Welspun Corp announced a $1.8bn (~₹17,200cr) contract to supply pipes from its US manufacturing facility, its largest single order ever, taking the total order book to a record $4.4bn. Shares surged 12-17% intraday to a fresh 52-week high, and the win cuts directly against the pending WELCORP BUY->QUALITY-WAIT downgrade review inside an otherwise AVOID-rated METAL sector.
| Index | Close | Points | Change | P/E | P/B |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nifty 50 | 24,252.00 | ▲ +20.15 | ▲ +0.08% | 20.50 | 2.94 |
| Nifty Next 50 | 73,992.10 | ▼ -202.05 | ▼ -0.27% | 19.56 | 3.32 |
| Nifty 500 | 23,530.30 | ▲ +17.35 | ▲ +0.07% | 22.86 | 3.29 |
| Nifty Bank | 57,761.95 | ▲ +266.05 | ▲ +0.46% | 13.67 | 1.73 |
| NIFTY Midcap 100 | 63,735.75 | ▲ +64.20 | ▲ +0.10% | 30.72 | 4.44 |
Source: NSE ind_close_all_20260821
(levels, index P/E and P/B) and the full-market bhavcopy (breadth).
This session's index move, next to the desk's standing stance. The stance is a valuation-and-quality reading over years — it does not move because an index had a good day.
| Sector | Index | Session | Idx P/E | Stance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Metals & Mining Nifty Metal · 3 researched | 13,172.60 | ▲ +0.86% | 16.0 | WATCH |
| Banks Nifty Bank · 7 researched | 57,761.95 | ▲ +0.46% | 13.7 | AVOID |
| Realty Nifty Realty · 2 researched | 911.60 | ▲ +0.40% | 38.7 | WATCH |
| Energy & Power Nifty Energy · 1 researched | 38,252.20 | ▲ +0.26% | 14.8 | ACCUMULATE |
| Financial Services Nifty Financial Services · 1 researched | 26,261.00 | ▲ +0.22% | 16.1 | WATCH |
| Pharmaceuticals Nifty Pharma · 7 researched | 26,359.75 | ▼ -0.21% | 40.8 | AVOID |
| Healthcare & Hospitals Nifty Healthcare Index · 8 researched | 16,423.90 | ▼ -0.25% | 43.0 | AVOID |
| Information Technology Nifty IT · 4 researched | 30,532.25 | ▼ -0.46% | 19.5 | ACCUMULATE |
| Hospitality & Tourism Nifty India Tourism · 2 researched | 8,007.90 | ▼ -0.53% | 90.3 | WATCH |
| Automobiles Nifty Auto · 5 researched | 29,124.60 | ▼ -0.60% | 33.8 | AVOID |
| FMCG Nifty FMCG · 3 researched | 47,510.95 | ▼ -0.74% | 33.0 | ACCUMULATE |
Index P/E from NSE's official daily index file.
Largest moves among the 1992 tracked names this session, against the 2026-08-20 close.
| Company | Call | Prev | Close | Move |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Virat Industries Ltd VIRAT | AVOID | ₹334.75 | ₹401.70 | ▲ +20.00% |
| Quadrant Future Tek Ltd QUADFUTURE | AVOID | ₹337.80 | ₹405.35 | ▲ +20.00% |
| Shanthi Gears Ltd SHANTIGEAR | HOLD | ₹386.90 | ₹464.25 | ▲ +19.99% |
| Nandan Denim Ltd NDL | AVOID | ₹2.26 | ₹2.71 | ▲ +19.91% |
| Allcargo Logistics Ltd ALLCARGO | AVOID | ₹10.51 | ₹12.17 | ▲ +15.79% |
| Shah Metacorp Ltd SHAH | AVOID | ₹3.95 | ₹3.33 | ▼ -15.70% |
| Kwality Pharmaceuticals Ltd KPL | HOLD | ₹3,630.30 | ₹3,361.10 | ▼ -7.42% |
| Himadri Speciality Chemical Ltd HSCL | HOLD | ₹704.20 | ₹654.40 | ▼ -7.07% |
| KSE Ltd KSE | HOLD | ₹196.80 | ₹183.84 | ▼ -6.59% |
| Elitecon International Ltd ELITECON | HOLD | ₹16.79 | ₹15.70 | ▼ -6.49% |
Set aside as undetermined: GOODLUCK (▼ -65.90%). A move this large over one session is usually a bonus, split or demerger rather than a price change, and a close-only series cannot tell the two apart — so it is neither listed as a mover nor quietly dropped.
A change to anything but AVOID publishes only after two consecutive sessions say the same thing; AVOID publishes at once.
and 96 more.
and 14 more.
DLF's Q1 FY27 booking value fell 94% YoY to ~₹657cr, which management attributes to delayed launches (Gurugram, Mumbai, Goa) rather than weaker demand, and the company reiterated its ₹20,000cr FY27 pre-sales guidance. Net profit still rose 4% YoY to ₹794cr. This restates, rather than adds new evidence to, the open question of whether the guidance holds once those launches actually land.
USD/INR traded around 95.7 on Aug 21 with the rupee under pressure from a second straight weekly gain in crude (~5%) amid the US-Iran standoff over the Strait of Hormuz. The RBI has flagged the oil move as an inflation risk, and Indian equities opened lower on the combination of rising crude and global bond yields.
