Infosys hits new high; stock surges 25% so far in 2018

Shares of Infosys hit a new high of Rs 1,298 per share, up 2% on the BSE in early morning trade in an otherwise flat market. With Rs 2.83-trillion market capitalisation, Infosys is 6% or Rs 164 billion away to touch Rs 3-trillion mark.

Thus far in the calendar year 2018 (CY18), Infosys has outperformed the market by gaining 25% as compared to 3.3% rise in the S&P BSE Sensex.

Infosys, the country's second largest IT services company, on Wednesday after market hours said that it is scheduled to announce its financial results for first quarter (April-June) of current fiscal 2018-19 (FY19) on July 13.

Infosys has set a 3-year roadmap stabilize in FY19, build momentum in FY20 and accelerate in FY21. The company outlined that FY19 is going to be a year of investments in the area of sales, scaling up digital capabilities, localization and employee re-skilling.

“Infosys has done a good job on margins and revenues in FY18 considering it was a year of change in management in the company. Although the investments will impact the margin profile in the short term, we believe Infosys is well placed in the medium term to ride the digital wave. We see stability returning to the company and a rapid adoption of new technologies. With industry tailwinds, we believe Infosys should be able to grow revenues around industry growth in FY19 and do better from FY20 onwards,” analysts at Antique Stock Broking said in analyst meet update. However, the stock was trading above its 12-month target price of Rs 1,265.

The brokerage firm Sharekhan believes the valuation gap with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) would reduce as Infosys is catching up the earnings growth and other financial parameters along with consistent execution under stable leadership. TCS has rallied 38% thus far in CY18.

Given the significant growth opportunity in the agile digital business, Infosys is well on track to execute strategy for digital growth, the brokerage firm said in recent note with upgrade rating on the stock of Infosys to Buy from Hold with a revised price target of Rs 1,420.