Indian stock markets shed early morning gains and were trading flat over last two hours of trade. All sectoral indices were trading in the green except IT stocks.
The BSE-Sensex is trading up by 10 points and NSE-Nifty is trading down by 6 points. However, BSE Mid cap and BSE Small cap indices are trading strong by 0.8% and 1% respectively. The rupee is trading at 49.59 to the US dollar.
Auto stocks are trading strong led by Escorts and TVS Motors. As per a leading daily, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. (M&M) is looking at ramping up the production of XUV-500, its latest sports utility vehicle. It may be noted here that XUV-500 comes in 5 variants and has Mahindra's successful mHawk engine installed. M&M company is expected to increase production to 3000 units per month. This is on account of huge customer interest and overwhelming bookings for the vehicle. Over 25,000 bookings have been done so far, of which 8000 were done in the first phase itself. The waiting period will also be reduced from 5 months to 3 months. At present, Mahindra's share in the multi-purpose vehicle segment is 27%.
Aluminium Stocks are trading mixed. Hindustan Aluminium Company (Hindalco) is trading in the red while National Aluminium Company Ltd. (NALCO) is trading in the green. Hindalco Industries has announced results for the quarter ended December 2011. The company has reported an increase of 11.3% YoY in net sales and a decline of 2.1% YoY in net profits respectively. Topline grows on back of higher volumes and marginal improvement in realisation. Both operating profit and operating margin declined by 3.4% YoY and 1% YoY respectively. This was due to higher cost of coal. Other income grows by 48.6% YoY due to improved treasury yield and enhanced corpus. However this has been offset by higher interest and financing charges on account of high interest rates. For the nine months ended December 2011, net sales and net profits increased by 11.4% YoY and 11.8% YoY.
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