Jana Small Finance Bank's Q3 FY26 profit fell 90.6% YoY as its JLG microfinance book showed a 16.6% bad-loan ratio; Suryoday's JLG book has also kept contracting, with roughly a quarter of it turned bad. Both directly feed pending call reviews rather than reflect an isolated one-off.
Infosys trimmed its FY27 constant-currency revenue guidance to 1.5-3.0% (from 1.5-3.5%) at its Q1 results, and HCLTech's 1-4% FY27 guidance (set at its FY26 results) has seen no upward revision since. Both continue the pattern already on record: strong order books across large-cap IT, but no guidance raises this season.
Shanthi Gears shares rose as much as 17% after Tube Investments of India bought a 20.6 lakh-share block, lifting its holding in the gearbox maker to 73.16%. It was one of ten OTHER-sector names in today's top-mover dispersion; no company-specific driver was found for the other nine.
Entry score is 40% cheap-vs-history + 25% quality trend + 20% news catalyst + 15% technicals, for the 1 sector with a researched catalyst. The other 11 show —: no catalyst was researched for them, so their score renormalises over the remaining three inputs rather than assuming a neutral headline. ≥62 accumulate · 45–61 watch · <45 avoid.
| Sector | Stance | Entry | Cheap | Quality | Tech | News | Index | Idx P/E | B/W/H/A |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Information Technology 10 scanned · 4 researched | ACCUMULATE | 68.1 | 61.0 | 93.2 | 45.3 | — | ▼ -0.46% | 19.5 | 2/4/4/0 |
| Banks 40 scanned · 7 researched | AVOID | 38.4 | 20.1 | 52.3 | 64.0 | — | ▲ +0.46% | 13.7 | 10/1/24/5 |
| Pharmaceuticals 20 scanned · 7 researched | AVOID | 39.9 | 7.9 | 75.2 | 66.7 | — | ▼ -0.21% | 40.8 | 1/9/9/1 |
| Automobiles 15 scanned · 5 researched | AVOID | 39.5 | 7.0 | 76.0 | 65.4 | — | ▼ -0.60% | 33.8 | 2/6/5/2 |
| FMCG 15 scanned · 3 researched | ACCUMULATE | 84.7 | 94.3 | 94.7 | 42.2 | — | ▼ -0.74% | 33.0 | 1/7/7/0 |
| Metals & Mining 15 scanned · 3 researched | WATCH | 45.6 | 12.9 | 77.1 | 73.4 | +0 | ▲ +0.86% | 16.0 | 4/3/6/2 |
| Realty 10 scanned · 2 researched | WATCH | 52.5 | 39.1 | 60.4 | 75.2 | — | ▲ +0.40% | 38.7 | 1/2/3/4 |
| Energy & Power 40 scanned · 1 researched | ACCUMULATE | 62.5 | 60.0 | 69.2 | 57.7 | — | ▲ +0.26% | 14.8 | 7/4/15/14 |
| Financial Services 94 scanned · 5 ranked elsewhere · 1 researched | WATCH | 47.8 | 58.9 | 23.1 | 59.1 | — | ▲ +0.22% | 16.1 | 9/1/63/21 |
| Healthcare & Hospitals 20 scanned · 16 ranked elsewhere · 8 researched | AVOID | 43.3 | 13.4 | 77.9 | 65.3 | — | ▼ -0.25% | 43.0 | 1/7/11/1 |
| Hospitality & Tourism 15 scanned · 2 researched | WATCH | 60.2 | 52.7 | 71.3 | 61.6 | — | ▼ -0.53% | 90.3 | 4/4/3/4 |
| Diversified & Other 2000 scanned · 273 ranked elsewhere · 37 researched | WATCH | 55.4 | 50.0 | 62.2 | 58.6 | — | — | — | 274/237/881/608 |
Source: data/verdicts.json × NSE sector index closes.
| Metric | Why it is in the framework | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Return on capital, level and trend | Durable high ROCE predicts future returns; the trend separates a moat from a good year | Novy-Marx 2013 JFE |
| Gross profitability (GP/assets) | As predictive as book-to-market, and less prone to the value trap | Novy-Marx 2013 JFE |
| Piotroski F-score | A nine-signal accounting checklist that separates real improvers from statistically cheap traps | Piotroski 2000 JAR |
| Cash-flow-to-net-profit | Accrual-heavy profit reverts; cash-backed profit persists | Sloan 1996 TAR |
| P/E versus the stock's own history | Cheap relative to itself, not to a peer set that may be expensive as a whole | Basu 1977 JF |
| Book-to-market | The value premium, in its original form | Fama–French 1992 JF |
| EV/EBITDA | Capital-structure-neutral, so it compares a leveraged firm to an unleveraged one | Practitioner standard |
| Altman Z and interest coverage | Distressed firms have delivered lower, not higher, returns — screen them out rather than chase them | Altman 1968 JF; Campbell/Hilscher/Szilagyi 2008 JF |
| 52-week-high proximity, 200-DMA | Nearness to the high has predicted continuation — but momentum crashes, so never alone | George & Hwang 2004 JF; Daniel & Moskowitz 2016 JFE |
| Promoter pledge | Pledged promoter holding is a governance red flag ahead of a forced sale | Not currently available from either source — no penalty is applied |
Full derivation in METHODOLOGY.md.