Positive Market Sentiments Lift New-Age Tech Stocks This Week, EaseMyTrip Biggest Gainer

Bouncing back from last week’s slump, most new-age tech stocks rose this week, in line with the recovery in the overall Indian equity market.

Nine out of 14 new-age tech stocks under Inc42’s coverage, including Nykaa. PB Fintech, Paytm, and Tracxn, rose between 0.3% to 6% this week, with traveltech major EaseMyTrip emerging as the biggest winner.

Shares of EaseMyTrip jumped 5.6%, ending Friday’s session at INR 49.84 on the BSE.

However, shares of Nazara, Zomato, Delhivery, CarTrade Tech, and DroneAcharya fell this week. With a decline of 6.8%, drone startup DroneAcharya was the biggest loser this week.

The broader equity market showed signs of recovery on Friday on expectations of no further interest rate hike by the US Fed. Benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty50 rose 1.53% to 59,808.97 and 1.57% to 17,594.35, respectively, compared to Thursday’s close.

Overall, Sensex and Nifty50 rose 0.58% and 0.74% this week, respectively.

“Indian markets reacted to strong positive undercurrent across the global equities that triggered a massive bout of short covering in key sectors. Markets were in a fall season and hence the valuations had become attractive prompting traders to shrug off the weak sentiment,” said Amol Athawale, deputy vice president, technical research at Kotak Securities.

Siddhartha Khemka, head of retail research at Motilal Oswal said that the Indian equities have welcomed the dovish commentary from one of the US Fed officials, along with robust domestic services Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) data.

“While domestic macro data continues to remain strong, global uncertainty regarding the next US Fed action has kept the markets volatile,” he added.

Now, let’s take a deeper look at the performance of some of the new-age tech stocks this week.

The 14 new-age tech stocks under our coverage ended the week with a total market capitalisation of $27.41 Bn as against $26.55 Bn last week. 

SoftBank’s Stake Sale At Delhivery 

SoftBank’s offloading of 2.8 Cr shares of Delhivery, worth INR 954.2 Cr, via multiple block deals hit the upward momentum of the logistics unicorn this week.

SoftBank, which held a total stake of 18.42% in Delhivery via its investment arm SVF Doorbell (Cayman) Ltd, sold a 2.84% stake in the company. The Japanese VC major, which is struggling with increasing losses and is trying to exit several Indian startups from its portfolio, grabbed the opportunity provided by the rise in Delhivery shares over the last one month. The logistics unicorn’s shares have risen over 13% in the last month.

Delhivery shares fell almost 3% this week, ending Friday’s session at INR 341.7, marginally higher from Thursday’s close.

The shares sold by SoftBank were bought by institutional investors, including Societe Generale, Fidelity Funds, BNP Paribas Arbitrage, Baillie Gifford Emerging Markets Equities Fund, and Invesco. 

“After a long correction, the stock has bounced back and now it is consolidating,” Kotak Securities’ Athawale said about Delhivery.

He sees INR 360 as the immediate resistance for the stock, while INR 325 or 20 days simple moving average is its support. “In the near future, non-directional activity is likely to continue,” he added.

Possibilities Of Further Stake Sale At Paytm?

Paytm has been one of the most battered tech stocks in 2022 due to global macroeconomic volatility and business-specific reasons. It has also seen several of its pre-IPO investors including SoftBank and Alibaba sell stakes in bulk deals earlier.

Reports emerged earlier this week that Alibaba-backed Ant Group and SoftBank are looking to offload further stakes in the fintech giant via secondary share sale and have approached industrialist Sunil Mittal and another Indian conglomerate with an offer to buy the shares. 

Following the reports, Paytm’s shares slipped a bit but stabilised later. The fintech giant said it was oblivious to any such developments and was not part of any such negotiations.

Alibaba’s main investment arm Alibaba.Com Singapore E-Commerce Private Limited recently exited Paytm by selling a 3.1% stake for INR 1,377 Cr. On the other hand, in November last year, Softbank sold 4.5% of its stake in the startup.

Paytm shares were up about 0.8% this week, ending Friday’s session at INR 628.05 on the BSE.

Athawale said that Paytm’s short-term trend is non-directional but the stock is forming a higher-bottom formation on the daily and weekly chart, which is largely positive.

“After a strong rally, now the stock is consolidating near 200 simple moving average. The next uptrend rally would be possible if the stock succeeds to trade above that, which is INR 646-INR 650 closing,” he said. The 50 day simple moving average or INR 550 would be its immediate support, beyond which the positional traders might exit from long trades, he added.

DroneAcharya Continues To See Volatility 

DroneAcharya, the newest addition to the list of new-age tech stocks listed on the bourses, has been witnessing significant volatility in the past few weeks. After being the biggest gainer two weeks ago, the drone startup was the biggest loser this week.

DroneAcharya shares fell 6.8% in the week to end Friday’s session at INR 144.45 on the BSE.

Though the company’s shares rallied in two straight sessions to begin the week after it announced signing a Memorandum of Understanding with robotics company Gridbots Technologies for entering the drone manufacturing space, the shares slumped later in the week.

On Friday alone, the shares fell 4.5% compared to Thursday’s close.

However, despite the volatility, DroneAcharya shares are currently trading 41.6% higher than their listing price of INR 102 in December 2022.

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