Both bellwether indices BSE Sensex and CNX Nifty continued their north-bound journey for the third consecutive week, surging 634 points and 197 points, respectively, to log their 5-week closing highs on the back of a host of positive factors.

The market posted smart gains in three out of five alternate trading sessions of the week.

Stung by a punitive tax on cigarettes, net profit of cigarettes-to-hotel major ITC rose by 3.6 per cent at Rs 2,361 crore in the March quarter, against Rs 2,278 crore in the year-ago period, missing Street expectations by a wide margin. Bloomberg had estimated the net profit to be at Rs 2,521 crore. Excluding expenditure on corporate social responsibilty programmes, net profit grew by 7.8 per cent.

“The muted growth in revenue and profits during the quarter reflects, inter alia, the continuing impact of the steep hike in taxation on cigarettes, sluggish demand conditions in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector,” the company said in a statement.

The country’s biggest lender, State Bank of India (SBI), reported a 23 per cent increase in net profit to Rs 3,742 crore in the March quarter, fourth and final one (Q4) of 2014-15, higher than what the Street had estimated.

There was a four-fold increase in treasury gains, coupled with less of slippage to the bad loans category. Lower slippages also helped improve the net interest income by 14 per cent from the corresponding period a year before, to Rs 14,711 crore, despite a tepid 7.25 per cent growth in loans.

Missing street estimates, cigarettes-to-hotel major ITC reported a net profit growth of 3.6% at Rs 2,361.18 crore in the March quarter, an as compared to Rs 2,278.01 crore last year during the same period.

Net sales for the quarter stood at Rs 9188.25 crore up by 0.4% than Rs 9145.14 crore during the corresponding quarter last fiscal.

Top executives at Infosys, such as its chief operating officer and chief financial officer, have witnessed their annual compensation rise 170-210% in FY15 against the previous fiscal, according to latest filings with the US SEC.

Infosys COO UB Pravin Rao, who took over in June, 2014, received a total compensation of $9,70,646 for FY15 including salary, bonus and incentives and commission, compared to the $3,18,954 he got in FY14. This transalates into a 204% rise in total compensation over the last year.

AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa met Tamil Nadu Governor K Rosaiah on Friday afternoon and handed him a list of names who will be made ministers in her government. Large crowds greeted her en route to Raj Bhavan and Jayalalithaa later left to garland M G Ramachandran’s statue.

Earlier in the day, an AIADMK legislature party meeting, which started at 7 am today, concluded in five minutes electing party chief J Jayalalithaa as the leader of the legislature party, paving her way to become the CM of Tamil Nadu.

Online mobile recharge platform- Freecharge released a promotional film which highlights all bad reviews about it. The company’s employees read out aloud all the negative reviews it received by its customers on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

One of the interesting reviews which really made me laugh my guts out was when a customer says, “Do you give coupons for sulabh shauchalaya, coz that’s what they are. SHITTT!!”

Bajaj Auto on Thursday reported an 18.58% year-on-year (y-o-y) fall in Q4 FY15 net profit to Rs 622 crore. The company posted a 4.35% y-o-y drop in turnover to Rs 4,894 crore as volumes fell 16.36% to 7,82,669 units.

Operating Ebitda dropped 9.02% to Rs 937 crore while profit before tax declined 13.99% to Rs 922 crore. Ebitda margin for Q4 was 19.4%, dragged down largely due to one-off-expenses, including loss on account of a fire at the Akurdi plant in January 2015 and increase in gratuity charge to Rs 90 crore due to actuarial valuation, the company said.

Maintain ‘buy’ on UltraTech Cement with a price target of R3,290 a share. We value the company at 12.5x EV/Ebitda, which is at ~25% and ~10% premium to our target multiple of ACC and Ambuja Cement, respectively. Based on 12.5x FY17e EV/Ebitda, we arrive at our price target.

As per reports, Ultratech could acquire Jaypee’s 74% stake in Bhilai Jaypee Cement, which has clinker capacity of ~1.1 million tonne at Satna (MP) and grinding capacity of ~2.2 million tonne at Bhilai, Chhattisgarh (adjoining a SAIL Steel plant). On the positive side, this acquisition would further improve Ultratech’s exposure to non-South regions, which are better placed from demand-supply perspective.

The Rs 80,000-crore-plus Indian e-commerce industry is attracting top talent in hordes from across sectors and geographies. Driven by the high pace of growth of the local e-commerce segment, senior executives from large multinationals like Google, Uniliver and GSK are making a beeline for the new sunrise sector in the country.

Companies like Snapdeal, Flipkart and Zomato have recently hired senior-level talent from varied sectors ranging from FMCG to media for different managerial positions and the trend is growing.

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