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Informist, Friday, May. 15, 2026

 

MUMBAI – Cement companies are expected to face higher fuel, logistics, and raw material expenses in the current quarter. Some of them have hiked prices to pass this impact onto customers, but analysts said this might further lower demand, which is already under pressure due to deferred capital expenditure plans and seasonal factors. Hence, investors are likely to prefer large-cap stocks over their peers since the former can afford greater flexibility, while the latter's operating margins may be hit by elevated costs. 

 

UltraTech Cement and Dalmia Bharat have implemented price increases of nearly INR 20 per bag in April and another INR 10 to INR 15 in May. However, analysts said the delta between price increases and the cost of production will impact on the operating profits of companies. An increase in operational costs and a surge in packaging costs is also putting significant pressure on profitability across the sector. According to executives at Nuvoco Vistas Corp., overall cost inflation could rise by nearly INR 200 per tonne, weighing on margins across the industry.

 

Last week, investors had bought these stocks on expectations that price hikes would protect the margins of cement companies. "Companies have not guided for sharp price hikes...their guidance is a little lower than what maybe, let's say, investors were expecting," an analyst at a domestic brokerage said. He added that investors assumed demand would remain high, but with macroeconomic uncertainty, companies are now guiding for a muted June quarter.    

 

In the March quarter, Prism Johnson's consolidated net profit nosedived 95% on year to INR 64.30 million. Revenue from operations for the quarter rose 7.6% to INR 21.1 billion. Sequentially, the net profit fell 89.5%, while revenue rose 20.4%. 

 

TOP HEADLINES

* Prism Johnson Jan-Mar consol PAT falls 95% YoY to INR 64.3 million
* DCM Shriram arm to invest INR 1 billion to raise formulated resins capacity
* DCM Shriram Jan-Mar consol PAT doubles on year to INR 3.7 billion
* Prism Johnson board to mull fund raising via equity, debt on Thursday

 

Following are the resistance and support levels for key cement stocks for next week as per calculations based on their prices on the National Stock Exchange:

 

Company	Price	Week-on-week  change in %	Resistance	Support
ACC LTD	1,362.80	(-)2.10	1,415.10	1,330.30
AMBUJA CEMENTS LTD	433.75	(-)2.40	459.10	418.80
ANDHRA CEMENTS LTD	55.81	(-)3.10	60.70	52.90
GRASIM INDUSTRIES LTD	2,933.80	(-)1.20	2,986.30	2,898.10
JK CEMENT LTD	5,464.00	(-)1.90	5,654.70	5,286.70
JK LAKSHMI CEMENT LTD	653.70	(-)1.60	673.20	642.30
SAGAR CEMENTS LTD	180.87	(-)4.50	186.20	177.90
SHREE CEMENT LTD	24,970.00	(-)1.80	25,566.70	24,606.70
ULTRATECH CEMENT LTD	11,487.00	(-)3.90	11,827.00	11,293.00
INDIA CEMENTS LTD	400.15	(-)2.10	408.10	386.10
Index	Levels
NIFTY 50	23643.50	(-)2.20	23926.70	23468.70
BSE SENSEX	75237.99	(-)2.70	76146.90	74685.00

 

End

 

Reported by Eshitva Prakash

Edited by Avishek Dutta

 

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