Euro concerns fade, not disappear

Tue, 18 May Closing

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Markets came off the day’s highs during the closing hours of trade but have managed to end the day in the positive. The BSE Sensex closed the day with gains of around 40 points (up 0.2%) whereas NSE Nifty edged higher by around 10 points (up 0.2%). BSE Midcap and Small cap indices also closed in the positive, gaining 0.4% and 0.7% respectively. On the Sensex, three stocks gained for every two that closed in the red.

While most Asian markets closed in the green today, Europe too is trading strong currently. The rupee was seen pegged at Rs 45.6 to the dollar at the time of writing.

While the markets threatened to end in the negative on yet another occasion, they quickly clawed back in the positive territory and remained there for the rest of the session. Today’s session thus takes some of the spotlight away from the Euro crisis and instead, focuses on some good news coming out of the continent. But the question is for how long. The problems facing some of the Euro nations are so huge that they cannot be solved in a hurry. Thus, there’s every chance that more pain lies ahead for the troubled nations. And also, there’s every chance that the rally that we witnessed today is nothing more than a dead cat bounce with Indian markets too, getting caught in the sentiment.

GAIL, the gas distribution and transmission major, announced its FY10 results recently. The company’s topline grew by 4% YoY during the fiscal whereas the bottomline growth came in at 12% YoY, thanks mainly to an expansion in operating margins. EBITDA margin expanded to 25.1% during the year from 23.8% in FY09 on the back of lower raw material costs. Coming back to the topline growth, the 4% growth was driven by a 28% YoY growth in the natural gas transmission business. Sales from the petrochemicals segment grew by 2% YoY, while LPG transmission segment grew 18% YoY. GAIL has planned a capex of Rs 80 bn in FY11, mostly towards expanding its pipeline network. The stock closed higher by around 2% on the bourses today.

With decline in the region of 2%, Deccan Chronicle, one of India’s leading newspaper dailies, had yet another poor outing today. The stock seems to be feeling the heat of its sub-par performance in the quarter gone by. The company’s bottomline during the quarter fell by 20% YoY despite a 6% growth in topline and strong expansion in operating margins. However, it was the nearly threefold jump in tax outgo that spoiled the show for the company. For the full year though, bottomline growth came in at an impressive 86% YoY as lower newsprint costs gave margins a big boost and interest expenses also fell.