Bharat Forge forges ahead
Bharat Forge is the top gainer on the BSE currently, up 11.5% at Rs.221, with an intra day high at Rs.223.20. On 6th Aug’13, the stock had hit a new 52-week low at Rs.185.55. Volumes are very robust at almost 1.7 lakh shares changing hands today morning compared to 20,000 shares over past two weeks average.
The stock has zoomed up after it posted a set of numbers for Q1FY14 much ahead of all estimates. Sequentially, total revenue has risen 17% at Rs.791 crore. EBITDA was up 28% at Rs.196 crore and margins came in at 24.8% v/s 22.6% (QoQ). Net profit was up 81% at Rs.906 crore. Though QoQ, the performance has improved, YoY, it has deteriorated with net profit showing a decline of 14%. Thus we can conclude that the base effect, in terms of Q4 was pretty low and that is what has helped the sequential numbers look so good. Also YoY fall shows the extent of turmoil in the sector. The performance was a balance between domestic as well as exports. In fact exports QoQ rose 28% but YoY, it was down 20%.