Hindustan Unilever, Maruti Suzuki, ACC, Power Grid hit new highs

Adani Ports, Biocon, Birla Corp, Dalima Bharat and Future Consumer too hit record highs

Five companies – Hindustan Unilever (HUL), Maruti Suzuki India, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (SEZ), ACC and Power Grid Corporation – from the Nifty50 index hit their respective all-time highs on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) in intra-day trade on Tuesday.

Other companies like Biocon, Birla Corporation, Dalima Bharat, Future Consumer, OCL India, Quess Corp and Tata Investment Corporation from the Nifty 500 and S&P BSE 500 indices hit their record highs too in today's trade.

HUL hit a new high of Rs 1,190, up 3% on BSE in intra-day, ahead of April-June quarter (Q1FY18) results today.

Analysts at Edelweiss Securities expect HUL to record a volume decline of around 1-2% year-on-year (YoY) on a base of 4% YoY (volumes grew 4% YoY in Q4FY17 on a base of 4% YoY) owing to impact in CSD (canteen-store-departments) sales (CSD offtake has been negligible over past 1 month – CSD contributes 5-6% of sales), destocking in wholesale channel owing to GST.

GST albeit will not impact the consumer demand but destocking by wholesalers is inevitable - share of wholesale lower for HUL and hence impact would be lower compared to many other staple companies.

“Company is expanding its focus on Herbal segment under brand Aayush which should also aid volumes to some extent. Prices have been holding well. This coupled with benign raw material prices should aid HUL in holding its margins. Further, with multiple cost reduction initiatives such as ZBB, efficiencies in ad spends, etc should cushion EBITDA,” the brokerage firm said in Q1FY18 result preview.

ACC (up 3% to Rs 1,810), along with other cement companies like Dalmia Bharat, OCL India and Birla Corporation (up 1% each) hit record high after ACC reported a good set of numbers for the quarter ended June.

ACC reported an about 33% rise in June-quarter consolidated profit at Rs 326 crore, boosted by higher cement sales volume.

The company's cement sales volume rose 10.1% to 6.74 million tons in the quarter, it said in a statement on Monday.

Future Consumers zoomed 11% to 42.50, on back of over four-fold jump in trading volumes. A combined 18.41 million equity shares changed hands on the counter on BSE and NSE so far.

The S&P BSE Sensex was down 0.78% at 31,825, while Nifty 50 index trading 0.61% lower at 9,855 at 12:07 pm.

COMPANY	LATEST	ALL TIME HIGH	PREV HIGH	PREV DATE
ACC	1782.60	1809.80	1778.75	17-Jul-17
ADANI PORTS	381.15	383.95	383.60	17-Jul-17
BIOCON	415.55	418.95	411.95	17-Jul-17
BIRLA CORPN.	939.45	945.05	944.00	17-Jul-17
DALMIA BHAR.	2770.00	2779.20	2776.40	17-Jul-17
FUTURE CONSUMER	42.10	42.50	39.60	17-Jul-17
HIND. UNILEVER	1158.05	1190.00	1155.80	17-Jul-17
MAGMA FINCORP	179.10	181.20	176.50	13-Jul-17
MARUTI SUZUKI	7562.85	7589.30	7586.35	14-Jul-17
OCL INDIA	1293.10	1293.10	1292.00	17-Jul-17
POWER GRID CORPN	219.70	220.00	217.90	13-Jul-17
QUESS CORP	948.90	970.00	964.00	17-Jul-17
TATA INV.CORPN.	796.20	807.35	804.50	04-Jan-08