After a negative opening, Indian stock markets continued to linger in the negative territory in the last two trading hours. Majority of the sectoral indices are trading negative with Auto, realty and metal stocks being the biggest losers. Only IT and pharma stocks are trading positive.
The BSE-Sensex is trading down 84 points and NSE-Nifty is trading down 27 points. Both BSE Mid cap index and BSE Small cap indices are trading down by 0.8% and 0.7%, respectively. The rupee is trading at 53.2 to the US dollar.
Majority of the energy stocks are trading negative with Essar Oil and Petronet LNG being the biggest losers. As per a leading financial daily, Gujarat State Petronet Ltd (GSPL) has formed a consortium with three other public sector unit refiners to build three cross-country natural gas transmission pipelines totaling 4,000 km in length. The joint venture agreement signed has GSPL holding the majority stake of 52%, Indian Oil Corporation is the second largest stakeholder with 26% stake whereas Bharat Petroleum Corporation and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation hold stakes of 11% each. The budgeted cost for the project is Rs 120 bn of which the majority partner, GSPL will invest close to Rs 65 bn. The projects include Mallavaram-Bhilwara pipeline (1,585 km), Mehsana-Bhatinda pipeline (1,670 km) and Bhatinda-Jammu-Srinagar pipeline (740 km) and have been approved by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board in 2011 itself. GSPL stock is up 0.7%.
Cement stocks are trading mixed with Birla Corp and ACC being the biggest gainers and Madras Cement and Shree Cement being the biggest losers. According to a leading financial daily, cement manufacturers ACC and Ambuja Cement have reported an increase in the production of cement for the month of April. The production growth for ACC and Ambuja Cement stood at 5.3% and 5.5% respectively on a year-on-year (YoY) basis. In comparison, the dispatches for ACC and Ambuja in April were up by 1% YoY and 1.6% YoY respectively. The cement sales growth was muted due to slower demand.
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