STOCK MARKET SUMMARY 31-08-18

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The benchmark indices ended flat on Friday amid weakness in the rupee, which hit a new low breaching 71 per dollar mark for the first time earlier in the day.The S&P BSE Sensex ended at 38,645, down 45 points while the broader Nifty50 index settled at 11,680, up 4 points.Oil-to-telecom heavyweight Reliance Industries (RIL) settled 2.75 per cent lower at Rs 1,239 on the BSE.Among sectoral indices, the Nifty Pharma index rose 2.7 per cent led by a rise in Lupin and Dr. Reddy's Laboratories. The Nifty IT index, too, settled 1.8 per cent higher led by Tech Mahindra and MindTree. However, Nifty Bank index slipped 0.15 per cent due to a fall in YES Bank's shares. Shares of Larsen & Toubro (L&T) hit an over two-month high of Rs 1,374 per share, up 2%, gaining 11% in the past two weeks after the company announced a share buyback proposal. In comparison, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 2% during the same period. The stock was trading at its highest level since June 4, 2018, on the BSE.Engineering conglomerate L&T’s board on August 24 approved the company’s first buyback in its 80 years, for up to 4.29% of its paid-up equity capital, aggregating to a value of about Rs 90 billion.The company approved a proposal to buy back up to 60 million equity shares at a maximum price of Rs 1,500 per equity share for an amount of Rs 90 billion, L&T said in its statement to exchanges.

This is the first ever buyback plan from L&T and would be subject to shareholder approval by means of a special resolution through a postal ballot.The brokerage firm Motilal Oswal Securities consider L&T’s buyback program to be positive for the company and reiterate its commitment towards its five-year plan ‘Lakshya’ under which it intends to improve its RoE to 18% by FY21.“The buyback will also re-emphasize management’s commitment on no large capex plans over the next few years, apart from Hyderabad Metro, divestment of non-core assets, and tight control over NWC and resultant improved cash generation,” the brokerage firm said with maintains ‘buy’ rating on the stock with target price of Rs 1,570.Meanwhile, L&T has bagged fresh contracts of Rs 87.02 billion during the month of August. In the past two months, the company won orders worth Rs 157 billion, the exchange data shows.

TOP GAINERS:LUPIN,DRREDDY,TECHM

MAJORLOOSERS: YESBANK,RELIANCE,M&M