Tale of the Tape 

Good evening everyone!

Nifty (-0.7%) and Sensex (-0.8%) fell for a third straight session. Midcaps (-0.5%) and Smallcaps (+0.1%) traded mixed. The advance-decline ratio was in favour of the bears (3:2).

Except Real Estate (+1.2%) and Media (+0.5%), all other sectors ended in the red. IT (-0.7%) and PSU Banks (-0.6%) saw the biggest cuts.

Q4 earnings season is over! Read our top story for India Inc’s report card and the road ahead.

Anil Ambani’s Reliance Power is on fire. Is it high on hype or fundamentals? More details below.

Fertiliser stocks shined today. Check out their charts below to find out why.

Adani Ports (-2%) was the top Nifty loser after the Wall Street Journal said it was being probed for allegedly violating US sanctions against Iran. 

Block deal reactions. Yes Bank (-10%) was the top NSE 500 loser after 9 crore shares (3% equity) changed hands; reports say a PE firm was the likely seller. Meanwhile, Ola Electric cracked -8% after 3.2% equity (14.2 crore shares) were traded; Hyundai India was the likely seller.

Brokerage calls. Swiggy was in focus after Morgan Stanely initiated coverage; it sees a +21% upside from current levels. Bata India fell -3% after Nuvama reduced its target price to Rs 1,011 p/sh (vs Rs 1,180 p/sh).

Hindustan Zinc was up +3% after silver prices breached the Rs 1 lakh per kg mark.

Prostarm Info Systems had a solid market debut; the stock ended at Rs 126 p/sh; +20% from its IPO price.

Market
Q4 Report Card

India’s Q4 earnings season has wrapped up! FYI - after the slowdown in Q2 and Q3, expectations weren’t high. But surprisingly, things look okay-ish. Here’s what you need to know.

This was the Nifty’s fourth-successive quarter of single-digit earnings growth. The last time this happened was during the pandemic. Obviously not great, but the silver lining is that it beat Street estimates! Generally speaking, Metals OMCs and PSU banks did well. Autos were OK. And private banks (mainly IndusInd & Kotak) stunk up the place. Overall, 27 Nifty firms reported in-line results, while only 11 missed expectations.

Zooming out, the picture does look better. Out of the NSE 500, 465 companies saw PAT growth of +9% YoY. Sales also picked up overall for the NSE 500, with Retail (+20% YoY), Consumer Products (+19% YoY) and Cement (+12% YoY) seeing the biggest topline growth.

FYI - Motilal Oswal estimates that the overall earnings upgrade-to-downgrade ratio jumped to 0.6x in Q4 vs 0.3x in Q3. This is decent. The brokerage says 63 companies were upgraded by >3% while earnings of 110 companies were downgraded by >3%.

For those wondering, Bharat Electronics, Bharti Airtel and Hindalco saw some of the biggest earnings upgrades for FY26, while Eternal (aka Zomato), ONGC and Tata Motors were hit with the biggest downgrades.

 Looking ahead: The best way to look at India Inc’s earning’s growth is that they are holding up in a pretty bad environment. We had a slowdown in Q2 and now we’re starting FY26 with global trade risks & geopolitical concerns. A good monsoon & RBI’s rate cuts are positive triggers. But analysts say temper your expectations and look for pockets of opportunity instead of a major rally!

Specials
Exclusive Promoter Interview!

Belrise Industries just hit the market. We sat down with Swastik Badve, promoter of the company, to know about its operations, 5-year vision and more.