What did I read this week
1. On April 20, the President of USA signed the Presidential Determination 2026-10, a Defense Production Act (DPA) Section 303 determination for grid infrastructure, equipment, and supply-chain capacity.
Thereby, officially classifying conductors, transmission lines, transformers, substations, high voltage lines & capacitors & CRGO core used in transformers as items which are essential to national defence. The current waiting for distribution transformers in USA has gone to 13 months vs the historical average of 3 months & for power transformers the lead time is 42 months vs the historical average of 15 months.
This trend is visible financially in order book of GE Vernova, Eaton, Bloom energy & the GRID ETF. For EATON the order book increased by 16% YOY in Q4 results. Primarily driven by Data centre and demand for other electrical goods. For GE Vernova the Quarterly order book increased by 71% YOY, & back logs for GAS turbines has gone to 100 GW.
2. India's power demand hit a record high of 256.1 GW on April 25, 2026, driven by intense early summer heatwaves and economic growth. This peak demand surpassed the 250 GW record from May 2024, with expectations to reach 270 GW+ soon. The grid successfully met this surge using increased coal-fired generation and solar energy. Increased cooling needs (air conditioners) during April-June are the primary drivers for surging power usage.
3. Something which I do on every weekend is to check the list of industries which are strongly outperforming the benchmarks and displaying relative strength from here:- https://t.co/yB6hlt5Woh
The two industries apart from power sector that caught my attention were the Metals and mining space & the capital markets. For case study I will cover one business from each sector briefly-
A) Post Vedanta's demerger. The Aluminium business & Power business will be worth tracking. The Aluminium business will have higher captive consumption of Bauxite going forward from FY27 which can increase their ebitda margins. In the power business this year they have commissioned around 1.6 gigawatt of capacity at Athena, Meenakshi. So, total capacity as of now up and running is 4.2 gigawatt. This is expected to go to around 4.8 gigawatt by end of H1 of the next year. Long term plan in place is to put additional 10 to 12 gigawatts of power capacity.
B) Nippon India Asset management: Nippon is a market leader in ETFs with 21.4%+ market share and many ETFs like Gold bees, Nifty Bees, Silverbees etc have the highest trading volumes. ETFs funnily is a business with network effects. More volume=more investors=More liquidity=lower impact cost=better reflection of underlying assets value=more investors=lesser impact cost=more liquidity. Passives as a category is growing at 30%+ since last 5 years in India. Worth studying.
4. Eli Lilly posted a big beat-and-raise in Q1’26, with 56% revenue growth and EPS up >150% driven mainly by explosive GLP‑1 demand in diabetes/obesity. Growth was volume-led despite pricing pressure, and management raised full-year revenue and EPS guidance, underscoring confidence in multi‑year GLP‑1 upside. An oral GLP‑1 (Foundayo) approval plus strong retatrutide and other late‑stage data deepen the pipeline, but investors should still watch U.S. pricing/regulatory risk and Lilly’s ability to keep scaling manufacturing to meet unprecedented demand.
Dr. Reddy’s just secured Health Canada’s first-ever approval for a generic Ozempic (semaglutide) injection, opening a key G7 beachhead for its global GLP‑1 strategy with a May launch window and aggressive pricing expected. Behind the scenes, OneSource Specialty Pharma is the CDMO workhorse scaling and manufacturing the formulation from its US‑FDA approved Bengaluru facility, while Shaily Engineering supplies the high‑volume GLP‑1 injector pens that will carry not just Dr. Reddy’s semaglutide, but potentially multiple global GLP‑1 generics over the next few years.
5. AUTO continues to fire:
Auto Volumes Apr’26:
▪️ PVs:Domestic Industry volumes grew ~20% YoY led by Maruti (+32%) and Tata Motors (+31%). Maruti witnessed broad-based strength across UVs, compact and mini segments. Hyundai (+17%) and M&M (+8%) reported relatively moderate growth, while Toyota continued to outperform (+21%).
▪️ CVs: Domestic CV volumes (ex-AL) remained healthy (+16% YoY) supported by infra-led freight movement. Tata Motors outperformed significantly (+28%) driven by strong SCV/pickup demand (~40% growth). VECV and M&M LCV grew 9% and 7%, respectively.
▪️ 2Ws: Domestic 2W volumes (ex-Bajaj) grew ~30% YoY led by Hero MotoCorp (+85%) and Royal Enfield (+37%). TVS grew 8% with strong EV traction (+36%), though motorcycle volumes remained impacted by supply constraints. Exports grew 19% YoY but remained mixed across OEMs.
