Tale of the Tape 

Good evening everyone. Markets closed down for a SIXTH straight day!

Nifty (-0.9%) and Sensex (-0.8%) continued where they left off last week. PS - FII selling is a big reason behind the recent fall; check out our top story below for all the details. Midcaps (-2%) and Smallcaps (-2.8%) had a brutal day. 447 stocks in the NSE 500 ended in the red. Whew.

Besides IT (+0.7%), not a single sector ended higher. PSU Banks (-3.3%), Energy (-2.5%) and Metals (-2.2%) were the top losers.

Ola Electric (-8%) nosedived after CEO Bhavish Aggarwal’s latest social media outburst. More details below on the company’s big post-sales service challenge. FYI - Priyank Sharma expects Ola to drop to its IPO price which is another -16.5% lower from current levels!

Heidelberg Cement India, CG Power and Industrial Solutions and Vodafone Idea saw big movements today. Check out their charts below to find out why.

Paytm cracked -6% after the company’s CTO abruptly resigned.

LTIMindtree (+2%) and Mphasis (+1%) got upgrades from JP Morgan; the brokerage sees a +10% and +19% potential upside respectively. 

Q2 business updates. Titan fell -3% despite reporting a strong show that beat analyst expectations. Gujarat Pipavav was down -4% after its total container volumes fell -17% YoY. 

Senco Gold rallied +10% intraday before giving up all gains after approving a 1:2 stock split and a Rs 500 cr fundraise.

Natco Pharma (+3%) gained after Mylan Pharma and Novo settled a patent dispute in the US over a generic Ozempic drug. PS - Natco and Mylan have partnered together to produce that drug.

Here are the closing prints:

Stock
Bhavish vs Kamra: Investors Lose Rs 3,600 Cr!

Ola Electric cracked -9% intraday after CEO Bhavish Aggarwal was involved in an ugly verbal spat with comedian Kunal Kamra over the company’s post-sales service. FYI - Ola has been struggling here, with reports saying it receives a whopping 80k complaints per month. 

But what’s concerning is the way Aggarwal addressed Kamra’s concerns. Angry, child-like and arrogant aren’t qualities you want to see in a CEO especially when the underlying issue is an actual sore point for your customers! Some experts say Aggarwal’s attitude is a sign of managerial risk. After all, this spat has effectively overshadowed Ola's move to double its service centers to 1,000 by December and introduce a new quick service guarantee! A big PR misstep.

This brings us to the second issue. Ola recorded its lowest monthly sales this year in Sept 2024, with its market share dropping to 27% vs 49% in Q1FY25. A key reason for this is the overall weakness in the EV two-wheeler market due to a lack of GOI subsidies. But that doesn’t explain Bajaj Auto and TVS gaining market share at Ola’s expense. It's clear that customers are NOT HAPPY with Ola’s service issues!

Big Picture: With the recent return of GOI subsidies, Ola just needs to focus on execution, improving the quality of its two-wheelers and post-sales service. Growing pains are expected in a new sector. But customers would probably be more lenient if their CEO didn’t act like a whiny kid on social media. Aggarwal has obviously been Ola’s single biggest driving force. He just has to make sure his personality doesn’t undo all of that work! 

PS - the Stocktwits community had a field day in the $OLAELEC.NSE stream. Check out the fun conversations and banter as you clock out: https://stocktwits.com/symbol/OLAELEC.NSE

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