Sector Updates

Positive Result Plays: Banks ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Ujjivan SFB NBFCs Bajaj Finance, Shriram Finance, Aptus Value Housing Negative Result Plays: Equitas SFB, Bandhan Bank, Manappuram

Our Top Earnings Play: APL Apollo Tubes, Hindalco, NALCO, and Tata Steel.

Auto OEMs: TVS Motors, Eicher Motors, Hero MotoCorp. (M&M - Non-Coverage) Auto Ancillary: Sansera Engineering Ltd, Endurance Technology, Minda Corporation

Our Top Positive Plays: UltraTech Cement; Dalmia Bharat; JK Cement; JK Lakshmi and Star Cement

India’s auto sales in September 2025 exhibited a strong upward trend, fueled by festive season momentum and the implementation of GST 2.0 reforms, which reduced tax burdens and stimulated consumer demand.

Although Maruti’s Sep’25 sales reflected a modest overall recovery, but domestic challenges persisted. Growth in exports and compact segment offered some cushion, but continued weakness in SUVs and entry-level cars poses challenges, making the oncoming festive season and new launches critical for a volume and margin recovery.

The month of September saw chemical prices stay range bound on a monthly basis. From our tracking universe, Caustic Soda Lye registered the highest price spurt of 9% MoM exhibiting a good recovery post a 4% decline in August 2025. This has been on account of some volume improvement in key industries such as aluminium, paper and detergent industries. The global caustic soda market has also exhibited considerable shortage predominantly driven by reduced demand for polyvinyl chloride (PVC) due to a slowdown in construction activity. Heavy soda ash was down 14% MoM last month and was down 13% again MoM...

We prefer TVS Motors, Hero Motocorp, and Bajaj Auto in 2Ws (Eicher seems fully valued at CMP); M&M (non-coverage) as a play in the PV/LCV/tractor segment, followed by Maruti in PVs. We also like Ashok Leyland in the CV space, followed by a close watch on Eicher (VECV) for any market share gains.

As the festive season commenced along with anticipated GST rate cuts, OEM wholesale volume for September 2025 came in healthy. Notably, exports continue to stage a healthy growth on YoY basis for most of the OEMs. CV space reported healthy volume prints for the month of September 2025 with green shoots of recovery visible in the LCV segment. Tata motors set the bar high, outperforming in both PV & CV segment, while Royal Enfield (Eicher motors) lead the growth charge in the 2W domain. M&M continues to decisively dominate the tractor segment....

Q2 FY26 7.0 per cent (up from 6.7 per cent) Q3 FY26 6.4 per cent (down from 6.6 per cent) Q4 FY26 6.2 per cent (moderately down from 6.3 per cent)...