Realty, power aid the indices

Fri, 15 Jan 01:30 pm

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The Indian markets continued to trade on a weak note during the previous two hours of trade. Currently, buying activity in sectors like realty, power, banking and FMCG has managed to push the markets above the dotted line. However, oil & gas and capital goods sectors are finding it difficult to garner investors’ interest.

The BSE-Sensex and the NSE-Nifty are currently trading higher by around 22 points and 7 points respectively. Stocks from the midcap and small cap spaces are currently trading in the green, with the BSE-Midcap and the BSE-Smallcap indices trading higher by 0.8% and 1.04% respectively. The rupee is trading at 45.69 to the US dollar.

According to a leading business daily, engineering and construction firm, Punj Lloyd (PUNL) has won a project worth Rs 5.74 bn for an offshore oil facility in Thailand. This project from a Thailand’s oil and gas PSU (PTT Public Company) will require Punj Lloyd to install three compressor units in the Gulf of Thailand. This projects aims at boosting the gas pressure for the gas being supplied downstream. It is believe to aid in fulfilling the growing demand of gas in Thailand.

It may be noted that the company as at the end of September quarter had an order backlog of Rs 268 bn. During the entire 1HFY10, PUNL secured new orders of Rs 114 bn as compared to Rs 67 bn booked in 1HFY09, a growth of 70% YoY. We believe that robust bidding activity happening in the infrastructure and process industry spaces will aid the company in strengthening its domestic and overseas orderbooks. The stock is currently trading in the red.

According to a leading business daily, Indian government is aiming to achieve a teledensity of 40% through BSNL by 2014. Mr Sachin Pilot, Minister of State for communication has hinted that the government is making efforts to have at least 40 phone user for every 100 inhabitants in the country in the next 4 years. It may be noted that teledensity in India was at an abysmal 2% in 1995. Although India's teledensity has improved a lot from that level reaching over 36% by the end of March 2009, we are still way behind other developing nations. To achieve this end, the government will help state-owned telecom major BSNL to expand its telephone network in urban as well as far flung locations. It plans to set up 150 BSNL towers by end of current fiscal with 150 more to be setup in the next fiscal. We believe that such government focus will aid the telecom company in competing more confidently with the private peers. The private telecom players like Bharti, Idea and RComm will have to revisit their strategies of focusing on urban areas where they rake in large sum of revenues. They will have to invest aggressively in extending their network to the remotest part of India. Nevertheless, it is good news for Indian telecom users. The stocks from telecom sector are trading mixed.