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Healthcare stocks rallied on Thursday as Dr Lal Pathlabs and Aurobindo Pharma surged over 2% after CLSA upgraded their ratings to “outperform.” In contrast, Dr Reddy's Laboratories dropped 1% following a downgrade to «underperform.» The Nifty Healthcare Index advanced 0.6%, reflecting overall bullish sentiment in the sector.

«As far as your fundamentals or numbers or visibility is concerned, there is no big change in stance as far as IT services is concerned. Now, you can say they are actually dancing to the tunes of what happens in US today because that from the last 10-15 days that has become the most important narrative,» says Amnish Aggarwal, Prabhudas Lilladher. You have a very strong association with the FMCG sector. You have tracked the sector for years now before you took over this new role. What do you make of HUL numbers? Amnish Aggarwal: So, the numbers I would not say that there was anything big negative or positive in that because there are a few factors which are structural and a few factors which are cyclical.

NMDC Ltd.(up 4.24%), Ashapura Minechem Ltd.(up 2.16%), MOIL Ltd.(up 1.51%), Lexus Granito(India)Ltd.(up 1.27%), Coal India Ltd.(up 1.26%), Aro Granite Industries Ltd.(up 0.88%), KIOCL Ltd.(up 0.84%), Madhav Marbles & Granites Ltd.(up 0.64%), Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation Ltd.(up 0.61%) and Sandur Manganese & Iron Ores Ltd.(up 0.18%) were among the top gainers.

United Spirits Ltd. 1.63 per cent to Rs 1482.05 in Thursday's trade as of 10:51AM (IST) even as the benchmark Nifty ruled at 23230.0, 74.66 points. The scrip had closed at Rs 1458.20 in the previous session. The stock quoted a 52-week low of Rs 1055.65 and a high of Rs 1700.00. The company quoted a market-cap of Rs 107797.03 crore on the BSE.

SRF Ltd. traded 3.29 per cent up at Rs 2605.00 at around 10:39AM (IST) on Thursday. The stock had closed at Rs 2521.80 in the previous session. Equity benchmark Sensex traded 228.06 points at 76633.05 around the same time.

Zensar Technologies zoomed nearly 10% to an intraday high of Rs 846.85 on the BSE today after announcing its financial results for Q3FY25 on Wednesday, wherein the company reported a strong performance, with revenue reaching Rs 1,325.6 crore, an increase of 10.1% year-on-year (YoY). Meanwhile, the EBITDA for the quarter stood at Rs 207 crore, while the EBIT reached Rs 183.3 crore

Vikas Khemani, Founder, Carnelian Asset Management, says in India, both capital gains tax and STT exist, which is strange. STT was introduced when capital gains were removed. Now that capital gains are back, STT is still here. The STT collections are around Rs 35,000-40,000 crore. It is unfair to keep both taxes. It would be better if the government eliminated one of them. This year, Khemani expects personal income tax to decrease because our personal income tax rates are quite high.

Mangesh Bhadang, Senior VP, Centrum Broking, says December has seen substantial cement price hikes in the non-trade segment. There have been some hikes in the trade segment as well. That is going to have a very positive effect on the realisation of cement companies. So far, the higher prices have sustained and have been absorbed in the market. So, Q4 could be a bumper quarter after a long time for the cement sector. What do you make of the earnings that we have till now because overall in the last couple of months or so, we have seen a lot of these upgrades and positive notes flowing in on the cement counters where hopes were pinning on some of the price hike stability. Other than that, the realisation expectation was positive. But given the earnings disappointment, do you feel that the most of the disappointment in Q3 is already priced in and the analysts are now looking for the way forward in terms of better realisation and pricing? Mangesh Bhadang: As you rightly said, anyway we were expecting that Q3 will not be a blockbuster quarter, but because Q2 had been so weak, sequential improvement could definitely be there. Out of the cement results that have been declared, Dalmia Bharat probably was the right comparable to look at for the industry wide points that we can take out.

Hindustan Unilever Ltd. (HUL) shares are set to remain in the spotlight on Thursday, January 23, following the company's Q3 results. HUL reported a 19% year-on-year (YoY) rise in net profit to Rs 3,001 crore, surpassing Street estimates. This growth was primarily driven by a one-time gain of Rs 509 crore from the divestment of its Pureit business, while profit before exceptional items (PAT bei) remained flat. Sales grew by 2% YoY to Rs 15,195 crore during the quarter. However, underlying volume growth (UVG) remained flat, with competitive absolute volume growth offset by a negative product mix.

Persistent Systems shares will be in the spotlight on Thursday, January 23, after the company reported a 30.4% year-on-year (YoY) jump in net profit to Rs 373 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2024. The impressive growth was driven by its AI-led, platform-driven services strategy, despite a seasonally weak quarter for the IT sector. The company's consolidated revenue for Q3 grew 22.6% YoY to Rs 3,062.28 crore, marking a 5.7% sequential increase. Operating margins also improved by 90 basis points to 14.9%, after remaining flat at 14% for the previous two quarters.

buy call on Zomato with a target price of Rs 270. The current market price of Zomato is Rs 207.95. Zomato., incorporated in 2010, is a Small Cap company with a market cap of Rs 200872.05 crore, operating in Services sector. Zomato's key products/revenue segments include Service Revenue, Royalty Income, Traded Goods for the year ending 31-Mar-2024.

Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) reported a 20% year-on-year (YoY) increase in net profit for the December quarter, driven by higher margins. The company posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 3,805.94 crore for the October-December period of FY24, compared to Rs 3,181.42 crore in the same period last year. However, this was below Street estimates of Rs 5,200 crore.

artificial intelligence spending. Shares in Japan started the day higher but benchmarks in Australia and Korea slipped. The MSCI Asia Pacific index was flat. The tepid open for Asian markets came after the S&P 500 rose 0.6% on Wednesday, putting the index close to an all-time high.

Tata Sons is understood to be preparing for multiple scenarios, including a possible initial public offering (IPO), to ensure readiness amid growing pressure from 18.4% stakeholder, the Mistry family's Shapoorji Pallonji (SP) Group, to consider a share sale, said people with knowledge of the matter. Tata Sons is the holding company of the Tata Group. Tata Sons, Tata Trusts and the SP Group did not comment on the matter.

Ultratech, Dr Reddy's, HUL, Go Digit, Airtel among others will be in focus due to various news developments and third quarter results. Ultratech, Adani Green, Dr Reddy's Shares of Ultratech, Adani Green and Dr Reddy's will be in focus as the companies will announce their third quarter results later today.

Here's breaking down the pre-market actions:

Norges Bank Investment Management, the world's largest sovereign wealth fund. In India, it has over $30 billion parked in companies ranging from HDFC Bank, Reliance, ICICI Bank, Airtel, Infosys and TCS to Zomato, Nykaa and DMart. The CEO of the largest single investor in the world also hosts the popular In Good Company podcast with global industry leaders. A former chef, Russian translator and intelligence man, Tangen told Arijit Barman in an interview in Davos that the world is in the grip of unprecedented volatility. Edited excerpts: Nearly a third of your assets are in Europe. With Europe slowing and generating poor returns, are you looking to diversify even more in the US, Asia, maybe India, a lot more than before? We are linked to indices. So when the value of a market increases, we typically park more money there. We now have more than 50% of our $1.7 trillion in the US. With India becoming more important, the value of our Indian investments has also gone up. We have roughly 1.8% of our fund now in India. With more than $30 billion invested in India-double of what we did five-eight years ago-both China and India exposure is not too dissimilar. Our portfolio is predominantly public markets but we have some fixed-income assets too. Our biggest holding in India is HDFC Bank, number 2 is Reliance.

Gokaldas Exports (GEL) voted against four special resolutions related to the company's employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), including a proposal to grant ESOPs exceeding 1% of equity to its managing director and vice chairperson Sivaramakrishnan Ganapathi. Although 63% of participating shareholders supported the resolutions, 37% voted against them. As these were special resolutions, they required at least three times more votes in favour than against to pass, which was not achieved.

Hindustan Unilever (HUL) posted a third consecutive quarter of disappointing performance this fiscal with 2% growth in revenues and flat volume growth. The net profit growth would have also been flat but for the profit from the divestment of the Pureit water-purifier business. The Ebitda margin dropped 20 bps to 23.5% under pressure from increased raw material costs. While urban demand continued to remain subdued, rural demand sustained its gradual recovery. Downtrading took place with small packs growing ahead of large packs. HUL's home care segment posted high single-digit volume growth, while the beauty and wellbeing segment posted a low-single-digit volume decline and the personal care and foods segments each posted a mid-single-digit volume decline.

Gold prices crossed the ₹80,000/10 gm mark for the first time Wednesday, data from the top industry body showed, underscoring renewed safe-haven demand for the metal from investors riled by anticipated uncertainty in the securities markets in the immediate aftermath of a seemingly disruptive Donald Trump presidency. A dollar retreat globally has also helped prices head north. The metal closed at ₹80,194 per 10 gms for 24-carat in the physical market, data from the India Bullion and Jewellers Association (IBJA) showed. A weakening dollar and bullion's enduring safe-haven allure with investors have helped prices harden, said IBJA and the bullion trade, although prospects of retail jewellery purchases through the remainder of the wedding season have become rather circumspect after the price increases.

Indian equities worth ₹36,082 crore across 19 sectors between January 1 and 15, according to NSDL data. Financial services continued to bear the brunt of unabated foreign selling, as these investors dumped shares worth ₹12,204 crore in the first 15 days of January after pumping over ₹3,000 crore into the sector in December. Overseas investors pulled out over ₹58,000 crore from the sector in 2024. «Financial services have significant weight in the index and are some of the most liquid counters, which explains why the foreign selloff is aggressive in the sector,» said Saurabh Patwa, portfolio manager and head of research at Quest Investment. «Banks have, however, relatively decent results and there could be a revival of foreign flows in the sector.»