Shares of Just Dial rallied another 14% to Rs 770 on the BSE on Tuesday, extending their post-earnings surge to 36% in just two days after the company reported robust results for the first quarter of FY27. The stock hit the 20% upper circuit in the previous session.

The company’s net profit was Rs 166.2 crore, up 4.1% year-on-year, while revenue rose 9.9% YoY and 6.6% sequentially to Rs 327.5 crore.

The company’s EBITDA stood at Rs 87.4 crore, up 1.1% from a year ago, with EBITDA margin remaining healthy at 26.7%. During the quarter, traffic measured by quarterly unique visitors stood at 192.9 million users. As of June 30, 2026, the company had cash and investments worth Rs 6,022.1 crore on its balance sheet.

Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries, held a 63.84% stake in Just Dial as of March 31, 2026, according to the company’s latest shareholding pattern.

Also read: Just Dial CEO VSS Mani to step down; former Flipkart executive Dinkar Ayilavarapu named successor

Citi, Kotak, ICICI Securities see massive upside

With a target price of Rs 930, the brokerage forecasts another 36% upside from current market levels. Citi raised its revenue estimates for Just Dial by 4% for FY27 and 6% for FY28, driven by faster-than-expected growth supported by salesforce additions and the company’s Q1 performance.

However, Citi said it would wait for sustained investments and greater clarity on the company’s renewed B2B go-to-market strategy before turning more constructive on growth beyond FY27. It also expects near-term investments to increase and has lowered its EBITDA margin estimates to 28% for FY27 and 29% for FY28, from 29% and 31%, respectively. Despite the margin revision, Citi said its EBIT estimates remain largely unchanged.
Analysts at Citi value the stock at an ex-cash P/E of 6x March 2028E earnings, representing a 65% discount to its five-year average P/E of 18x as well as to India’s benchmark index. Citi cautioned that while the company continues to deliver revenue growth, supported by higher paid campaigns and better realisations, a sustained decline in traffic remains a key risk and could eventually weigh on both metrics.Read more:This Ambani-owned stock’s market cap slips below cash balance. Is it a deep value pick?

Kotak on Just Dial

Kotak Institutional Equities reaffirmed its Buy call and a target of Rs 1,110, predicting a massive upside of 62% from current levels. The brokerage raised its FY27-29 revenue estimates by 2-3% to reflect better billings growth, while also increasing its cost assumptions to account for higher employee and advertising expenses. It noted that the company is currently focused on its core business, with minimal emphasis on new initiatives.

Kotak continues to value the stock at 11x June 2028E core P/E, to which it adds the value of cash, to arrive at its fair value of Rs 1,100. It added that any move by the company to return cash to shareholders could act as a key trigger for the stock.

ICICI Securities cuts Just Dial target price

While maintaining its Buy rating on Just Dial, the brokerage slashed its target price to Rs 825 from Rs 968. The brokerage values the stock at 3x one-year forward EV/EBITDA and 12x one-year forward EPS (FY28E).

It said the key downside risks include the lack of clarity on cash distribution in the near term and slower growth in paid campaigns and listings. On the other hand, ICICI Securities believes improved visibility on returning cash to shareholders and stronger-than-expected growth in paid campaign conversions could act as key upside triggers for the stock.

Just Dial is a leading local search platform in India, offering search and discovery services. Just Dial shares are up 5% on a YTD basis. In the last one year, the stock has fallen 19%.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)

The boss of Exacta Group said the peformance reflected the ‘strength of the team’

A Bristol technology company that builds servers has reported “remarkable” turnover for the first half of the financial year. Revenues at Exacta Group stood at £22.2m for the first six months of 2026, almost matching the firm’s entire 2025 revenue.

A further £17.5m is already secured in its H2 order book, the Emersons Green group said, meaning it has either delivered or secured nearly £40m of revenue for 2026, exceeding an original target of £28m.

The business, which is the owner of Exacta Technologies and Blackcore Technologies, has also grown to 84 employees and is now on track to almost double in size year on year.

To support its expansion, Exacta has appointed Jo Kerly as head of operations at Exacta Technologies to oversee day-to-day operations.

David Osmond, chief executive of the Exacta Group, said: “To generate almost the same level of revenue in six months as we achieved across the whole of 2025 is a remarkable achievement for the group.

