Above is Sadhana Nitro press release where they claim that they have successfully commissioned PAP plan using Hydrogen based catalytic reduction of nitrobenzene.

I believe Mallinckrodt is the first player to develop this process.

https://www.mallinckrodt.com/products/active-pharmaceutical-ingredients/our-core-four-values/performance/acetaminophen-impurity-comparisons/

Valiant uses a different process known as Bechamp conditions using NCB as starting product (NCB is procured from group company Aarti Industries).

The most important delta is - in Bechamp process - large amount of Fe/FeO sludge is generated which can not be recycled. Whereas in Hydrogen based catalytic reduction, by products are - Aniline Oil and Aluminium Sulphate. Both of these products can be sold.

With this development, if Sadhana can really scale up PAP production, I think scales are significantly tilted in its favour to capture majority market share. The competitive position of Valiant might be weakened, the ROCE profile of PAP capex is reduced and it might become a bad capital allocation in hindsight with this information now.

We need to validate this by asking question to Valiant in concall and also track Sadhna’s progress in commercialising PAP.

Disc - No investments

We have had a strong rally from the lows of June 22 at around 15200. Currently we are at near 17400 and the nifty has rallied close to 2200 points in a matter of 2 months. All throughout this rally there has been absolute disbelief about the sustenance of this rally and various people have called levels of 16800, 17100 etc as potential resistances, but markets seem to have a mind of their own. We seem to be in an expanding triangular structure in nifty and the overhead resistance could be possible at around 17700-800, a level I would watch out for any signs of exhaustion of this rally. The aforesaid expanding triangle is marked on the attached nifty chart.

I have always tried to refrain from predicting the market movements in advance because the one thing I have observed is that its difficult to get these predictions right all the time. I might draw a few simple trendlines and try to see how markets behave at crucial points which I see on these simple charts. But its better and more rewarding to focus on companies which enjoy strong tailwinds and strong charts , or where markets give a thumbs up to even weak results, indicating good times to come ahead.

Some of the sectors which seem to be showing strong charts till now have been defence, autos, capital goods, power and energy, capex themes, etc. One sector where I see market giving thumbs up to what are comparatively weak quarterly numbers is the FMCG sector. But here, with prices of input materials like palm oils, dasda, other edible oils, materials used for soaps, shampoos etc cooling off, there is promise of better times to come. I would not like to take specific names, but as a sector one can do some more detailed work and try to find anything interesting. Or try to find ancillary play to these names.

Individual companies in the portfolio like Fluorochem, Usha Martin, HBL power, and some trading bets in auto anc space, auto space, hotel space etc have been showing strength/resilience. There are many other stocks and sectors which seem to be on the verge of completing their long corrections. I will post any sectoral stocks once I see clear actionable patterns.

Buddy balkrishna market cap is 33x that of pix in terms of mktcap. Its the market leader in India. Is pix the market leader in India?

Lemontree is a play on the hotel sector. In q1 fy 23, it reported a profitable quarter at net level after many quarters of losses. Its stock price today crossed its perennial resistance of 70-72 and closed above that level, in the process posting a fresh 3 year high. Note the cup and handle breakout above 60 first, with handle formation between Nov 21 and March 22 and subsequent tight consolidation between the range of 60-72 for nearly 5 months and then this breakout today. Previous all time high is around 90.

disc: trading positions since a long time, and has been a frustrating wait.