Indian stock markets have been trading strong over last two hours of trade on buying in index heavyweights. Among sectoral indices, all except Auto and healthcare stocks are trading positively.
The BSE-Sensex is trading higher by 136 points and NSE-Nifty is trading strong by 40 points. BSE Mid cap and BSE Small cap indices are up by 0.5% and 0.7% respectively. The rupee is trading at 52.46 to the US dollar.
Metal stocks are trading in the green led by Jindal South-West Steel (JSW Steel) and Sesa Goa Ltd. Tata Steel is testing a new technology to produce coal with low ash content. This is in order to bring down the coal imports significantly. The plant which will be using this technology will be set up in Jamshedpur. The company plans to commission the commercial production of the low ash coal in next 6-8 years by 2018-20. The pilot project for the same is being set in Vizag with a capacity of 500 kg of coal cleaned per hour. This technology of Tata Steel will bring down the ash content in Coal to just 8%. Once the testing phase is done, the company intends to scale the same by 20 times. The company said that reduction in ash content will help improve margins as the company can bring down the imports of Coal and can be increasingly dependent on coal from its own mines in West Bokaro and Jharia.
Capital goods stocks are trading strong led by Larsen & Toubro (L&T) and Punj Lloyd., Bharat Heavy Electricals (BHEL), the state run power equipment giant is trading lower by 1% currently. The weakness is perhaps a result of orders worth Rs 120 bn, which were bagged by the company more than a year ago, getting scrapped. The entity that has scrapped the orders is the Government of Rajasthan's RVUN (Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam). The orders concern EPC tenders for upcoming new super critical units of Suratgarh and Chhabra thermal power stations. This is despite both projects having tied up coal supplies. The development has happened at a time when BHEL is already struggling with a slowdown in its order book. It should be noted that BHEL had emerged as the lowest bidder with BGR Energy coming a close second in the international competitive bids for the two projects.
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