Markets weak on profit booking

Fri, 18 Jun 11:30 am

   Previous Close   

   Pre-Open   

   09:30 am   

   01:30 pm   

   Closing   

Indian indices pared their opening gains as profit booking was seen in heavyweights during the last two hours of trade. Stocks in consumer durables and capital goods are trading firm while those from the metals and banking spaces are trading weak.

The BSE-Sensex is up by around 45 points while NSE-Nifty is trading around 10 points above the dotted line. BSE-Midcap index is up by 0.2% while BSE-Smallcap index is trading 0.4% above yesterday's closing. The Rupee is trading at 46.16 to the US dollar.

IT stocks are trading in the green with HCL Tech, Oracle Financial Services and Tech Mahindra trading in the green. Mindtree is also trading positive. The Bangalore based company has recently been awarded the first contract from ‘Aadhaar', the new brand identity of the unique identification (UID) project. This multi-year contract involves designing, developing, testing, maintaining and providing help desk services. These services will be provided from the Unique Identification Authority of India's (UIDAI's) Bangalore center. The financial value of the deal has not been disclosed. This contract is part of several big dollar deals that are expected to be outsourced by the UID authority to various tech firms.

Aadhar, spearheaded by Nandan Nilekani is a government identification programme for every citizen in India based on biometric verification. This large scale project has to deal with over 1.2 bn people in the country. Collecting, validating, issuing and verifying data from this massive base will require a sophisticated software network. Mindtree is hopeful of gaining more government projects after proving itself in this high profile project.

Power stocks are trading mixed with Tata Power and Voltamp trading firm while GVK Power and Reliance Infra are trading weak. As per a leading financial daily, Reliance Power (R-Power) has commissioned the second 300 MW unit of its Rosa, Uttar Pradesh based power plant. With this the company has completed the first phase of its Rosa Power Project ahead of schedule. This is its first thermal power project in north India and is being set up in two phases of 600 MW each. The first 300 MW unit had been commissioned in December 2009. The entire 600 MW of stage one will be supplied to UP Power Corporation Ltd. For this the agreement had been signed in 2006. Rosa Power Project has an investment outlay of Rs 60 bn and is expected to be completed in 2012, adding 20% to the existing power generation capacity of the state.

With the completion of the second phase the total power capacity of R-Power has now reached 1,000 MW. It should be noted that R-Power is constructing about 34,000 MW of power capacity including 3 ultra mega power plants of 4,000 MW each.