ET NEWS

After a relatively quiet stretch in the primary market, activity is set to pick up next week with two IPOs opening for subscription and three companies scheduled to debut on the bourses, including Fractal Analytics and Aye Finance.The key mainboard issue to watch will be Gaudium IVF & Women Health, which will open for subscription on February 20 and close on February 24. The company is expected to list on BSE and NSE on February 27, with allotment likely to be finalised on February 25.Ahead of the debut, the company has no GMP yet in the grey market. Gaudium IVF is offering 2.09 crore shares through a combination of fresh issue of 1.14 crore shares and an offer for sale of 0.95 crore shares.The price band is yet to be announced. The net issue will allocate not more than 50% to qualified institutional buyers, not less than 35% to retail investors and not less than 15% to non-institutional investors.Incorporated in 2015, Gaudium IVF operates in the assisted reproductive technology space, offering IVF, ICSI, IUI and related fertility treatments. The company follows a hub-and-spoke model and operates over 30 locations, including seven hubs across Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Patna and other cities. It has also been serving international patients.Financially, Gaudium has shown steady growth. For FY25, it reported total income of Rs 70.96 crore and profit after tax of Rs 19.13 crore. For the six months ended September 2025, it posted total income of Rs 49.75 crore and PAT of Rs 12.51 crore.SME segmentAlongside Gaudium, Fractal Industries will open its SME issue from February 16 to February 18 in the price band of Rs 205 to Rs 216 per share. The company is expected to list on the BSE SME platform.Three listing scheduled next weekOn the listings front, three companies are set to debut next week. Fractal Analytics, which closed its IPO with an overall subscription of just over 2 times, will list on February 16 on BSE and NSE. The issue saw stronger interest from QIBs at over 4 times, while retail and NII portions were subscribed just over 1 time each. Aye Finance is also scheduled to list next week. The issue sailed through on last day, backed by institutional participation.Fractal and Aye Finance shares are commanding a negative GMP in the grey market, which indicate subdued listing expectations, mainly due to less-than-expected demand during subscription for both the IPOs and overall negative secondary market sentiments.With a mix of a healthcare mainboard issue and SME offerings, the coming week could provide fresh cues on investor appetite in a market that has recently seen muted primary activity despite a large pipeline waiting in the wings.(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of Economic Times)

Mumbai: India's equity gauges slid 1.3% Friday on a sharp IT selloff spawned by recurring concerns of AI-led disruptions to the US economy and the fastest pace of job losses stateside since the subprime crisis. The broader market, where valuations had run up lately, came off as well on profit booking. The NSE Nifty fell 336.10 points to 25,471.10, while the BSE Sensex dropped 1,048.16 points to end at 82,626.76. Both indices ended the week with losses of up to 1.1%. The Nifty IT index, which tumbled as much as 5.2% during Friday's session, ended 1.4% lower, taking its weekly decline to more than 8% - the highest losses in 10 months for a 7-day period. The selloff wiped out ₹4.69 lakh crore in market value from the IT pack during the week. "The weakness in the US markets due to the sharp declines in IT stocks cascaded to other sectors such as metals, as investors rushed to book profits from overheated stocks," said Ajit Mishra, SVP Research, Religare Broking. Nifty Metal index fell 3.3%, while the Realty index shed 2.2%. 128331533 Foreign Portfolio Investors Net Sellers Among precious metals, gold rose 0.9% and silver jumped 3.3% on Friday. Foreign portfolio investors (FPI) net sold Rs 7,395 crore, while domestic institutions bought Rs 5,554 crore. In February so far, global investors have purchased equities worth Rs 10,734 crore, after selling more than Rs 34,000 crore in January. On Thursday, the Nasdaq Composite fell 2%, pressured by similar worries over AI disruptions. In Asia on Friday, Hong Kong dropped 1.7%. China and Japan shed 1.3% and 1.2%, respectively, while South Korea closed 0.3% lower. Taiwan, however, gained 1.6%. At home, the broader market took a beating with the Nifty Mid-cap 150 and Small-cap 250 indices slipping around 1.6% each. Of the 4,364 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,253 advanced while 2,960 declined. For the week, mid-caps declined 0.2% and small-caps rose 0.8%. Among IT stocks, Coforge slid 4.4%, while Wipro, TCS and Oracle Financial Services Software dropped nearly 2% each. LTI Mindtree and HCL Technologies fell 1.7% and 1.2%, respectively. Cautious Optimism "The deep cuts in IT stocks were largely sentiment-driven since the valuations are attractive," said Sonam Srivastava, founder and CEO, Wright Research. "The sharp fall offers a buying opportunity but not so much in the large cap space as the growth outlook is not very strong in those names." Major clients of TCS and Infosys are not expected to switch to AI immediately, but competitive intensity is likely to increase, she said. Religare's Mishra said global cues remain unfavourable and sentiment has shifted sharply in the past two sessions due to the IT selloff. "If the US IT stocks witness a further fall, then it could rub off on Indian IT companies as well," he said. Fund managers said concerns in IT stemmed from a significant reduction in implementation timelines and large-scale productivity gains that could affect IT services revenue. AI adoption at the global enterprise level remains nascent; as adoption rises, IT services use cases will improve, said Christy Mathai, Fund Manager, Quantum Mutual Fund. "The valuations in IT stocks are below long-term averages and currently bakes in subdued growth," said Mathai. "While there is valuation comfort in some of these stocks, investor sentiment continues to be weak."

