ITC, BASF, Avanti Feeds hit new high

ITC, BASF, Avanti Feeds, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, Grasim Industries and Aditya Birla Nuvo from the S&P BSE 500 index hitting their respective record highs on BSE in intra-day trade on Friday.

ITC has moved higher to its new high of Rs 324, up 4% on BSE on back of heavy volumes. Till 02:44 pm; a combined 19.21 million shares have changed hands, as compared to an average sub 10 million shares that were traded daily in past two weeks on BSE and NSE.

According analysts at Spark Capital the recently announced Goods & Service Tax (GST) rate on cigarettes is broadly revenue neutral.

“With the ambiguity over the GST rate on cigarettes being cleared, we believe ITC provides an attractive investment opportunity given the current valuations of the stock in comparison to its consumption peers,” the brokerage firm said in Q4FY17 update.

“Fifth consecutive quarter of non?negative cigarette volume growth and no negative surprise in GST rate reaffirms our confidence of sustenance of cigarette volumes,” analysts at Edelweiss Securities said in result update.

“With per capita consumption 1/18th China’s, cigarette opportunity in India remains attractive. Though illegal cigarettes are a big menace (one?fifth of overall cigarette industry in India), GST implementation will mitigate the impact,” added report.

Shares of Kumar Mangalam Birla – promoted Aditya Birla Group companies, Grasim Industries (up 4% at Rs 1,267) and Aditya Birla Nuvo (up 4% at Rs 1,893) continued their upward movement hitting their respective record highs in intra-day trade on Friday, ahead of the scheme of amalgamation.

ITC Limited