of India’s (BoI) insolvency petition against debt-laden Future Retail on Monday. The insolvency petition, filed by BoI in May, had come up for hearing before the Mumbai bench of tribunal again today. The bankruptcy court would continue hearing Amazon’s side on why its plea is maintainable, following which it will hear BoI’s arguments.

Grasim Industries: The flagship company of the Aditya Birla Group has appointed Pavan Jain as the new Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and key Managerial Personnel of the company with effect from August 15. He will be replacing Ashish Adukia in the coming months. Jain’s appointment as the new CFO comes on the basis of his exceptional track record and recommendations from the Nomination and Remuneration Committee and Audit Committee of the company.

Reliance: Reliance Jio and Airtel, who are seen to be the major buyers of spectrum in the upcoming auctions will, apart from going for the 5G band of 3,300-3,670 Mhz and 24.25-28.5 Ghz, also beef up their existing portfolio in the 4G bands. This is because by increasing the quantum of 4G spectrum, the same can be optimised and used for providing 5G services also. As a result, expect competition between Jio, Bharti Airtel, and even Vodafone Idea in some cases for spectrum in the 800, 900, 1,800 and 2,300 Mhz band, where each of them would try to consolidate their positions.

Wipro: Eros Investments announced its partnership with Wipro to evolve and scale the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) based content localization solution on June 16. The solution will automate the time-consuming manual content localization process of subtitling and dubbing with near human-level accuracy, driving significant cost and time savings for global media organizations, post-production, and direct-to-consumer over-the top (OTT) streaming platforms.