Tale of the Tape 

Good evening ya’ll. Happy Friday!

Nifty and Sensex ended the week on a red note, down -0.6% each. This means that markets have snapped their four-week winning streak, which sucks. Broader markets didn’t do much better with Midcaps and Smallcaps each ending -0.5% lower. A cool 365 stocks in the NSE 500 took a hit today.

Except PSU Banks (+1.6%), every other sector was down or flat. Metals (-1.1%) and IT (-0.5%) were the top losers.

In today’s issue of the Daily Rip, we break down Lenskart’s crazy IPO valuations, cover Strides Pharma & Navin Fluorine Q2 results and look at the weekly movers and shakers and more.

Honourable Mentions:

Bharat Electronics was up +4% on decent Q2 results + bagging defence orders worth Rs 732 cr.

Narayana Hrudayalaya (-2%) fell after announcing it would acquire UK’s Practice Plus Group for ~Rs 1,930 cr.

Check out the NSE 500 heatmap:

IPO
Lenskart IPO Review

The Lenskart IPO is finally here! The eyewear firm is looking to raise Rs 7,278 cr with the price band fixed at Rs 382-402 p/sh.

There’s a lot to talk about here but let’s be real. One thing overshadows everything else: this IPO is expensive AF. It’s valued at around 230x P/E which means it's asking for 230 times more for every 1 rupee it earns. 

The management’s response has been embarrassing. But their one semi-decent argument is that as a ‘tech company’ when operating leverage kicks in, the growth potential is insane. And they aren’t totally wrong. Lenskart’s topline has +1.5x over FY23-25 and operating margins zoomed from 4.4% to 19.5% in Q1FY26. It’s currently Asia’s second-largest eyewear brand by volume. And while ~53% of Indians need vision correction, only 35% currently wear glasses. So the runway is indeed massive.

But what is Lenskart not saying? Well, it’s only reported one year of profit so far and that was achieved by accounting magic. But what’s far more damning is Lenskart’s past valuations. In July, CEO Peyush Bansal bought 17 million shares at a valuation of Rs 8,741 cr. And now just 3 months later, it’s demanding a valuation of ~Rs 70,000-cr which is ~8x higher. How on earth do you justify this? Spoiler alert: you don’t. It’s blatant greed and Lenskart is shamelessly milking retail investors. 

Big Picture: There’s a good chance this IPO crashes and burns. But we want to leave you with the full picture. Grey market data indicates listing gains of ~17%. Now, GMP data is fickle. But the anchor book has been strong, and ace investor RK Damani has also lent his name in the pre-IPO round. Tbh, it’s also 100% possible to make money in overvalued stocks. But beware you’re buying into a narrative and not fundamentals.