Bharat Forge shares in focus after company strikes defence procurement deal with government

Shares of Bharat Forge are expected to be in focus on Thursday following its contract with the Ministry of Defence for the procurement of 155mm/52 Calibre Advanced Towed Artillery Gun Systems (ATAGS) and High Mobility Vehicle 6×6 Gun Towing Vehicles respectively. The total contract is worth Rs 6,900 crore and Tata Advanced System is another company which is part of the agreement.

The government has so far signed contracts worth Rs 1.40 lakh crore in the current financial year 2024-25, a defence ministry release said.

Shares of Bharat Forge today ended at Rs 1,183 on the NSE, down by Rs 3.25 or 0.27% amid weak market sentiments. The Nifty India Defence index gave up its morning gains to end with 0.5% gains. The 16-stock index had 12 losers with just four gainers at the closing time. The top performer was Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) with 3% uptick while the worst in the lot was MTAR Technologies which fell 3.5%.

Bharat Forge has been in stellar form gaining over 13% in the past one month versus nearly 4% returns by the Nifty and BSE Sensex.

However, its performance in the last six months has been lackluster witnessing a 26% fall versus 10% fall in Nifty and 9% in the Sensex.

The correction has seen it slip below its 200-day simple moving average (SMA) of Rs 1,407 while it is still trading above its 50-day SMA of Rs 1,129.The stock has also been quite volatile with a 1-year beta of 1.3, according to Trendlyne data.The company’s consolidated net profit for the December 2024 ended quarter stood at Rs 213 Cr which was a decline of 19.6% over the corresponding quarter of the previous financial year. Meanwhile, the revenue in the reported quarter stood at Rs 3,514 crore, which was a 10.4% fall over the year ago period.

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