Stock Picks Today: Maruti Suzuki, HUL, Dabur, Swiggy, Eicher Motors, TVS Motors On Brokerages' Radar
Ambuja Cements Ltd., Hindustan Unilever Ltd., Dabur India Ltd., Swiggy, Eicher Motors Ltd., TVS Motor Company Ltd., Sun Pharma., Maruti Suzuki are among the companies garnering brokerage commentary.
Ambuja Cements Ltd., Hindustan Unilever Ltd., Dabur India Ltd., Swiggy, Eicher Motors Ltd., TVS Motor Company Ltd., Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Maruti Suzuki India Ltd., are among the companies garnering brokerage commentary today.
Analysts have shared their insights and, in several cases, revised their target prices based on their updated fundamental outlooks for these firms, broadly based on the first quarter financials that the players have put out. Here are the key analyst calls to watch out for today:
On HUL
UBS
Maintained Buy; hiked target price to Rs 3000 from Rs 2800.
Growth turnaround in the making.
Better than expected volume growth portends better outlook.
Risk-reward turning very favourable on HUL.
Macquarie
Maintained Outperform; target price of Rs 2750.
Q1: In-line; healthy volume growth.
Gradual volume pickup, low-single-digit pricing expected.
Concerned about continued decline of nutrition drinks portfolio and continued growth headwinds for hygiene soaps segment.
Like constructive macro commentary and transient nature of gross margin weakness.
On Dabur
UBS
Maintained Sell; hiked target price to Rs 500 from Rs 470.
Pockets of growth amid seasonal challenges.
Revenue in line; EBITDA slight beat but with cut in A&P spends.
HPC grew by mid single digits; unseasonal rain impacts HC and F&B.
Jefferies
Maintained Buy; hiked target price to Rs 610 from Rs 590.
Impact of unseasonal rains visible, leading to weak revenue growth with slight volume decline.
Impact of high-cost inflation showed up, but arrested at EBITDA level mainly on lower ad spends.
Management expects growth pick-up ahead along with better EBITDA margins despite some input cost inflation concern.
Company continues to look for M&A in wellness foods and health category.
Morgan Stanley
Maintained Underweight; target price of Rs 396.
Q1: Margin Beat, Weak domestic growth.
Rural market continued to outperform for 5th quarter.
Rural growth 390bps ahead of Urban India in both volume and value terms.
Urban markets demonstrated sequential improvement.
Management reiterated guidance of high-single-digit value growth, with EBITDA margin improvement.
M&A in any of the categories to be focused on wellness as a theme.
On Swiggy
Morgan Stanley
Maintained Overweight; hiked target price to Rs 450 from Rs 445.
Q1: Playing a balancing act.
Growth in food delivery living up to expectations.
Now see a slower pace of margin improvement.
Good unit economics in Q1 and strong commentary around Q2.
Now move up profitability assumption in Quick Commerce business.
Jefferies
Upgraded to Buy from Hold; hiked target price to Rs 500 from Rs 380.
Q1 growth in food delivery strong while momentum continued in quick commerce.
EBITDA margins came-off in both, attributed by management to higher payouts to riders, revision in staff comp, etc.
With a pause on dark store expansion in short term and easing in competition, Q1 profitability marked the trough.
Swiggy remains prone to high volatility due to a low margin base.
High Risk - High Reward Play.
Macquarie
Maintained Underperform; target price of Rs 260.
Swiggy's Q1 loss-making results further underscored economic challenges for the platform.
Continue to highlight material downside risks to consensus estimates.
In Instamart, see risks to company's contribution margin breakeven timeline.
Do not expect a linear improvement in dark store utilisation.
Even when contribution margin hits breakeven, Instamart will still see at least a ~5% adj EBITDA margin loss.
Remain fundamentally guarded, as don't see positive Instamart economics in our forecast horizon.
On Maruti Suzuki
Macquarie
Maintained Outperform; target price of Rs 13682.
Model launch to aid H2 domestic growth.
Realisation surprise drove EBITDA beat.
SUV launches to drive growth.
New model launches and company's ability to drive market share gains is key.
On Eicher Motors
Jefferies
Maintained Buy; target price of Rs 6500.
Margin Concerns Alleviate.