“This performance reflects the strength of our team, our relationships with customers and the growing demand for high performance infrastructure.

“With a strong order book already secured for H2, we are entering the second half of the year with real confidence.”

Elsewhere, Exacta has recently agreed to a series of sporting partnerships with local clubs. The group has signed a two-year deal to become Bristol City FC Academy’s front-of-shirt sponsor across all age groups, from Under 9s to Under 21s. It was also the sleeve sponsor of the men’s first team for the 2025-26 season.

The firm has also agreed to become front-of-shirt sponsor for the men and women’s first teams at Clevedon Town FC.

“These partnerships reinforce the Exacta Group’s commitment to grassroots sport, youth development and community engagement,” the company said.

The first-half results place Exacta Group on course for its strongest year on record, the business said.

“These financial results, alongside the sporting and charitable partnerships, reflect both the Exacta Group’s international success and pioneering local support for Bristol and the wider community,” the company added.

Kedia Securities, backed by ace investor Vijay Kedia, made a fresh entry into smallcap engineering company Eimco Elecon (India) during the June 2026 quarter, acquiring a 1.45% stake, equivalent to 83,930 shares, according to the latest shareholding data.

At the current market price of Rs 1,755 per share, the value of Kedia Securities’ holding stands at approximately Rs 14.8 crore.

The stock has been on investors’ radar lately, gaining nearly 15% over the past one month. Eimco Elecon currently commands a market capitalisation of around Rs 1,024 crore.

Vijay Kedia’s listed portfolio

While shareholding disclosures for several companies are still awaited, the latest available data shows that Vijay Kedia publicly holds stakes in 23 listed companies, with a combined portfolio value exceeding Rs 1,369.7 crore. Among these, his largest investment by value is in Atul Auto, where his holding is worth around Rs 277 crore.

FII holdings increase

The latest shareholding pattern also indicates improving institutional interest in Eimco Elecon. Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) increased their stake from 3.10% in the March 2026 quarter to 3.25% in the June 2026 quarter.

Meanwhile, promoter holding remained unchanged at 48.96%, reflecting continued promoter confidence in the company.

According to Trendlyne’s SWOT analysis, Eimco Elecon stands out on several key fundamental parameters, reflecting a healthy financial position and improving business performance.

The company’s strengths include low debt levels, a consistent improvement in book value per share over the past two years, and zero promoter pledge, indicating a strong balance sheet and better financial discipline.
On the operational front, the company has reported revenue growth for three consecutive quarters, along with strong quarter-on-quarter EPS growth. Additionally, its rising net profit and improving profit margins highlight better profitability and operational efficiency.These factors indicate improving business performance and a healthy financial profile.

Stock performance, valuation & technical indicators

Eimco Elecon has delivered solid returns to shareholders over the long term. While the stock has surged around 15% in the last one month, it has rallied nearly 170% over the past three years, more than doubling investors’ wealth during the period.

The stock is currently trading at Rs 1,755, significantly below its 52-week high of Rs 2,588, while its 52-week low stands at Rs 1,405.50.

From a valuation perspective, the stock trades at a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 26.1 and a price-to-book (P/B) ratio of 2.21.

On the technical front, the 14-day Relative Strength Index (RSI) stands at 55, indicating neutral momentum. Generally, an RSI below 30 is considered oversold, while a reading above 70 is considered overbought. The stock also maintains a positive technical setup, trading above 6 out of its 8 key simple moving averages (SMAs), suggesting that the broader trend remains constructive.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)

Wordle players hunting for Tuesday’s answer can find it here: the solution to puzzle #1851, released July 14, 2026, is STEAK, according to multiple outlets tracking the daily New York Times word game.

The five-letter word refers to a high-quality, thick slice of meat or fish, typically cut across the muscle grain and prepared by grilling or frying, something a diner might order medium-rare at a restaurant. Puzzle trackers described Tuesday’s word as carrying a moderate difficulty rating overall, but flagged one particularly sharp trap embedded in the puzzle: STEAK shares the exact same five letters as STAKE, its perfect anagram, with only the positions of the K and A swapped between the two words.

