Ceat stock on a roll, surges over 170% in three months

The stock has rallied 173% from Rs 103 on August 28, compared to 13.5% rise in CNX Nifty.

Shares of tyre-maker Ceat were locked in upper circuit of 10% at Rs 281 on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) with no sellers. A combined 1.84 million shares changed hands till late noon deals, as against an average of less than one-million shares that were traded daily in past two weeks on NSE and Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). There were pending buy orders for 232,000 shares at 1530 hours.

Ceat has rallied 173% in past three months from Rs 103 on August 28, compared to 13.5% rise in the benchmark CNX Nifty and is within striking distance of its record high of Rs 290 touched on April 2, 1992.

The company had reported over four-fold year-on-year (y-o-y) jump in consolidated net profit at Rs 142 crore for the first half (April-September) of the current financial year 2013-14, on the back of strong volume growth and lower raw material cost. It had clocked in a net profit of Rs 33 crore in the entire previous fiscal.

EBITDA (Earnings before interest, taxes, depriciation and amortisation) stook at around Rs 340 crore for the first half of the current fiscal, as compared to Rs 450 crore for the full year ended March 2013. The consolidated EBITDA margins stood at 12.97% compared to 8.18% in H1 last year. Going forward, the management expects both growth and margins to be on similar levels.