Bajaj Finance reported an 88% jump in its consolidated net profit at Rs 2,781 crore

Opening Bell:

SGX Nifty is down by 24 points in the early morning trade, indicating a range-bound opening for Indian stock market.

Shares in the Asia-Pacific traded lower on Friday as investors awaited inflation data from several economies. The Japanese Nikkei is down by 0.27 percent and South Korea’s Kospi is lower by 0.31 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng also declined by 0.31 percent in the early morning trades.

US stocks ended the session lower and benchmark Treasury yields continued their ascent on Thursday after investors weighed generally upbeat earnings against the prospect that the Federal Reserve could hold firm on its aggressive policy for longer than they had hoped. S&P 500 closed 0.80 percent lower on Wednesday whereas Nasdaq composite declined by 0.61 percent.

Investors weighed political chaos in the UK and the outlook for corporate earnings going ahead.

Stocks News:

?ITC on October 20 reported a 20 percent rise in post-tax profit at Rs 4,466 crore for the quarter ended September 2022 as against Rs 3,697 crore an year ago. Sequentially, the profit rose 7.1 percent from Rs 4,169 crore recorded in June quarter this year.

?Axis Bank reported a 66.29 per cent jump in its consolidated net profit for September quarter at Rs 5,625.25 crore, driven by a substantial decrease in bad loan provisions and margin expansion. On a standalone basis, It reported a 70 per cent increase in its profit after tax for the July-September period at Rs 5,329.77 crore.

?Bajaj Finance reported an 88 per cent jump in its consolidated net profit at Rs 2,781 crore for the quarter ended September 2022. It had posted a net profit of Rs 1,481 crore in the same period of the previous fiscal.

?Asian Paints the largest paint maker announced Rs 2,100 crore of phased investment to set up a new plant to produce vinyl acetate ethylene emulsion and vinyl acetate monomer in the country. The company also announced another Rs 550 crore of investment to set up a white cement plant in the UAE in partnership with two local firms there.

?Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) net bought shares worth Rs 1,864.79 crore, whereas domestic institutional investors (DIIs) net sold shares worth Rs 886.80 crore on October 20, as per provisional data available on the NSE.

Domestic and International Events

• British Prime Minister Liz Truss on October 20 announced that she is resigning from her post. The announcement comes amid mounting pressure to quit, just six weeks into the job, after she launched an economic policy that triggered a bond market rout.
• Capital markets regulator Sebi on Wednesday allowed stockbrokers to place bids on the RFQ platform on behalf of their clients to facilitate wider participation in the corporate bond market. This is in addition to the existing option of placing bids in a proprietary capacity, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) said in a circular.
• The key rationale behind National Stock Exchange subsidiary NSE Indices’ proposal to revise the treatment of merger and demerger of index constituents its metrics is to stem the volatility in stocks that arises out of the event-led announcement and consequent rebalancing.
• Even as the overall job market comes off from its recent highs, at the top end, senior leadership hiring is still seeing plenty of action in India.

Key Equity Indices