Profit booking takes toll

Fri, 19 Feb 11:30 am

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   Pre-Open   

   09:30 am   

   01:30 pm   

   Closing   

The Indian markets ventured deep into the negative territory during the previous two hours of trade on account of profit booking activity across heavyweights. Currently, stocks from the realty, metal, banking, capital goods and consumer durables sectors are dragging the indices lower. FMCG stocks are the sole ones managing to stay in the green.

The BSE-Sensex and the NSE-Nifty are trading lower, shedding around 162 points and 52 points respectively. The BSE-Midcap and BSE-Smallcap are also trading deep in red, lower by around 1.12% and 1.06% respectively. The rupee is trading weak at 46.42 to the dollar.

According to a leading business daily, Indian automobile major, M&M has piped US auto major, John Deere in selling largest number of tractors in the world in 2009. The combined volumes of M&M and Swaraj surpassed the volumes sold by John Deere (1.6 lakhs). M&M now plans to sell 1.7 lakh tractors by the end of FY10. It may be noted that the company has managed to increase its lion’s share of tractor market from 35% to 42% after turning around Swaraj (erstwhile Punjab Tractors) which it acquired in 2007.

It may also be noted that on account of increased mechanization and disbursal of bank credit, the size of the tractor market has more than doubled in the last decade, making India the largest market in the world. We believe that M&M’s ongoing relationship with the Indian farmers over the last four decades places it in the favorable position of being vendor of choice for the majority of agricultural households in India.

As per a leading business daily, India’s largest engineering company L&T is planning a major change in its energy business, particularly betting big on greener sources of energy. It may be noted that L&T which is traditionally identified with large thermal power projects is now evaluating prospects of venturing into wind and hydro power generation. For this purpose, it is planning to invest Rs 80 bn for setting up 700-800 MW hydro power plants in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Arunachal Pradesh. These projects are expected to be operational in next four to five years. It is also building wind power projects in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu for captive use. We believe that these projects will provide the company with some tax reliefs besides earning more carbon credits.