According to puzzle guide EasternHerald, that overlap proved genuinely tricky for solvers who narrowed down the correct letter set early in their guessing but then locked in the wrong arrangement of those letters. “Solvers who narrow down the letter set early and land on STAKE first may find themselves using a precious extra guess before the correct arrangement clicks,” the guide noted. The same source pointed out that the word’s ending also opens onto a cluster of similarly structured words, including SNEAK, SPEAK, FREAK and CREAK, all of which share the same final four-letter combination and could further slow down a player’s endgame if their earlier guesses hadn’t already ruled out enough letters.

For those working through the puzzle before checking the solution, several structural clues were available. The word contains no repeated letters, begins with the two-letter combination ST and ends in EAK, distinguishing it from words like STOUT, Monday’s answer, which shared the same opening two letters. One puzzle tracker noted that Tuesday’s word marked the second consecutive day featuring an ST- opening, calling it “a coincidence worth noting” while clarifying that Wordle’s word list is not designed to intentionally cluster answers by shared starting letters.

Wordle challenges players to guess a hidden five-letter word within six attempts, using color-coded tile feedback to indicate whether each guessed letter is correct and correctly placed, correct but misplaced, or absent from the word entirely. The game, created by software engineer Josh Wardle in 2021, was acquired by The New York Times the following year after surging in popularity, and has since become a fixture of the paper’s daily games lineup alongside titles such as Connections, Strands and the Mini Crossword.

Puzzle guides offered a familiar set of strategic reminders for players working through Tuesday’s word or preparing for future puzzles. Common advice includes opening with a word containing frequently used letters and multiple vowels, such as ADIEU, AUDIO, RAISE, ATONE or STONE, to quickly surface useful information before narrowing down toward a final answer. Guides also cautioned players to remain alert to the possibility of duplicate letters within a solution, even when a word appears straightforward at first glance, since overlooking a repeated letter has tripped up solvers on past puzzles featuring words like BUZZY, which contains a double Z.

One tracker outlined general endgame strategy for players who find themselves running low on guesses, advising a calm, methodical approach rather than rushing toward a final answer. “Stay calm under pressure,” the guide advised. “The sixth guess can feel intense, but don’t rush. Take a breath and think of all the possibilities that fit your clues.” The same source also recommended paying close attention to common word endings, such as -ED, -ER or -Y, which appear frequently among Wordle solutions and can help narrow down remaining possibilities once several letters have already been confirmed.

Looking back across recent puzzles, Tuesday’s word continued a stretch that has featured a wide mix of concrete, everyday vocabulary. According to PC Guide, the previous 10 Wordle answers before Tuesday’s puzzle were STOUT, CLACK, AVIAN, CANAL, AMEND, DEMON, SLING, TODDY, SWAMI and PIZZA. The outlet also noted that, since February 2, 2026, the New York Times has begun reintroducing older previously used words back into the daily rotation, a shift that began with CIGAR, the very first Wordle solution ever used and the first answer selected after the Times took over the game’s operation. Despite that change, puzzle trackers cautioned that recently used words are not expected to repeat again anytime soon.

Beyond the standard daily puzzle, Wordle’s broader ecosystem has continued to expand in recent years, inspiring companion games that build on its core format. Worldle, a geography-based spinoff in which players guess a country based on its outline shape, offered WESTERN SAHARA as its answer for July 14, continuing to challenge players’ knowledge of world geography using the same six-guess, distance-based feedback structure as the original game. For fans of the Times’ broader puzzle offerings, Tuesday’s NYT Spelling Bee answer carried the center letter M, while the previous day’s Spelling Bee solution was COMMITTAL.

The puzzle’s continued popularity nearly five years after its original release has been attributed in large part to its simplicity and shareability. Each day brings exactly one new word, with no ads interrupting the format, and players can share their results on social media through a grid of colored squares that reveals their guessing pattern without spoiling the actual answer for others who haven’t yet played. That shareable format helped fuel Wordle’s rapid rise in the early 2020s and has continued to sustain a large, dedicated daily audience in the years since.

