Eternal: Zomato turf intact, but Blinkit may face a new threat
Eternal Ltd’s stock fell for 18 consecutive sessions till Friday, losing nearly a quarter of its value to ₹216. It is rare for a Nifty50 index constituent to have such a long losing streak.It has recovered by about 11% to ₹242 over the last three trading sessions, probably after JM Financial Institutional Securities reiterated its target price on the stock at ₹400 with largely unchanged earnings estimates.
It also helps that broader markets have gained in the past three sessions.What are investors concerned about? Certainly, the management change cannot be the cause because the stock recovered its early loss after the 21 January announcement of a leadership change, when Albinder Dhindsa replaced Deepinder Goyal as CEO.The competitive intensity from Zepto, Amazon and Flipkart in quick commerce has been known for a while now. This effectively means that the Street wasn’t concerned about the new management’s ability to take on competition.The LPG cylinder shortage for restaurants began much later, on 27 February, after the West Asia conflict broke out, while the stock’s losing streak had begun on 17 February.
For Zomato, concerns around supply-side disruptions linked to gas availability issues might be overstated as long as there are no mass-scale shutdowns.This leaves us with only two reasons for the sustained pressure on the stock. One is the likely entry of Flipkart in the food delivery business with reported pilot runs in Bengaluru between May and June.
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