Marico share price rises up to 8% on two-fold rise in Q4 profit

Shares of consumer goods firm Marico rose in trade today after the firm recorded positive earnings for fourth quarter of 2018-19.

The stock ended 4.56 per cent lower at Rs 340 apiece yesterday. It opened Tuesday 4 per cent up and rallied further to 8 per cent intraday gain.

With a gap up chart pattern, the share opened at Rs 340, up 14 points or 4.12 per cent from the previous close of Rs 340 and rallied 8.18 per cent on BSE to Rs 367.80.

On NSE, the stock opened 3.5 per cent higher at Rs 351.70 against yesterday's closing price of Rs 339.60 and escalated 8.17 per cent to Rs 367.35.

At 12:35 pm, the stock was trading up by 7.13 per cent at Rs 363.80, on NSE, mere 32 points away from the 52-week high of Rs 396.60, last achieved on December, 20, 2018.  At 1: 53 pm, Marico share price was trading 7.26% higher at 364 level on BSE.  

A total of 5.12 lakh and 132.43 lakh shares are changing hands on BSE and NSE, above the 5-day average volume.

Additionally, the sectoral indices of Fast Moving Consumer Goods, namely Nifty and S&P BSE FMCG were trading up by 0.91 per cent and 0.71 per cent, backed up by stocks such as Manpasand (up 13 per cent), Marico(up 6.8 per cent), Bajaj Consumer(up 4.26 per cent), Globus Spirits(up 3.12 per cent), Avadh Sugar & Energy (up 2.46 per cent) and Prabhat Dairy(up 2.36 per cent).

Following the news, Macquarie has maintained its 'outperform rating' on Marico and raised its target price to Rs 412 from Rs 394 earlier. "The EBITDA miss was mainly on account of higher investments in A&P as well as higher promotions," added the global investment bank.

Global brokerage firm CLSA, has upgraded the stock to 'buy from underperform' and revised target price up to Rs 435 from Rs 330, adding that, "Copra (key input) prices are down 17 per cent from its peak and a further correction should drive up margins in 2HFY19 (October 2018-March 2019) and improve outlook". As per CLSA, there was a slight EBITDA miss but a beat at net earnings due to lower taxes.

(Edited by Rupa Burman Roy)

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