Brokerage note Motilal Oswal has termed the recently concluded earnings season as a "modest quarter." While auto companies did well, the same cannot be said for cyclicals.

Share Market Live

NSE

Lets take you through the quarter gone by with the help of some numbers:

For the Nifty 50 itself, earnings growth in the quarter stood at around 11 percent, below Motilal Oswal's expectations of 14 percent. On a nine-months period though, earnings growth has been strong, in the mid-teens compared to the same period last year.

Overall profitability moderated during the quarter as the growth in financials and autos was offset by the underperforming metal names and a broad-based slowdown in consumption - whether it be staples or discretionary, both were bit of a pain point.

As mentioned earlier, the banking and financial services (BFSI) space did very well during the quarter with most banks reporting profits that were at a multi-year high. However, ex-BFSI, there was a larger-than-expected decline of nearly 14 percent compared to Motilal Oswal's estimate of just 3 percent decline. That clearly hurt.

What does this do to the Nifty EPS?

For the current financial year, Motilal Oswal scaled the Earnings per Share estimate for the Nifty 50 back by one percent to Rs 812 from Rs 820 earlier.

However, they are keeping their next financial year targets intact, which would mean a taller ask as there would need to be higher growth for achieving the same. The EPS estimates for the next financial year are Rs 993 for the Nifty 50.

A tall ask as the base will also be higher, but it remains to be seen how this one unfolds going forward.