Amazon.com Inc on Thursday reported a slump in profit that it expects will continue through the holiday quarter, as higher wages and spending to attract workers diminish the company's windfall from online shopping.

Shares fell 4% in after-hours trade.

After a year of blockbuster results, the world's largest online retailer is facing a tougher outlook.

Shares of ITC dipped 5 per cent to Rs 225.80 on the BSE in Thursday's intra-day trade after the cigarette-to-hotels major reported a 10.09 per cent increase in consolidated profit after tax (PAT) at Rs 3,765 crore in the September quarter of FY22 (Q2), led by a recovery across segments.

With today's fall, the market price of ITC has declined 15 per cent from its 52-week high level of Rs 265.30, touched on October 10, 2021. The S&P BSE Sensex was down 1.28 per cent at 60,363 points at 01:40 pm.

Samsung Electronics on Thursday reported strong third-quarter earnings on the continued robust performance of its key semiconductor business.

Its net profit rose 31.3 per cent from a year earlier to 12.29 trillion won ($10.5 billion) in the July-September period, the world's largest memory chip and smartphone vendor said in a regulatory filing.

Shares of Torrent Power surged 7 per cent to Rs 535 on the BSE in Thursday's intra-day trade, in an otherwise weak market, after the company reported a robust performance for the quarter ended September 2021 (Q2FY22).

The stock of the electric utilities company was trading close to its record high level of Rs 544.80, touched on October 12, 2021. In comparison, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 0.96 per cent at 60,557 points.

Shares of Larsen & Toubro (L&T) were up 4 per cent at Rs 1,861 on the BSE in Thursday’s intra-day trade after the company posted a healthy operational performance for the quarter ended September 2021 (Q2FY22). The company’s order backlog remains strong at Rs 3.3 trillion. The stock of construction & engineering major had hit a record high of Rs 1,884.90 on October 19, 2021.

L&T said it has bagged orders worth Rs 42,140 crore during Q2FY22, registering a robust growth of 50 per cent compared with the corresponding period of the previous year.

Shares of Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) rallied 15 per cent to Rs 949.65 on the BSE in Thursday's intra-day trade after the scrip turned ex-stock split (sub-division of equity shares) in ratio of 1:5.

The stock of IRCTC had hit a record high of Rs 1,279 (adjusted to stock split) on October 19, 2021. In the past three months, it has zoomed 105 per cent, as against a 16 per cent gain the S&P BSE Sensex.

Shares of IndusInd Bank surged 6.4 per cent to Rs 1,214.90 on the BSE in Thursday’s intra-day trade after the bank posted steady operational performance for the quarter ended September 2021 (Q2FY22), with net interest income (NII) rising by 11.6 per cent year-on-year (YoY) and 2.7 per cent quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) to Rs 3,658 crore on the back of stable margins and sequential pick up in loan growth. Net interest margins (NIMs) for the quarter were stable at 4.07 per cent against 4.06 per cent QoQ.

A surge in Microsoft Corp's shares nearly unseated Apple Inc as the world's most valuable company on Wednesday, a day before the iPhone maker reports its quarterly results.

Fueled by strong quarterly growth in its Azure cloud-computing business, Microsoft's shares jumped 4.2% to end at a record $323.17, elevating the software maker's market capitalization to $2.426 trillion, just short of Apple's $2.461 trillion valuation, according to Refinitiv data.

Facebook Inc has told its employees to preserve all internal documents and communications for legal reasons, as governments and regulators have started inquiries into its operation.

The increased scrutiny comes after former Facebook employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen leaked documents which she said showed the company chose profit over user safety.

Bharti Airtel is estimated to have garnered over Rs 5,200 crore from the first round of payment in its recently-concluded rights issue, as the telco's special committee approved allotment of 39.2 crore equity shares to eligible applicants.

The applicants paid Rs 133.75 per share on application, with the balance sum to be paid in two more additional calls as may be decided by the board, the company said in a regulatory filing.

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