Valero Energy is set to buy up to 6.5 million barrels of Venezuelan crude in March bound for its Gulf Coast refineries, making it the top foreign refiner of the OPEC country's oil since the United States captured President Nicolas Maduro in January, sources said on Friday. Valero was among the first U.S. refiners to resume imports of Venezuelan crude after the United States struck a flagship $2 billion oil supply deal with the country's interim government and ‌began to ease sanctions. ⁠If Valero ⁠succeeds in snapping up 10 or more cargoes next month, equivalent to around 210,000 barrels per day, it could surpass U.S. oil major Chevron as the top U.S. refiner of Venezuelan crude. That would also be the most Venezuelan crude oil Valero would process since the United States first sanctioned the country's oil industry in January 2019. Chevron, the only U.S. major producing oil in Venezuela, is expected to boost exports of Venezuelan crude to some 300,000 bpd in March, from 220,000 bpd in January, sources told Reuters last month. Chevron typically refines up to half of those exports at its own refineries, and sells the rest to other U.S. refiners. A large portion of Chevron's sales of Venezuelan oil to U.S. refiners typically goes to Valero. In March, Chevron is expected to supply ⁠Valero with ‌most of the volume the refiner is planning to import, six sources said. Valero has also negotiated some cargoes from trading houses including Trafigura, which were the first companies authorized by the U.S. government last month to join Chevron in trading Venezuelan oil. Vitol has separately scheduled ⁠three naphtha cargoes to be delivered to Venezuela's state company PDVSA between February 22 and March 3, according to a shipping plan seen by Reuters. The sources cautioned that loading schedules have not been finalized and are still subject to revision. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential information. Vitol and Trafigura declined to comment. Chevron and PDVSA did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A Valero spokesperson referred to comments made by executive Randy Hawkins after its fourth-quarter earnings release on January 29. In those comments, Hawkins confirmed Valero was in talks with authorized sellers of Venezuelan crude and expected it to make up a "pretty large part" of its heavy-crude purchases in February and March. Valero, which has the second-largest U.S. refining network capable of processing Venezuelan heavy oil, had a long-term supply agreement to buy crude from ‌PDVSA before U.S. sanctions. Valero's total refining capacity for Venezuelan crude oil was around 240,000 bpd before an expansion at its 435,000-bpd refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, in 2023. The company now expects to be able to process a much larger volume of Venezuelan oil, Hawkins said. VENEZUELA EXPORTS RAMP UP Venezuela's oil production and exports ⁠are expected to have a "dramatic increase" in the coming months, U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said in Caracas this week. The country's output reached 1 million bpd this month after production cuts were reversed, while exports bounced to some 800,000 bpd in January. Oil sales from Venezuela under U.S. control have totaled $1 billion since Maduro's capture and another $5 billion is expected to go into a U.S.-controlled fund in the next months, Wright told NBC News on Thursday. The United States has been issuing general licenses since January authorizing oil exports, fuel supplies to Venezuela, provision of equipment for oil and gas production, oilfield expansions and new investments. Valero has been considering buying oil directly from PDVSA under the new authorizations, which could help expand volumes further, according to three sources. PDVSA, however, is so far refusing to sell to companies without individual U.S. licenses as questions remain on what is permitted and what is off-limits, sources told Reuters.