Morgan Stanley revises ratings and price targets of these three FMCG stocks; Details here

Shares of consumer stocks Marico Ltd., Godrej Consumer Products Ltd. and Nestle India Ltd. were trading lower on Wednesday, March 4, as brokerage firm Morgan Stanley revised its ratings and price targets on the stocks.

Morgan Stanley has upgraded Marico to "overweight" and raised its price target on the stock to ₹934 from ₹788 apiece. This implies an upside potential of 19% from its previous closing price.

It has also upgraded Nestle India to "equal-weight" from the earlier rating of "underweight", and raised its price target to ₹1,370 from ₹1,010 apiece, implying an upside of 7% from its previous close.

On the other hand, it has downgraded its rating on Godrej Consumer Products to "equal-weight" and has cut its price target to ₹1,159 from ₹1,315 apiece previously, implying 1.4% downside from its previous close.

Morgan Stanley said it prefers companies that are building idiosyncratic growth vectors, while balancing profitability.

An improving business mix drove Marico's rating upgrade, while risks to near-term consensus expectations led to Godrej Consumer Products getting a downgrade.

44 analysts have coverage on Marico, of which 37 have a "buy" rating, four say "hold", while three have a "sell" rating.

38 analysts have coverage on GCPL, with only "one" sell recommendation. 31 others have a "buy" rating, while the rest say "hold."

Nestle India is tracked by 40 analysts, of which only 13 have a "buy" rating, 10 have a "sell' rating, and 17 others have a "hold."

Shares of Marico, Nestle India and Godrej Consumer Products were trading 0.6%, 2.5% and 4.3% lower, respectively around 12.10 pm.

Meanwhile, the Nifty FMCG index was down 1.5%. Barring United Breweries, which was up 0.5%, the remaining 14 stocks in the index were trading 1% to 4.3% lower.

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