Indian share markets continued to shed early gains but remained buoyant in the post-noon trading session. Barring IT, pharma and consumer durable, all the sectoral indices are trading in the red. Realty & power stocks are the biggest losers today.
BSE-Sensex is up 12 points and NSE-Nifty is trading marginally down. BSE Mid Cap is trading 0.2% down while BSE Small Cap index is trading up by 0.2%. The rupee is trading at 62.33 to the US dollar.
Steel stocks are trading mixed with Maharashtra Seamless and Tata Steel being the leading gainers whereas Jindal Steel and SAIL are trading weak. As per a leading financial daily, SAIL has earmarked funds to the tune of Rs 1.5 trillion to scale up its capacity from 23 m tonnes to 50 m tonnes by 2030-31. The investments would cover greenfield as well as brownfield expansion. The expansion proposal would be presented to the board for approval. JSW Steel, Tata Steel and Rashtriya Ispat Nigam are the other companies that have announced expansion plans. Reportedly, the steel production in the country increased from 75 m tonnes to 101 m tonnes in FY14. The country has set an output target of 300 m tonnes by 2025.
Most of the automobile stocks are trading in the red with Ashok Leyland and Bajaj Auto being the biggest losers. However, Tata Motors and Hero MotoCorp are among the few stocks trading weak. Passenger car manufacturers had reason to cheer during year-end as the roll-back of excise sops in future prompted higher sales. As per data released by Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), the domestic passenger car sales increased by 15.3% YoY to 1.52 lakh units in December 2014. Even two-wheeler sales increased by 4.5% YoY to 12.1 lakh units. But motorcycle sales declined by 3.5% YoY to 7.8 lakh units for the month. The sales of commercial vehicles increased by 9% YoY to 51,000 units for the month of December 2014. The overall vehicle sales were up by 5.7% to 15.12 lakh units during the month.
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