Eternal shares fell to a day low of Rs 323.60 on Monday, as investors positioned ahead of the MSCI index rebalancing due later today.

Here’s the twist. The rebalancing itself is actually expected to work in Eternal’s favour. The company’s weight in the MSCI Standard Index is going up, and that usually pulls in fresh buying from passive funds once the change takes effect.

Nuvama Alternative and Quantitative Research estimates the weight increase could bring in around $674 million of inflows for Eternal, spread across roughly 205 million shares.

The rebalancing happens in the final minutes of trade, so any real price impact is more likely to show up closer to the close. Eternal isn’t alone in the spotlight today.

Four other stocks, Laurus Labs, Adani Energy Solutions, Lenskart Solutions and Billionbrains Garage Ventures (Groww’s parent), are joining the MSCI Standard Index and could see inflows between $250 million and $600 million each.

Meanwhile, Balkrishna Industries, Astral and SBI Cards are being dropped from the index, which could mean outflows for those stocks.

There’s also a business update worth noting. Eternal’s June quarter results showed its food delivery arm growing net order value by 20%, near the top of what analysts had expected.

Blinkit, its quick commerce business, did even better, posting 86% growth in net order value against estimates of just 20% to 25%.

None of that strength is showing up in today’s price action, though. The dip looks tied purely to positioning around the index event, not the company’s fundamentals.

Zoom out a bit and the picture looks different. Eternal is still up close to 9% for August, and roughly 15% higher for the year so far.

As of 13:16 pm on Monday, Eternal shares stood at Rs 325.80, down 0.67% for the day on the NSE.

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