Players who did not solve Tuesday’s puzzle were reminded by tracking outlets that a new Wordle puzzle becomes available every day at midnight in each player’s local time zone, meaning a missed word carries no bearing on future attempts and streak-conscious players can simply pick back up with the next day’s release. The Times has continued to expand its broader portfolio of daily puzzle offerings in recent years, part of a wider strategy aimed at keeping readers returning to its games platform on a consistent basis, with Wordle remaining the most widely recognized entry point into that ecosystem.

Wednesday’s Wordle puzzle is set to reset at midnight Eastern time, continuing the game’s unbroken daily cadence. Players looking for an early head start on hints can typically expect a new round of guides and clues to appear across puzzle-tracking sites shortly after the transition, following the same structural format used for Tuesday’s reveal.

Internet users have been split over Chipotle’s entry into Mexico.

“Bold move selling Mexico a corporate version of Mexico,” a commenter on X said.

Another X post questioned why Mexicans would pay for Chipotle when they have “perfectly fine and healthy food available to them?”

“It’s like Pizza Hut [opening a] location in Napoli, makes no sense,” said another.

“Next up, Panda Express opening its first mainland China location,” one post read, referring to the US chain that specialises in Chinese food.

The move could be an important test for Chipotle’s plans to expand globally, one wrote, while another suggested the chain could do well as a “tourist novelty”.

The company plans to open up to 370 new restaurants globally this year, including new outlets in Singapore and South Korea.

Many commenters drew comparisons with other US chains like Taco Bell that have tried to break into countries that their menus took inspiration from.

Taco Bell has tried and failed to establish itself in Mexico twice, despite being one of the world’s biggest fast food franchises.

The chain moved out of the country in 2010 after failing to attract Mexican diners.

Domino’s Pizza closed its last outlets in Italy – the birthplace of pizza – in 2022 after facing stiff competition from local restaurants since it opened there seven years earlier.

The following segment was excerpted from the Bristlemoon Global Fund Q2 2026 Report.

---

In our March 2026 letter, we introduced our compounding/conviction position sizing framework, which decomposes each investment position into two distinct exposures: 1) the compounding position; and 2) the

Four years earlier in Florida, Epstein had been sent to prison for two charges of soliciting prostitution – including one with a minor.

Andriesz suspected there was yet more to find in the Epstein files that could back up his claims – if only people knew where to look in the 3.5 million pages of documents.

“Everyone was searching ‘Lutnick’,” he says. He knew, though, that Cantor Fitzgerald executives preferred to use initials rather than full names in their emails.

Andriesz searched for “HWL” (Howard William Lutnick) and found emails sent to and from Epstein in 2018. Epstein had talked directly to Lutnick about a digital advertising company called Adfin, in which he and Lutnick’s firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, had both invested.

Andriesz spotted correspondence, external where Epstein had directly asked the HWL account: “what do you think the prospects for adfin are?”

Lutnick responded: “Producing revenue finally. This is their year. Next 12 months they need to become economically self-sufficient.”

Andriesz then shared this information with US politicians on the House Oversight Committee, the US Congress’s main investigatory committee.

Lutnick agreed to appear before the committee in an off-camera hearing in May.

He has not been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, and he told the committee: “I unequivocally condemn the conduct attributed to Jeffrey Epstein and everyone who participated in his illegal activities. The survivors of his crimes deserve our respect and support.”

Puzzle fans working through Tuesday’s New York Times Connections game have their solution: puzzle #1129, released July 14, 2026, sorted 16 words into four groups spanning synonyms for a contract, computer edit menu commands, types of baskets and a clever visual category built around symbols commonly represented by arrows, according to multiple outlets tracking the daily puzzle.

Connections challenges players to organize 16 seemingly unrelated words into four hidden groups of four, with each group linked by a shared theme, color-coded by difficulty from yellow, the easiest, through green, blue and finally purple, traditionally the most difficult and often built around wordplay or non-verbal connections rather than straightforward meaning. Players select four words at a time and submit a guess, with the game indicating correct groupings by color and offering a “one away” warning when a guess is close but not quite right. Four incorrect guesses end the puzzle.

Tuesday’s yellow category centered on synonyms for a contract, grouping the words agreement, bargain, deal and understanding, all terms describing a formal or informal arrangement reached between parties. The green group asked players to identify common edit menu options found in most software applications, linking copy, cut, delete and paste, a set of commands familiar to anyone who has worked within a standard computer text-editing interface.