Margins improved 40 bps QoQ after three consecutive quarters of sequential decline.
Marketing and product initiatives boosted volume growth.
Exports continue to grow well too.
Expect Eicher to deliver 13% EPS CAGR over FY25-28.
Morgan Stanley
Maintained Underweight; target price of Rs 4079.
Q1: In-Line Quarter.
Management continues to pursue volume over margins - we like the growth focused strategy.
Remain underweight because the stock is pricing in high margin and high growth.
See downside risks to consensus margin estimates.
On Kotak Mahindra Bank
Morgan Stanley
Maintained Overweight; target price of Rs 2600.
Believe share price will rise relative to the industry over next 30 days.
Expect earnings to accelerate in H2 led by improvement in loan growth, margin, and asset quality.
Kotak's starting point of profitability better than peers.
Valuations look attractive at 1.6x FY27 core book, generating an ROA of 2%.
On TVS Motor
Jefferies
Maintained Buy; hiked target price to Rs 3500 from Rs 3300.
Strong Q1 and Gaining Market Share.
Remain optimistic on Indian 2W demand, lower FY25-28 industry volume CAGR from 10% to 8%.
TVS’ market share risen to a 22-year-high in domestic 2Ws and a new high in exports.
Expect strong 13% volume and 24% EPS CAGR over FY25-28.
Citi
Maintained Sell; hiked target price to Rs 2100 from Rs 2050.
Q1 Results Marginally Above Estimates.
Management expects a revival in Q2.
Festive season demand expected to be healthy.
Demand in key exports markets stabilizing.
Valuations significantly above peers, leaving little room for error.
On Emami
Jefferies
Maintained Buy; target price of Rs 770.
Broadly inline outcome.
Decline in volume partially due to unseasonal rains.
Gross margins expanded while EBITDA margins stayed stable.
Management expects steady input costs ahead which provide margin visibility.
Demand also expected to improve in a gradual manner.
Growth pick-up is a must for the share price performance.
On Sun Pharma
Macquarie
Maintained Outperform; target price of Rs 2135.
Q1FY26 results: Operating beat on in-line revenue.
India business growth primarily driven by volume growth and new product introductions.
Management confident on Leqselvi launch.
On Mankind Pharma
Macquarie
Maintained Underperform; target price of Rs 2150.
Q1FY26 results: Modest all-round miss.
Consumer healthcare business grew 15% YoY led by steady growth across all key brands.
Exports business up 81% primarily due to consolidation of BSV supported by growth in the base business.
On Ambuja Cements
Morgan Stanley
Maintained Overweight; target price of Rs 650.
Management raised industry demand forecast to 7-8% for FY2026 from 6-7%.
Majority of increased opex from Orient consolidation to normalize next quarter.
Cost savings of Rs175-200/t achieved toward Rs530/t target by FY28.
On Coal India
JPMorgan
Maintained Neutral; target price of Rs 415.
Q1 - Largely in-line results; volume recovery will remain key.
Higher-than-expected e-auction premium of 50%; Q2 premium likely lower than last year.
Don’t see any negatives from the print.
Expect a slight positive revision to consensus estimates given the 5% beat on PAT.
Coal India’s volume prints and e-auction premium trajectory will be key.
On Dr. Lal PathLabs
Citi
Maintained Sell; hiked target price to Rs 2900 from Rs 2700.
Decent Numbers in Seasonally Strong Quarter.
Investments into network expansion expected to step up in H2.
Full year margins may be slightly better than earlier guidance.
On IIFL Finance
HSBC
Maintained Buy; target price of Rs 550.
A bumpy recovery, but direction holds true.
Credit costs in MFI declining; unsecured MSME and micro-LAP increasing.
Gold loans grew rapidly.
Directionally AUM growth should accelerate, credit costs should decline, ROA should improve.
On Price Action: Laurence Balanco
Nifty dropped below its 50DMA support level earlier this week.
Confluence of support provided by May/June lows at 24,462-24,473.
200DMA and upper boundary of February/April double bottom pattern also act as support at 24,000-24,043 area.
As long as price action holds above this support zone at 24,000-24,462, benefit of doubt to the upside.
Nifty IT has been a drag on the Nifty.
Preference remains for Banks over IT.
