Hello there! We’re back again! What better sign that the weekend is here than the latest edition of Markets Espresso landing in your inbox, isn’t it? But Phew! What a week this has been. The dialogue of the week comes from Amitabh Bachchan in Baghban (2003), when he said, “Kisi se ummeed karni hi nahi chaiye. Ummedein toot ti hai to bahot takleef hoti hai“. (You should never have hopes from anyone. It’s very painful when hopes shatter.) Four stocks lived this dialogue through various days of the week gone by.
First was Samsung. The company reported its provisional business update for the quarter earlier in the week, where its operating profit went up by 19x from last year. If you thought that was a typo, it wasn’t. 19 times, 19x, 19 fold, 19 guna from last year. Yet, the stock fell 10% that day, took the KOSPI down to yet another circuit down, and even pushed it into a bear market. What was the problem? The numbers were above what analysts were expecting, but only by 6%. Such sky high were the expectations, that 6% took precedence over 19x and the stock, up 130% so far this year, got smashed.
The next three bring us back home. Trent is the second one. Another business update. Revenue growth of 19%. Last quarter, it was 20%. Not bad you’d think. But the street said, very bad! Why? Analysts were hoping for that figure to be between 20-22%. The stock had risen 23% in the 16 sessions prior to this report and duly got punished. Fell 12% the next day and has declined every single day since. Back down to the lowest level since June 12, from where this upmove had begun.
The third one in this list is TCS. While Samsung and Trent fell prey to sky high expectations, TCS fell in the category of no expectations at all. No expectations from India’s largest IT services company, tells you a lot about the state of the sector in 2026. Results come Thursday evening. Not outstanding, but not bad either. For a sector thirsty for good news, no bad news was enough. While TCS itself could not hold on to its gains, it, for some reason, spurred the entire midcap IT basket, with stocks like Zensar and Newgen gaining in double digits. Guess they were happier for TCS than the street itself. That’s how you’d describe dusre ki khushi me khush hona.
The last one in the list is Kalyan Jewellers. Even after growing 38% this quarter, the street smashed it down on Tuesday saying it was slower than the market leader Titan. The above meme was Kalyan’s reply to the bears between Wednesday and Friday. After Tuesday’s 7% drop, the next three days read gains of 5.5%, 18.4% and 8.4% respectively. From 7% down in two days to 35% up in the next three, Kalyan Jewellers just ended up reporting its best week on record!
And above all of this, away from the sinful world of dialogues, films and expectations is Donald Trump. He makes one Freudian slip after another, calls Iran the Islamic Republic of Japan, address Ukraine President Zeleskyy as President Putin, but always says enough to sway the markets the way he wants. One sentence from him was all it took to pull the Nifty from 24,300 to 23,800 on Wednesday. “I think the MoU is over from my side.” That’s all he said. Dil pe patthar rakhke break-up kar lia
. But the markets that were ignoring the attacks and skirmishes, went on a selling spree across the globe after that one line. He still gets calls from Iran begging to make a deal. Waiting for the next Truth Social post…
Sridhar Sivaram is also hopeful. Hopeful that earnings will improve from Q2 as oil prices ease. However, he remains underweight on IT. Underweight on banks too. What does he like then? Manufacturing and the entire value chain in the power equipment business, Pharma, that’s well placed to tap the GLP-1 opportunity, and NBFCs and housing finance companies that were earlier trading at higher valuations. He sees limited upside to gold as well this year.
Unlike Sridhar Sivaram, Sandeep Tandon of Quant MF has started nibbling selectively in IT but warned that this is still not the time to make an aggressive call. He only sees FMCG as a trading opportunity, adding that FIIs are focusing on large capex plays like power and renewable energy stocks. He is also looking at select infra companies and eyeing participation in some upcoming IPOs.
The recent attacks in West Asia which highlighted the fragility of the ceasefire between the US and Iran, has made Vikash Kumar Jain of CLSA a little cautious on the markets, when he was constructive on it till the start of the week. He remains overweight on commodities as a hedge against the war and expects utilities to do well in uncertain times. He likes defence as a segment, is selective in autos to play the decline in commodity prices and likes the power utility companies.
Death and taxes are the only certainty. At least for now, we can make one more addition to that list – SIPs. Come rain, hurricane, heat, cold, good weather or bad, good markets or bad, SIP flows have remained consistent, and how. June’s figures were at more than ₹31,000 crore, the highest in three months. Sometimes, you just have to doff your hat to retail investors. They are the eternal optimists. Whether this optimism turns out to be profitable in the future or not, only time will tell, but they are the ones that have matched the FII outflow rupee for rupee, dollar for dollar!
The week has come to an end but the real test begins now. Earnings season begins to pick up pace. Infosys, HCLTech, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, the entire largecap IT will be on your screens by the time you read the next Espresso! That’s not all, ICICI Prudential AMC, Angel One, HDFC AMC, ICICI Lombard, HDFC Life, Polycab, South Indian Bank, JSW Steel, RBL Bank, all of them will be reporting their results in the upcoming week. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Next Saturday will also bring HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank on the exchanges on the same day, possibly at the same time too, with their quarterly results, and if they were not enough, Axis Bank has joined the Saturday party too! So sit back, take a deep breath, and get ready for a riveting next month. Its all to play for! Khel to abhi shuru hua hai!
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