With just one day to go for F&O expiry, the trading was volatile on Wednesday with a clear inclination towards heavy unloading of positions in the F&O market. Most traders appear to be unwilling to carry forward positions in Adani group stocks and in metals stocks due to the uncertainty. These stocks to be watched in the next contract as they can see pressure.

Coming to your question, the big news for the day is Reliance Industries with its 44th AGM scheduled on 24 June. The AGM is expected to announce a likely stake sale in the O2C business or the oil to chemicals business of RIL and also the possible launch of Jio-Google phones in India supported by a whole new operating system for Indian markets.

FPI action was strongly positive on Wednesday with global institutions net buying Rs.3,157 crore. Even the domestic institutions bought equities worth Rs.1,317 crore. However, this figure needs to be adjusted for the big deal on UBL as this includes the big blocks on United Breweries sold by DRT and lapped up by many of the institutional investors.

In terms of global market cues, the US markets were mixed on Wednesday with the Dow lower and the NASDAQ marginally higher. However, European markets were totally in the red with the SGX Nifty trading around 15 bps higher in early trades. The trend would most likely develop based on F&O expiry trends and the all important RIL AGM cues.

It is now official that the Rs.9,200 crore buyback of Infosys shares by the company will commence from June 25. The buyback price has been pegged at Rs.1,750 per share. The board had approved this buyback on 14 Apr but the regulatory approval just came in on 19 Jun. Infy will buy back maximum of 5.257 crore shares comprising 1.23% of paid-up equity. With this buyback, Infosys will reach its annual capital returning target of Rs.15,600 crore.

You must have noticed that Mukesh Ambani has been talking about green as the future of oil. If you take that as the cue, the O2C deal could see some action in the Reliance AGM. At the AGM on 24 June there may be the proposed stake sale in its O2C business to Saudi Aramco. The stake sale talks with Aramco have revived although an announcement to this effect is expected with expectations of a board berth for Saudi Aramco in RIL board.

Another interesting thing to watch would be the launch of the Jio-Google phone which is also expected to be announced at the 44th AGM on 24 June. Google and Jio may also look at jointly creating and launching a new operating system or O/S dedicated purely to the Indian markets. We need to await details on these.

Bharat Electronics has been on the radar of investors for a long time for two reasons. The first reason was the Make in India initiative that had opened up a huge opportunity for the company in terms of options available. Second was the proposed divestment or rather privatization, but that appears to be in the back burner for the time being. On 23 June, BEL scaled a 3-year high price of Rs.167 after a reporting a strong set of results.

Let us turn to the results now. For the Mar-21 quarter, BEL reported 31% higher PAT at Rs.1,352 crore even as top line sales revenues were up by 19% at Rs.6,908 crore in the Mar-21 quarter. Interestingly, the EBITDA margins improved by nearly 300 basis points from 25.5% last year to 28.5% in this year. BEL had a robust order book position of Rs.53,434 crore, with orders worth Rs.15,800 crore coming this year from the in-sourcing decision.

There seems to be some progress happening on Jet Airways, more than 26 months since the airline was grounded for lack of funds. The Kalrock Jain consortium has got the final go ahead from the NCLT to take over and operate Jet Airways. The NCLT has also cleared their resolution plan submitted. Now, the next step for the consortium is to apply for requisite government approvals for the same.

In terms of logical steps, the new owners need to first make key recruitments in engineering, flight safety and operations. They also need to update all their operations manuals and submit to regulatory audit. It is only after this that the DGCA gives them the permission to start flights. Of course, the issue of landing slots owned by the erstwhile Jet Airways is still in pendency. This would bring the insolvency process to a logical end.

SEBI exempted Heineken of Netherlands from making open offer to the shareholders of United Breweries as a special case. This exemption specifically pertains to the acquisition of 15% stake by taking over the stake that the Debt Recovery Tribunal was looking to sell. This is towards the recovery of dues of Vijay Mallya and his group. Normally, Heineken being promoter entity, this would have triggered an open offer, but special exemption was made.

That is still confidential and now yet disclosed by the RBI. In fact, the RBI-appointed third party audit of HDFC Bank's IT systems has been completed and the same was confirmed by Mr. Jagadishan, the CEO of HDFC Bank. The final report has been submitted to RBI for taking a final decision.

It may be recollected that in Dec-20, RBI banned HDFC Bank from announcing new digital launches including new credit cards or the Digital 2.0 plan till further go ahead from the RBI. This was necessitated after a series of technical glitches reported by the bank leading to massive inconvenience for its massive base of customers. HDFC Bank has however confirmed the glitches had nothing to do with handling scale and would have happened anyways.

Tuesday was one more day of smart closure although the gains were largely evaporated by the end of trades. The markets just about closed in the positive on 22 June. The gains were much smaller than indicated at the start of the day, but it was gains nevertheless. The rally was led by Maruti after it announced price hikes across the board for all its models.

The most important driver is the testimony of Fed Chair Jerome Powell post the Fed statement of last week. Powell underlined that going ahead the major driving factor for the rates decision would be the jobs data and not just the inflation rate or even the GDP data. This helped the sentiments surrounding the global markets to improve substantially.

Foreign portfolio investors action was negative on Tuesday with net selling of Rs.1,028 crore although the domestic institutions bought equities worth Rs.303 crore on Tuesday. The overall FPI flows for the month of June continue to be positive but there could some short term concerns over the bouts of selling in the market.

Global markets also flattered on Tuesday, like on Monday. In fact, after a strong performance on Monday, Tuesday sustained the trend in the market with gains across US and European markets. Like the Dow and the NASDAQ, the SGX Nifty was also trading about 40 bps higher in early trades. The Powell testimony appears to have rubbed off positively.