After a positive opening, Indian stock markets continued to pare initial gains in the last two trading hours. The indices barely managed to stay above the dotted line. Barring IT and technology stocks, all the sectoral indices are trading positive. Auto, capital goods and oil and gas stocks are the biggest gainers.
The BSE-Sensex is trading up 31 points and NSE-Nifty is trading up 10 points. Both BSE Mid cap index and BSE Small cap indices are up by 0.8% and 0.7%, respectively. The rupee is trading at 51.4 to the US dollar.
Most of the energy stocks are trading strong with Gujarat Gas and Indraprastha Gas Ltd. (IGL) being the biggest gainers. As per a leading financial daily, the credit rating agency Moody has downgraded the local currency rating of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd. (ONGC) and Gas Authority Of India Ltd. (GAIL). However, the website has suggested a stable outlook for both the companies. The reason for downgrade is the risk that they bear on account of credit quality of the Indian Government. For ONGC, the rating has been downgraded to Baa1 from A2. For GAIL India, it has downgraded to Baa2 from A3. For GAIL, the rating is now aligned with GAIL's Baa2 foreign currency rating. Moody has stressed that the rating actions were not an indication of deteriorating sovereign risk. The sovereign rating remained unchanged at Baa3 with a stable outlook. The scrips of ONGC and GAIL are up by 1% and 1.3% respectively.
Majority of the power stocks are trading positive with PTC India Ltd trading the strongest and National Hydroelectric Power Corp. (NHPC Ltd) trading the weakest. As per a leading financial daily, French energy company Areva Solar will build Asia's biggest concentrated solar power installation for Reliance Power. The installation will have two plants built on compact linear fresnel reflector (CLFR) technology with a combined solar energy capacity of 250 MW. The CLFR technology harnesses reflected sunlight to heat liquid-filled tubes to produce steam which in turn run turbines for electricity generation. The first phase of the project is currently under progress and the first plant is likely to be completed by May 2013. Reliance Power stock is up 1.6%.
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