The Indian equity markets continued to rise steadily during the post noon trading session as buying activity was seen in stocks across the board. Stocks from the auto and banking spaces lead the pack of gainers while those from the power and Oil and gas spaces were amongst the top underperformers.
The Sensex today is trading higher by about 160 points (up 1%), while the NSE-Nifty is trading higher by about 60 points (up 1.13%). The BSE Mid Cap and BSE Small Cap indices are trading higher by about 0.5% and 0.3% respectively. The rupee is trading at 55.76 to the US dollar.
Auto stocks are currently trading firm led by Tata Motors, Hero Motocorp and M&M. The stock of Tata Motors is trading firm on the back of news of strong growth in global sales. It is reported that global sales grew by 12% YoY during the month of May 2012. Total volumes stood at 96,089 units. Sales of Jaguar Land Rover, the company's luxury brands stood at 30,094 units during the month. This figure is higher by 35% YoY. If we further dive into the numbers, the growth was largely led by higher sales of Land Rover, up 42% YoY while sales from the Jaguar stable rose by 3% YoY only. Within the breakup of commercial and passenger vehicles, the latter grew by 6 YoY, while commercial vehicles sales grew by 3 % YoY to 45,025 units. It may be noted that apart from JLR, Tata Motors Group's global sales comprise of Tata, Tata Daewoo and Hispano Carrocera range of commercial vehicles.
FMCG stocks are currently trading firm led by Dabur, Godrej Consumer and Hindustan Unilever. As per a leading financial daily, Anglo-Dutch consumer goods major Unilever has put forward plans to close three plants and an office in UK. The changes are likely to take effect by the end of 2013 and will translate into 500 direct job losses and 300 contractor and third party job cuts. Some jobs are likely to be outsourced to Unilever's IT centre in Bangalore, India. As per Unilever UK, the job cuts have been announced in the face of very tough economic conditions faced by the company in Europe.
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