Indian share markets continued to trade higher in the post-noon trading session. Majority of the sectoral indices are trading in the green led by metal and banking stocks. Power and capital goods stocks are the major losers today.
BSE-Sensex is up 236 points and NSE-Nifty is trading 66 points up. BSE Mid Cap is trading 0.4% up and BSE Small Cap index is trading up by 0.5%. The rupee is trading at 61.84 to the US dollar.
Majority of the FMCG stocks are trading in the red with Godrej Consumer Products and Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) being among major losers. Hindustan Unilever has declared results for the quarter ended December 2014. The company posted a 7.6% revenue growth on a 3% underlying volume growth in the domestic consumer business. The muted growth has come on account of sluggish performance in soaps & detergents and personal products businesses. The company has been able to maintain operating margin at 17% on the back of lower raw material costs and other expenses (both as a proportion of sales). However net margin, excluding exceptional income from sale of properties, has contracted by 3.4% YoY to 11% due to higher tax outgo and depreciation charges. HUL stock is currently trading down 1.1%.
All the public sector banking stocks are trading in the green with Union Bank and IDBI Bank being the biggest gainers. As per a leading financial daily, 114.3 m banks accounts were opened under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana as on 16th January 2015. A majority of 90.6 m accounts were opened by public sector banks followed by 20 m accounts opened by regional rural banks. The 13 private sector banks have opened only 36 lakh accounts till now. Of the total, 68 m accounts were opened in rural areas whereas 46.2 m accounts were opened in urban regions.
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