By Siddhant Mishra
Shares of Paytm slumped close to 9% in intra-day trade on Thursday, after Alibaba group affiliate Ant Financial sold a 3.1% stake in the parent company One97 Communications.
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In another deal on Thursday, 0.5% of Nykaa’s equity exchanged hands in a large trade. The stock tumbled 4% during the day.
“Alibaba selling shares in Paytm could be good news for shareholders as it reflects that Chinese shareholding is reducing. This would benefit them in FDI, and as the company is already on the path towards profitability, will further allay investor concerns,” said Avinash Gorakshakar, head (research), Profitmart Securities. He added that this was significant as it showed Alibaba could be on the exit move from India, given it has sold shares in its major investments like BigBasket, Zomato, and Paytm. “This is a positive for shareholders, as it clears many regulatory paths.”
In an exchange filing on January 9, Paytm disclosed that it had disbursed Rs 3,665 crore ($443 million) worth of loans in December. Total disbursement for the three months ended December was Rs 9,958 crore, a growth of 357% year-on-year.
It also said in the Q3 update that merchant payment volumes for the quarter stood at ?3.46 trillion ($42 billion), marking a Y-o-Y growth of 38%.
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“The stock has recently given a decent pullback from the low of 440 zone and shown resistance near 583-levels, from where it has witnessed some profit booking to slip to some extent — below the significant 50EMA level of 555. The bias will turn weak once it breaches 530-levels, and one can exit from their long position. Further, a decisive move past 600 on the upper side would improve the trend once again, and we can anticipate a fresh upward move with the next resistance visible near 660 levels,” said Vaishali Parekh, vice president (technical research), Prabhudas Lilladher.