Indian share markets widen losses

Thu, 14 Jun 01:30 pm

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After a weak opening, the Indian share markets continued to head southwards in the last two trading hours. Majority of the sectoral indices, are trading negative with capital goods and banking stocks being the biggest losers. Only FMCG, IT and metal stocks are trading positive.

The BSE-Sensex is trading down 49 points and NSE-Nifty is trading down 18 points. BSE Mid Cap index and BSE Small Cap index are trading down by 0.5% and 0.2%, respectively. The rupee is trading at 55.8 to the US dollar.

Barring Torrent Power, all the power stocks are trading in red. National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) and GVK Power & Infra are the biggest losers. As per a leading financial daily, Tata Power has suspended its 2,400 MW coal-based power project in Maharashtra. Apart from that, the company does not plan to commence any new project fuelled by imported coal. The move comes at a time when the country is grappling with coal shortage due to regulatory uncertainty on one hand, whereas coal-rich Southeast Asian countries like Indonesia have changed their mineral export rules ratcheting up coal prices earlier contracted with power utilities. Tata Power has put all its imported coal plans on hold but will go ahead with its 4,000 MW plant in Gujarat in the hope that the government permits tariff-hikes to cover its increased import costs. The stock is down 1.3%.

IT stocks are currently trading firm with Infosys, TCS and Tech Mahindra leading the pack of gainers. A leading business daily has reported that IT major Wipro is looking at a certain section of its clientele, identifying them as 'high growth' customers for revving up its revenues growth for the coming future. It is reported that the company has shortlisted 138 clients with targets of annual revenue of US$ 50 m and more from each. The company currently has a total of 943 clients, of which 475 fall in the bracket of US$ 1 m plus. 7 clients fall under the US$ 100 m and above category. The selected 138 clients belong across verticals, clients and services are believed to fall in the US$ 20 m to US$ 40 m range. Please note that in the beginning of the last year 2011, the company had dismantled its traditional Joint-CEO model and restructured the whole organization. The purpose was to make the company more simple, agile and customer centric which would help concentrate on not just acquiring new customers but also focus on getting more business from the existing client pool. It seems though that the company is chasing higher market share at a time when the churn rates are high amongst vendors.