The blue category, one level up in difficulty, gathered different kinds of baskets, connecting Easter, grocery, laundry and picnic, each pairing with the word “basket” to form a recognizable everyday phrase. The puzzle’s purple group, traditionally its trickiest, required players to identify concepts commonly symbolized with arrows rather than described through a shared verbal meaning, linking recycling, shuffle, this side up and U-turn. According to puzzle guide NerdsChalk, that final category relied on visual rather than verbal logic. “The connection is visual rather than verbal. Each item is commonly represented by arrows. Some appear on signs or packaging,” the guide noted, pointing to how each of the four concepts is typically depicted through arrow-based iconography, whether on a recycling symbol, a shuffle button on a music player, a shipping label reading “this side up,” or a road sign indicating a permitted U-turn.

One puzzle guide covering Tuesday’s board described the overall design as blending practical, everyday vocabulary with more conceptual, symbol-based thinking. “Today’s grid featured a combination of practical everyday vocabulary and conceptual connections,” NerdsChalk wrote. “Solvers likely spotted one or two categories quickly, but distinguishing between similar meanings and identifying the symbol-based group may have taken extra thought. The puzzle rewarded careful observation and attention to context.” The same source offered a general strategy tip for approaching similarly structured puzzles going forward. “The 14 July 2026 Connections puzzle balances straightforward action words with trickier conceptual links, making it satisfying once everything clicks,” the guide wrote, advising players to “lock in obvious verb groups early, then examine remaining words for structural patterns or shared cultural references.”

Connections was developed internally by the Times and rolled out widely in 2023 following a beta testing period, building on the momentum generated by Wordle, which the paper had acquired the previous year. Since its full launch, Connections has become one of the more popular entries in the Times’ expanding games section, which also includes Wordle, Strands, the Mini Crossword, Sudoku and Pips, part of a broader strategy by the paper to build a suite of daily puzzles that keeps readers returning to its platform consistently.

The category names themselves remain hidden from players at the outset of each puzzle, requiring solvers to infer each group’s connecting theme purely from the 16 scrambled words presented on the board. That design choice has made the game notably prone to misdirection, since certain words are often deliberately chosen because they could plausibly fit into more than one category before a puzzle’s true structure becomes clear. Tuesday’s board illustrated that tendency well, given that words like “deal” and “cut” carry multiple everyday meanings that could have initially pointed solvers toward the wrong grouping before the puzzle’s true categories became apparent.

The NYT’s own official guidance for tackling Connections encourages players to start with the categories they feel most confident about, think through alternate meanings or uses of ambiguous words, and pay attention to shared word endings or suffixes that might hint at a hidden pattern, strategies that align closely with the kind of layered thinking Tuesday’s board rewarded, particularly given the shift required to solve the visually oriented purple group.

Beyond the standard Connections puzzle, the Times has also continued expanding into sports-specific content through its ownership of The Athletic, with Connections: Sports Edition offering a spinoff format that resets daily at midnight Eastern time alongside the main puzzle, asking players to group 16 sports-related terms into four themed categories drawn from teams, players and league-specific vocabulary.

For players who prefer working through Connections gradually rather than seeing the full solution at once, most puzzle-tracking outlets offer graduated hint systems that follow the game’s own difficulty ladder, presenting clues from the yellow category through purple in ascending order of difficulty. That structure allows players to request a partial nudge, such as a thematic hint for the purple category alone, without necessarily spoiling the remaining groups if they would still like to solve those independently.

Access to the daily Connections puzzle, along with Wordle and the Mini Crossword, remains free through the Times’ games app and website, while the publication’s full puzzle archive, spanning more than 1,100 previous Connections boards, requires a Times Games subscription to access. The paper has continued to build out tools surrounding its puzzle offerings in recent years, including performance-tracking features that let players monitor their solving statistics over time, similar in spirit to the Wordle Bot analysis tool available for that game.

Wednesday’s Connections puzzle is scheduled to reset at midnight Eastern time, continuing the game’s daily rotation. Players looking for hints ahead of the next release can typically expect updated guides to appear across puzzle-tracking sites within hours of each new puzzle going live, following the same category-by-category format used to break down Tuesday’s grid.