Business News at 05:30 pm on 13th October 2023

Let’s begin with the market. Infosys share price tanked 4.46 per cent to Rs 1,400 during the early trade on Friday, a day after the IT giant announced a 3.2 per cent growth in its second-quarter net profit to Rs 6,212 crore year-on-year. The company’s revenue from operations in the July-September quarter jumped 7.5% year-on-year to Rs 11,963 crore from Rs 11,126 crore. The company also announced an interim dividend of Rs. 18 per equity share. The stock price of Infosys has fallen 3.67% in the last 5 days, and 5.11% in the last one month, while it has gained 2.47% in the last six months and 0.29% in the last one year.

Meanwhile, HCL Technologies’ share price surged 3.49% to Rs 1,266.50 during the intra-day trade on Friday, a day after the IT firm reported a 9.8% growth in consolidated net profit, amounting to Rs 3,832 crore, in the second quarter of the current fiscal year. The company’s consolidated revenue from operations surged by over 8% to reach Rs 26,672 crore. HCL Tech expects organic revenue growth for fiscal 2024 to be between 4% and 5% in constant currency terms, as opposed to its prior view, which called for an increase between 6% and 8%, as reported by Reuters. The Board of Directors also declared an interim dividend of Rs 12 per equity share of Rs 2 each of the company for the Financial Year 2023-24.

Moving on. The use of alternative investment funds for circuitous routing of funds into stressed entities or to circumvent norms around funding raises questions on whether regulations should be eased, Ananth Narayan, whole time member of Sebi, said on Thursday. Speaking at a conference organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry, he said AIFs are structured to circumvent. Though he declined to disclose any figure, Narayan said while there were no breaches as regards the “letter of the law”, certain entities were found acting in a manner that breaches the “spirit of the law”. Some entities also use the route to fund stressed entities, which use funds to repay earlier loans, he pointed out.

Over to economy. India’s exports declined by 2.6 per cent to USD 34.47 billion in September this year as against USD 35.39 billion in the same month last year, government data showed on Friday. Imports too fell by 15 per cent to USD 53.84 billion as against USD 63.37 billion recorded in September 2022. The country’s trade deficit in the month stood at USD 19.37 billion. During April-September this fiscal, exports contracted by 8.77 per cent to USD 211.4 billion. Imports during the six-month period fell by 12.23 per cent to USD 326.98 billion.

On to technology. Meta-owned X rival is introducing an edits button available for all users. It allows users to edit a post till five minutes after it has been published, and post five minutes, the ability to do so disappears. Moreover, it works on both mobile apps (Android, iOS) and the web. After the feature was announced by Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday, many users took to Threads to share opinions on the same. One post noted, quote, “It took a decade for Twitter to get an edit button, [however], it took Threads less than a year,” unquote. Notably, Meta also has a paid bluecheck programme called Meta Verified. It was announced after Twitter, now X introduced Twitter Blue in October 2022.

Next up, Industry. Online food ordering and delivery platform Zomato on Friday said a penalty of Rs 1 lakh has been imposed on it and restaurant partner McDonald’s by the District Consumer Dispute Redressal Forum, Jodhpur, for alleged wrongful delivery of non-vegetarian food in place of a vegetarian food order. The company is in the process of filing an appeal against the order, Zomato said in a regulatory filing. The District Consumer Dispute Redressal Forum (II) Jodhpur has imposed a monetary penalty of Rs 1 lakh for violation of Consumer Protection Act, 2019 on Zomato and McDonald’s, the restaurant partner whose food was delivered through it, and awarded Rs 5,000 as cost of litigation, it said.

Lastly, let’s see how the share market performed today. Benchmark indices ended on a negative note on October 13 amid volatility. At close, the Sensex was down 125.65 points or 0.19 percent at 66,282.74, and the Nifty was down 43.00 points or 0.22 percent at 19,751. About 1800 shares advanced, 1739 shares declined, and 155 shares unchanged. Top Nifty losers were Axis Bank, Infosys, Adani Enterprises, SBI and Wipro, while the gainers were Tata Motors, IndusInd Bank, HCL Technologies, Tata Consumer Products and Nestle India. Among sectors, auto and realty up 0.5 per cent each, while metal, bank and informatiuon technology down 0.5 per cent each. The BSE midcap and smallcap indices ended on a flat note.