1. JK Lakshmi Cement: This cement stock touched an all-time high of Rs 860.4 on Thursday. Trendlyne’s Technicals suggest that the stock gained more than 19% over the past month and over 70% in three months. Its trajectory has been interesting given that it rose for five consecutive sessions from November 28, before breaking the streak on December 6 as markets fell. The gain is because of a sector report by ICICI Securities, which suggests that if cement companies take better price hikes in Q3FY23 and global crude oil falls or maintains at current levels (between $85-$90 per barrel), they will see a significant improvement in margins. 

Fall in crude prices will definitely help JK Lakshmi Cement’s input prices go down. In Q2FY23, the company’s power and fuel costs rose by 49.9% YoY to Rs 418.85 crore, which caused a dent in net profit as it fell nearly 27% YoY. The management, in its earnings call, mentioned that their profits were affected by high global fuel prices. They tried to mitigate these problems by expanding volumes, improving product mix and increasing sales of their premium products. The company is currently working on increasing its capacity with its subsidiary, Udaipur Cement Works. The plant is expected to be ready by March 2024 and start contributing towards revenue growth in FY24. Axis Securities expects JK Lakshmi Cement to clock revenue CAGR of 16% over FY22-24E.

Axis Securities expects Centre’s spending in the infrastructure space to boost demand for cement. The housing and infrastructure segment consumes nearly 80-90% of the total cement produced in the country and this bodes well for cement stocks. Trendlyne’s Forecaster estimates operating revenue to be 11% more than Rs 1,302.7 crore in Q2FY23. However, JK Lakshmi Cement missed its estimated target (Rs 1,347 crore) by 3.3% in Q2. Consensus recommendation suggests 15 analysts recommending a ‘Buy’ on the stock.

2. Westlife Development: This quick-service restaurant company, which holds the master franchise for McDonald's in the western and southern parts of India, held ‘Strategy day’ on December 1. In reaction, its stock price rose in the subsequent three trading sessions, hitting its life-high on Tuesday. As a result, it features in a screener of companies with share prices above their short, medium and long-term moving averages. Post Westlife’s investor day, brokerages like Axis Direct and Edelweiss also remained positive about the company’s prospects as they both maintained ‘Buy’ ratings. 

What excited investors could be the management’s ambitious target of a three-fold jump in sales, between Rs 4,000 crore and Rs 4,500 crore, in the next five years. Westlife Development plans to drive revenue growth on the back of network expansion, widening of product mix and an omnichannel approach. 

QSR companies have been expanding rapidly post-Covid as they look to offset slowing sales growth by adding more stores. Despite strong Q2FY23 results, QSR companies' share prices fell as investors had expected higher growth. The only exception to this was Westlife, which rose after its results. In fact, it is the only QSR company that beat the Nifty 50 in the past quarter in terms of price change. 

Going forward, the company’s management intends to focus on expansion in tier 2 cities. Akshay Jatia, Executive Director of Westlife Development, said, “Non-metro towns continue to post 1.6x growth vs metros on the pre-COVID base of Q2FY20.” 

3. Dabur India: This FMCG company touched its 52-week high of Rs 610.8 on Wednesday after Morgan Stanely upgraded its rating on the stock to ‘Overweight’ and raised its target price to Rs 660 from the earlier Rs 578. The rally was also backed by the rise in the Nifty FMCG index in the past week. 

Morgan Stanley expects Dabur’s top-line growth and margins to improve in H2FY23 and FY24 due to rural recovery and softening of inflation. It said 45% of the company’s revenue comes from the rural economy, and recovery of rural demand will be positive. It also expects strong growth in Dabur’s food and beverage portfolio, driven by rural opportunities for beverages, and its recent acquisition of Badshah in the spices category. ICICI Securities also expects an improvement in the volume growth of FMCG companies, backed by the recovery of rural demand and monsoons. As a result, Dabur features in a screener of companies where brokers upgraded recommendations or target prices in the past three months.

Recently, Dabur announced its entry into the D2C space by launching its website, Dabur Shop. Dabur’s CEO Mohit Malhotra said this will become a one-stop shop for its entire product portfolio over time. The company also announced its foray into the women’s personal hygiene space on Wednesday, as part of its social initiative to support women’s health. This launch would strengthen Dabur’s presence in the personal products space.

4. Macrotech Developers: This realty company rose nearly 3% in intraday trade after it announced the launch of its Qualified Institutions Placement (QIP) of equity shares on Wednesday. The promoters, with this QIP, intend to reduce their stake to 75% from 82.2% to achieve the minimum public shareholding of 25%, as stipulated by SEBI. According to reports, the management aims to raise around Rs 3,500 crore from the sale of its shares through the QIP route.

Meanwhile, the Lodha Group company gained nearly 17% in the past month after announcing the launch of 16 new projects in H2FY23. The combined estimated sales potential of these projects stands at Rs 10,300 crore, with a total area of 7.3 million square feet. These new launches are a mix of fully owned and joint development projects. The management expects the demand for housing during the festive season to remain robust despite the rise in home loan interest rates. It believes that a long-term upcycle in housing has started in India. 

The company’s collection rose 24% YoY in Q2FY23 but its revenue fell 16.9% YoY, posting a loss of Rs 933.1 crore. This was due to a one-off provision of Rs 1,177 crore made for a loan to its British arm, Lodha Developers UK. Excluding the provision, the firm’s net profit in Q2 grew 28% YoY to Rs 367 crore. The realty firm also shows up in a screener for companies with improving net cash flow over the past two years and the consensus recommendation for the stock is a ‘Buy’ rating.

5. JSW Steel & Power: This iron & steel company has been on a rise since November 28, following a series of pledge releases over the past two weeks. Siddeshwari Tradex, a promoter entity of the company, released 16 lakh pledged shares (or 0.16% stake) to Standard Chartered Capital and 10 lakh shares (or 0.1% stake) to RBL Bank on November 29. 

Opelina Sustainable Services, also a promoter entity of the company, released 1 lakh pledged shares (or 0.01% stake) to JM Financial Credit Solutions on December 2 and 16 lakh shares (or 0.16% stake) to Aditya Birla Finance on Monday. 

According to reports, Jindal Steel & Power won a Rs 410-crore bid for the liquidation of a power plant of the debt-ridden Monnet Power in Odisha. The new power plant will supply energy to the company’s steel plant in Angul, which is in the process of expansion. 

The stock ranks high in Trendlyne’s checklist with a score of 52.2%. It also features in a screener with stocks that have momentum and return on equity (RoE).

Trendlyne's analysts identify stocks that are seeing interesting price movements, analyst calls, or new developments. These are not buy recommendations.