Backed by persistent buying across heavy-weights, Indian share markets remained well above the dotted line in the last two trading hours. Most of the sectoral indices are trading positive with power, metal and IT stocks being the biggest gainers. Oil and gas, auto and consumer durables stocks are trading weak.
The BSE-Sensex is trading up 98 points and NSE-Nifty is trading up 34 points. BSE Mid Cap index and BSE Small Cap index are trading up by 0.6% and 0.4% respectively. The rupee is trading at 57.1 to the US dollar.
Most of the private sector banks are trading positive with ICICI bank and HDFC bank being the biggest gainers. As per a quarterly study released by RBI, State Bank of India (SBI) and its associate banks improved their combined market share in gross lending by 40 basis points to 22.5%. The market share gain has been at the expense of the nationalized banks that saw a fall in their market share. Private and foreign banks were able to maintain their market share. The report added that foreign banks as a group were the most efficient. This is measured by the credit deposit (CD) ratio,that measures the efficiency in the deployment of resources by banks. In December 2011, the CD ratio of foreign banks stood at 88.6% whereas for private banks and nationalized banks, the ratio stood at 74.8% and 74.3%, respectively. SBI's CD ratio stood at 77.5%. The overall CD ratio of the banking industry was 75.5% in December 2011. The SBI stock was up 0.6%.
Majority of the automobile stocks are trading in green with Escorts being the biggest gainer. As per a leading financial daily, Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India (HMSI) is following the strategy of introducing mass models to expand in small towns and rural regions. Reportedly the company is setting up 10 zonal offices and 500 new touch points across the country. HMSI's entry-level bike Dream Yuga in the 100 cc segment is its biggest launch expected to compete with Hero Motocorp's Passion. The company has projected sales growth of 30% to 2.8 m two-wheeler units in FY13 on the back of Dream Yuga sales. Ever since its split with Hero Motocorp, HMSI is looking to increase its presence in the Indian market and is emerging as a strong contender to the three dominant players in the two wheeler industry notably Hero Motocorp, Bajaj Auto and TVS Motors.
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