Indian equity market on Monday continued its downwards journey in line with global peers amid escalating Russia-Ukraine conflict. Both benchmark indicies Sensex and Nifty 50 are now down around 15% from all-time highs. The decline in the index has brought trading levels last seen in June 21. “Given the sharp rise in oil and commodity prices, stocks from this space are witnessing strong momentum which is likely to continue in the near term as well. Also, IT is in focus with depreciating rupee and is a safe haven. FIIs continue to remain heavy sellers in India with global risk-off sentiment. Hence large FII holding sectors like Banking are seeing consistent selling pressure. Also on the domestic side, the political developments will take the front seat,” said Siddhartha Khemka, Head – Retail Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd.

Stocks in focus on Tuesday, 8 March 2022

L&T: Infrastructure major Larsen & Toubro on Monday announced the launch of L&T-SuFin an integrated e-commerce platform for B2B industrial products and services. With over eight decades of experience in the manufacturing and EPC projects, L&T has developed the platform to target MSMEs in order to enable them to source their industrial supplies pan-India, digitally.

TCS: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in a notification filed on its website said that it will commence buying back shares from 9 March 9 (Wednesday). Under the Rs 18,000 crore share buyback offer, TCS will continue accepting shares till March 23. The company had fixed February 23, 2022 as the record date for the purpose of determining the buyback entitlement and the names of the equity shareholders, who would be eligible to participate in the buyback offer.

Metro Brands: The Rakesh Jhunjhunwala-backed company has approved an interim dividend of Rs 1.5 per equity share on its face value of Rs 5 each for FY22. The record date has been fixed as 19 March 19 for ascertaining the eligibility of shareholders for payment of interim dividend.

Vijaya Diagnostic Centre: Investor Karakoram has offloaded 72,94,115 equity shares in the company via open market transactions at an average price of Rs 425.75 per share. This is a 7.1 percent stake of the total paid up capital. However, AL Mehwar Commercial Investments LLC acquired 20,35,857 equity shares, Destinations Int EQ Fund A Series of Brinker Capital Destinations Trust bought 8,94,610 equity shares, and Wasatch Advisors Inc through its funds (Wasatch Emerging India Fund and Wasatch International Opportunities Fund) purchased 40.1 lakh equity shares in the company. The shares were bought at an average price of Rs 425.75 per share

Sun TV Network: Sun TV Network Ltd on Monday said its board has approved an interim dividend of Rs 5 per share for the current financial year 2021-2022.

Natco Pharma: The company launched its first generic version of Revlimid (Lenalidomide capsules), in the US market. These capsules are available in 5mg, 1Omg, l5mg, and 25mg strengths. The drug is used for the treatment of multiple myeloma in combination with the medicine dexamethasone, certain myelodysplastic syndromes, and mantle cell lymphoma following specific prior treatment.

Dodla Dairy: The company said the board has approved purchase of assets, business, and plant & machinery up to Rs 55 crore. It has also approved funding for subsidiaries Orgafeed, and Dodla Dairy Kenya, up to Rs 40 crore each.

Oil stocks: Fears of ban on Russian crude oil have led to surge in crude oil prices. This has benefited oil marketing companies such as ONGC, Gail, among few others. ONGC shares settled 13.11 per cent higher on Monday after crude oil prices rose 8 percent to $127.5 per barrel on the Intercontinental Exchange.