6. CDMOs like Navin & Acutaas had a strong finish to the financial year 26. Both of their CDMO business growth is led by Darolutamide & launches of new CDMO molecules.
For Navin, the CDMO business crossed 541 crore of revenues and they are guiding for $100 Million in FY27.
For Acutaas they maintain their guidance of 1000 crore CDMO revenue for FY28, and encouragingly the Semiconductor chemical business reported solid margins and growth after multiple Quarters of destocking. They are doing a capex of nearly 200 crores for setting up the Semiconductor chemicals plant in South Korea.
7. The capital markets index is a rising part of the NSE 500 index and its share in the NSE 500 has grown from a mere 0.1% 10 years ago to 0.84% 5 years ago, and now stands at over 2.5%. The number of companies in the capital market segment increased from just 3 companies 10 years ago, to 10 companies 5 years ago, and now stands at 18 companies as per MOSL's concall.
There are tonnes of more learnings and I will keep sharing them as the results season has just started. Do let me know in the comments section if you loved these learnings and will like for us to continue this series :)
(1/n) A thread on Kirloskar Ferrous Industries Ltd.
Founded in 1991, #Kirloskar Ferrous Industries Ltd. (KFIL) is in the business of Pig Iron and Grey Iron casting industry, serving infrastructure & construction, automotive, agriculture, manufacturing, textiles & steel sectors.
10 Vital Things To Check Before Investing In Any Business Or Stock
Here’s a practical checklist to level up your stock selection process-
1) Past Revenue Growth
Check revenue growth over the last 3–5 years. Double-digit CAGR is preferred.
For cyclical companies — study how they perform in upcycles and downcycles. Studying old cycles can give you a clue about how future ones might play out.
2) Competitive Intensity
How many players are there in the industry? The lesser the better. If there are a lot of players, check if everyone makes money or not? Competitive intensity matters a lot. Also check if the business you are studying has something unique like — cost advantage, brand, distribution, etc.
3) Consistency Of Margins
Are the margins volatile or consistent? Check the margins of the last 10 years. If current margins are unusually high, don’t overpay. Margins eventually revert. Buy when they’re expanding — not peaking.
4) Operating Leverage
Look for companies where fixed costs are done & sales are now scaling. Capex cycles and management commentary will help you to spot this. Getting this right can lead to powerful re-ratings.
5) Check The Cash Flows
Is the company able to convert its EBITDA into cash flows? Some companies have epic income statements and profits. However, when you look at their cash flows, everything is stuck in the working capital. This is an important question to ask when looking at stocks.
6) Market Penetration
How much headroom is left to grow? If a product has >90% market penetration, growth might be limited. But companies creating new categories can grow exponentially.
7) Focus On Volume Growth
Revenue = Price × Volume
The best quality of growth is when the number of units sold or volumes sold keeps going up. Double digit volume growth over an extended period of time can lead to big winners in the stock market.
8) B2C > B2B > B2G
Generally B2C valuations are > B2B Valuations > B2G Valuations. Thus, if you see consumption businesses growing at double digits, do not ignore them!
9) Margin Of Safety
Have a Margin Of Safety or be cautious of the valuations you are paying for a stock. You can be right on all the things but one can forget that sometimes accidents happen. At high prices, small mistakes might lead to derating of PE Ratio. A great business bought at the wrong price may prove to be a bad investment.
10) Learn Stage Analysis
Learning Stage Analysis is a blessing for fundamental investors who are good at valuing companies. It will help you to understand where the stock is in its cycle.
Few books which can help you to understand the cycle of a stock from fundamental and technical perspective- 1) Understanding Michael Porter by Joan Magretta, 2) Capital Returns by Edward Chancellor and 3) Secrets For Profiting In Bull and Bear Markets from Stan Weinstein.
Hope this post gave you a rough checklist to evaluate stocks better!
बरारी थाना क्षेत्र में एक व्यक्ति पर गोलीबारी हुई।जिसमें SSP महोदय,भागलपुर के निर्देशन एवं SDPO नगर-1 के नेतृत्व में एक टीम गठित कर त्वरित कार्रवाई करते हुए 6 घंटे के अंदर तीन अभियुक्त 1.सुरज तांती 2.अशोक तांती 3. मिथुन यादव को दो देशी कट्टा व चार कारतूस सहित गिरफ्तार किया गए।