Indian stock markets slip into red

Wed, 23 Jan 01:30 pm

   Previous Close   

   Pre-Open   

   09:30 am   

   11:30 am   

   Closing   

Led by persistent selling across heavyweights, Indian stock markets fell below the dotted line in the last two trading hours. Majority of the sectoral indices are trading in the negative with auto, FMCG and power being the biggest losers.

BSE-Sensex is down by 20 points and NSE-Nifty is trading down by 12 points. While the BSE Mid Cap is trading down 0.73%, the BSE Small Cap index is trading down by 0.43%. The rupee is trading at 53.73 to the US dollar.

Real estate stocks are trading mixed with Atlanta Ltd and Wellspun Projects being among the top gainers while Housing Dev Infra and Prajay Engineers are among the losers. As per a leading financial daily, DLF will be focusing more on residential projects in FY14. Along with this, office and retail launches will also be part of the growth plan. During the coming year, the realtor intends to put these projects in the area of 12-16 m square feet. Of this approx. 6-7 m square feet will be used for residential development and the remaining for the commercial office and retail spaces equally. Further, in order to reduce its net debt from Rs 232 bn to Rs 150 bn in the next two years, the developer intends to sell off some of its non-core assets. DLF has various unused plots and few hotels in various parts of the country. The realtor has already sold off some off its non-core assets like Aman Resorts and the Mumbai NTC Mill land. Further, DLF has finalized sale of its wind energy business as well, for an estimated amount of Rs 9 bn. These three assets formed the largest part of its non-core business. The stock was trading up by 1.8%.

Majority of the mining stocks are trading in the green with Coal India and Manganse Ore India Limited (MOIL Limited) leading the gains. As per Federation of Indian Mineral Industries (FIMI), iron ore exports fell by more than 62% to 15 million tonnes (MT) during the April-November 2012 period. With a ban on mining in states like Karnataka and Goa due to environmental concerns and in order to curb illegal mining, exports have been falling in the past three years. Iron ore exports fell from 117.4 MT in 2009-10 to 61.7 MT in 2011-12. The industry body has said that ban on mining operations, curbs on shipments coupled with high export duty and freight charges have put the industry in a fix. The export duty on iron ore was hiked from 20% to 30% in December 2011. According to FIMI, iron ore exports attract freight charges that are four times higher than that for domestic transportation of the ore.