Stocks To Watch: HUL, Ambuja Cements, ACC, Max Ventures, KEC International, Pricol

The dollar rose in early trading on Monday, adding to a third week of gains as hawkish comments by Federal Reserve officials and geopolitical tensions bolstered the appeal of the greenback.

Asian stocks looked set for a mixed open, with Australia’s benchmark index fluctuated while the U.S. equity futures dropped after the S&P 500 Index declined Friday and slid for a second week. Contracts for Japanese shares pointed to small gains while those for Hong Kong fell.

Meanwhile, the yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced to 3.81%. Crude prices were trading around $83-mark, while Bitcoin was trading around 24,000-level.

At 6:17 a.m., the Singapore-traded SGX Nifty, an early indicator of India's benchmark Nifty 50, was up 0.31% at 17,993.5.

Both domestic benchmark indices—Sensex and Nifty—closed 0.5% lower on Friday, snapping a three-day rally, as banking, IT and pharma stocks came under pressure.

The Indian rupee weakened against the U.S. dollar as the greenback strengthened overseas and on muted domestic equities.

Foreign investors in Indian equities turned net sellers on Friday, ending a five-day buying streak. They offloaded up equities worth Rs 624.61 crore, while the domestic institutional investors snapped four-day buying streak and turned sellers. They offloaded stocks worth Rs 85.29 crore, snapping a 13-day buying streak on Feb. 9.

• Cipla: US FDA issues eight observations in Form 483 for Cipla's Pithampur manufacturing facility in Indore, M.P.

• Sun Pharmaceutical Industries: Acquires up to 26.09% of stake in Agatsa Software and 27.39% stake in Remidio Innovative Solutions for Rs 30 crore and Rs 150 crore, respectively.

• Bharat Forge: Kalyani Strategic Systems, Bharat Forge’s subsidiary signs a Memorandum of Understanding with Rolls-Royce Marine, North America’ for the development of naval propulsion systems for the Indian market.

• Dilip Buildcon: Skyway Infraprojects Pvt. receives LoA for Rs 1,947.06-core from Madhya Pradesh Jal Nigam, Bhopal for the engineering, procurement and construction of various component of the Rewa Bansagar Multi Village Scheme. Deal also included trial run with operations and maintenance of the entire Water Supply Scheme for 10 years.

• Samvardhana Motherson International: Inks an agreement to acquire SAS Autosystemtechnik, one of the leading cockpit module integrators globally with large EV portfolio and gross revenues of ~Euro 4.4 Bn on principal basis. The enterprise of the business is Euro 540 million and the transaction will be funded by a mix of debt and internal accruals.

• Infosys: The company appointed Shaji Mathew as group head of human resources, effective March 22, 2023, after the retirement of Krish Shankar from the post.

• Hindustan Unilever: The company will sell its ‘Annapurna’ and ‘Captain Cook’ brands to Uma Global Foods Pte. Ltd. (Singapore) and Uma Consumer Products Pvt. Ltd. (India), subsidiaries of Reactive Brands International, for Rs 60.4 crore.

• Max Ventures and Industries: Max Estates, the real estate arm of the company, has entered the residential real estate market in Gurugram through a joint development agreement, with development potential of 2.4 million square feet and gross development over Rs 3,200 crore.

• Marico: The board will meet on Feb. 27 to consider and approve interim dividend for the current fiscal.

• RITES: The company received an order worth Rs 76.08 crore for provision of EI-based automatic signaling with continuous track circuiting and other associated works along with suitable indoor alterations in electronic interlocking/RRI/PI stations en route in Dhaulpur-Gwalior section of Jhansi division of North Central Railway.

• Ambuja Cements/ACC: The index committee has decided to drop the stocks of the two companies from S&P BSE 100 ESG Index, effective at the open of Wednesday, February 22, 2023. The companies came under review after they were flagged under the Media and Stakeholder Analysis list.

• United Breweries: Rishi Pardal resigned from the position of managing director and CEO of the company on Feb. 16, effective six months from his date of resignation.

• KEC International: The company secured new orders of Rs 3,023 crore across its civil, transmission and distribution and cables businesses.

• Pennar Industries: The company received orders worth Rs 851 crore across its various business verticals.

• Crisil Q4 FY23 (Consolidated, YoY)

  Revenue up 16.5% at Rs 822.26 crore

  Net profit down 6.3% at Rs 158.02 crore

  Ebitda up 12.3% at Rs 216.18 crore

  EBitda margin at 26.3% vs 27.3%

The company announced final dividend of Rs 23 per share.

Prince Pipes and Fittings: Vipul Jayant Cheeda sold 13.27 lakh shares (1.20%) and Norges Bank on Account of the government pension bought 9.02 lakh shares (0.81%) at Rs 585 apiece.

Pricol: Minda Corporation bought 78.57 lakh shares (6.44%), Aakarshan Estates sold 13.01 lakh shares (1.06%), Jainco Finlease & Investment sold 7.25 lakh shares (0.59%), M2K Entertainment sold 10.85 lakh shares (0.89%), Unique Finman Consultancy sold 6.19 lakh shares (0.51%), Virtue Finance sold 5.56 lakh shares (0.45%),Antara India Evergreen Fund sold 11.55 lakh shares (0.95%), Radhey Buildhome sold 7.20 lakh shares (0.59%), Stream Value sold 16.92 lakh shares (1.38%) and Anirudh Damani sold 10.26 lakh shares (1.08%) at Rs 209 apiece on NSE.

Minda Corporation bought 59.99 lakh shares (4.92%), Aidos India Fund sold 19.99 lakh shares (1.64%) and Minerva Emerging Opportunities Fund sold 39.99 lakh shares (3.28%) at Rs 209 apiece on BSE.

• Chambal Fertilisers & Chemical: Promoter group Ganges Securities bought 1.67 lakh shares on Feb. 15.

• NCC: Promoter AVSR Holdings bought 80,000 shares Feb. 14.

• Jindal Saw: Promoter group Sminu Jindal bought 50,000 shares and Indresh Batra sold 50,000 shares on Feb. 15.

• Bajaj Holding & Investment: Promoter group Bajaj Sevashram bought 6,500 shares on Feb. 15.

• KCP: Promoter Dr. VL Indira Dutt bought 14,000 shares on Feb. 16.

• Price Band Revised From 40% To 20%: Patel Engineering

• Ex-Date Interim Dividend: Bharat Dynamics, ESAB India, Galaxy Surfactants,Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers, KPI Green Energy, Shivalik Bimetal Controls, TD Power Systems, Uno Minda

• Record Date Interim Dividend: Bharat Dynamics, ESAB India,Galaxy Surfactants, Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers, KPI Green Energy, Shivalik Bimetal Controls, TD Power Systems, Uno Minda

• Move Into Short-Term ASM Framework: Nucleus Software Exports

• Move Out Of Short-Term ASM Framework: One97 Communications

• Dixon Technologies: To meet investors and analysts on Feb. 20.

• UltraTech Cement: To meet investors and analysts on Feb. 20.

• Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers: To meet investors and analysts on Feb. 22.

• FSN E-Commerce Ventures: To meet investors and analysts between Feb 20 and 28.

• Nifty February futures ended at 17,954 a discount of 108.75 points.

• Nifty February futures fell 0.67% and 1,230 shares in Open Interest.

• Nifty Bank February futures ended at 41,205, a discount of 530.70 points.

• Nifty Bank February futures rose 8.44% and 7,876 shares in Open Interest.

• Securities added to the ban period: Ambuja Cements, Indiabulls Housing Finance.

• Securities removed from the ban period: Punjab National bank, Bharat Heavy Electricals.