Indian equity markets maintain momentum

Mon, 10 Mar Closing

   Previous Close   

   Pre-Open   

   09:30 am   

   11:30 am   

   01:30 pm   

After hitting record highs, the Indian benchmark indices stood stronger in the post noon trading session. Backed by healthy foreign institutional investor buying and anticipated positive macro-economic data this week, the Sensex today closed on a positive note. Stocks from the capital goods and realty sectors posted healthy gains today. Keeping up with the momentum, the BSE small cap and the BSE mid-cap indices were up by 0.77% and 0.44% respectively. The BSE-Sensex closed higher by 15 points and the NSE-Nifty was seen up by 11 points.

On the global front, most of the Asian indices closed the day on a pessimistic note and European indices opened the day on a mixed note. The rupee was trading at Rs 61.04 to the dollar at the time of writing.

Barring few such as United Bank of India, Indian Bank and Punjab and Sind Bank, rest all the PSU bank stockss closed the day on a firm note. Stocks such as Bank of India and Allahabad Bank were leading the pack of gainers.

As per a leading financial daily, the public sector banks (PSU banks) require to set-up another 19,813 ATMs by March-end to meet the target. The banks are mandated to have at least one onsite ATM in every branch. By the end of December quarter of 2014, the PSU banks could install only 14,855 ATMs. As per the schedule, the PSU banks should have set up 25,950 cash dispensing machines by December 2013; i.e. about 75% of the target. By the December quarter end of 2014, the state-run lender, State Bank of India (SBI) had set up 2,266 ATMs and has to install another 2,221 by March-end 2014. Others such as Bank of Baroda, IDBI Bank and Vijaya Bank are supposed to set up only 2, 32 and 39 ATM centres to fulfill their respective targets. As per the 2013-14 budget announcements, the PSU banks were required to install an onsite ATM in all 72,340 branches by the end of March 2014.

Barring few such as Tata Motors, Force Motors, Escorts, stocks from the Automobiles sector closed the day on a firm note with Ashok Leyland and M&M leading the pack of gainers.

Two-wheeler major, Bajaj Auto is quite positive on its newly launched vehicle - Discover 125 - and expects this to help the company double its sales volumes in the mileage segment (100 cc to 125cc). As per the company, it currently sells close to 120,000 units per month in this segment. As reported by the Business Standard, Bajaj Auto has a total market share of about 22%, while its share in the sports category stands at about 50%. In addition, the company's senior management has stated that the company has no plans to expand its two-wheeler capacity at the moment given that the demand for vehicles in India have largely remained flat for a while now. The company has a capacity of producing about 4.8 m vehicles per year, which cater to both the international as well as Indian markets.