A breast cancer drug, PRIMCYV, has been acquired by Dr Reddy’s Laboratories

Opening Bell:

SGX Nifty is up by 28.0 points in the early morning trade, indicating a positive opening for Indian stock market.

Asian shares started cautiously on Monday as investors waited nervously to see if the Bank of Japan (BOJ) will defend its super-sized stimulus policy at a pivotal meeting this week, while a holiday in US markets made for thin trading. The Japanese Nikkei is down by 1.0 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng is up by 0.07 percent and South Korea’s Kospi is up by 0.52 percent in early morning deals.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq finished at their highest levels in a month on Friday, with shares of JPMorgan Chase and other banks rising following their quarterly results, which kicked off the earnings season. The S&P 500 gained 0.40 percent; and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.71 percent respectively.

Stocks News:

?HDFC Bank, the country’s largest private-sector lender, on January 14 reported strong double-digit growth in its net profit and a healthy jump in consolidated advances. The lender reported a 19.9 percent jump in its consolidated net profit for the quarter ended December 2022. Beating market estimates.

?WIPRO has reported nearly 15% sequential growth in consolidated profit at Rs 3,053 crore for quarter ended December FY23, led by better operating performance and higher other income. Operating performance was better than analysts’ expectations with EBIT growing 11% QOQ to Rs 3,750.4 crore and margin expanding 119 bps to 16.3% for the quarter.

?L&T Finance Holdings has reported consolidated profit at Rs 454 crore for quarter ended December FY23, growing 39% YoY. Net interest income grew by 24% YoY to Rs 1,693 crore for the quarter with net interest margin (including fees) expanding by 70 bps YoY to 8.8%. The company concluded divestment of the mutual fund business and received sale consideration of Rs 3,485 crore along with surplus cash balance Rs 764 crore, thereby aggregating to Rs 4,249 crore.

?Dr Reddy’s Laboratories has acquired trademark rights of breast cancer drug, PRIMCYV, from Pfizer Products India. With these rights, the company will use drug in the Indian market. Since May 2022, company has been marketing the drug in collaboration with Pfizer Products India under the brand name PRIMCYV in India.

?Foreign institutional investors (FII) have net sold shares worth Rs 2,422.39 crore, continuing selling for 16th session in a row, but domestic institutional investors (DII) have managed to offset the FII outflow, to major extent, by net buying shares worth Rs 1,953.40 crore on January 13, as per provisional data available on the NSE.

Domestic and International Events

• Slowing growth and easing price pressures may prompt India’s central bank to slash borrowing costs starting in August of this year, said Nomura Holdings Inc. in a note to clients on Friday. India’s growth is “likely to disappoint at 4.5 percent in 2023 due to global spill overs, prompting 75 basis point of rate cuts in second half of 2023,” Nomura economists led by Sonal Varma wrote.
• Foreign investors offloaded around Rs 15,000 crore worth of Indian equities in the first two weeks of January amid risks of Covid in some parts of the world and recession worries in the US. Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) have been adopting a cautious stance towards Indian equity markets for the past few weeks.
• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das on January 13 said it is too early to revisit the inflation target of 4 percent with 2 percent deviation on either side, in the current situation. “I don’t think there is any need for any change. I would not think the target needs to be revisited,” RBI’s Das said at an event in Mumbai. “It is too early to shift the goal post. The 4 percent target has a certain meaning.”
• India’s industrial growth, as per the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), accelerated to 7.1 percent in November, data released on January 12 by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation showed.

Key Equity Indices