COVID-19 vaccine optimism has boosted travel stocks. IRCTC shares rose 11% to ₹1530.50, InterGlobe today surged 5% to ₹1732 while SpiceJet jumped 9% to ₹88.25.
IRCTC shares received a comeback from its March lows of ₹774 though shares are still off 52-week highs of ₹1,995, hit earlier in February.
IRCTC is one of the top picks of Ventura Securities, which has a target price of ₹2,000 on the stock.
“IRCTC enjoys a competitive edge in its pricing of packaged drinking water and its e-catering services enjoy strong growth prospects given that customer preferences are shifting towards food aggregators and cloud kitchen services. The recent encouraging announcement of a breakthrough in the production of a COVID-19 vaccine raises hopes that normalcy should return sooner than later. While the FY21 performance will be impacted, we expect a strong pick-up in FY22/23,” the brokerage said.
The railways had last month suspended the operations of its corporate trains run by the IRCTC from Lucknow to Delhi and Ahmedabad to Mumbai.
IRCTC is a public sector undertaking (PSU) of the Ministry of Railways and is the only entity authorized by the Indian Railways to provide catering services to railways, online railway tickets and packaged drinking water at railway stations and trains in India.
