Indian share markets plateau off

Tue, 24 Jul 01:30 pm

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Indian share markets remained range-bound and hovered above the dotted line in the last two trading hours. The sectoral indices are trading mixed with FMCG and Consumer durables being the biggest gainers and capital goods and IT being the biggest losers.

The BSE-Sensex is trading up 23 points and NSE-Nifty is trading up 3 points. Both BSE Mid Cap and BSE Small Cap indices are trading 0.1% up. The rupee is trading at 55.9 to the US dollar.

Majority of FMCG stocks are trading positive with Hindustan Unilever (HUL) and Gillette India being the biggest gainers. FMCG major HUL announced its results for the quarter ended June 2012. The company reported a robust 14% topline growth for the quarter. The growth was aided by 19% growth in the domestic consumer business with underlying volume growth of 9%. Barring beverages, all the product segments reported double-digit growth during the quarter. The largest segment soaps & detergents grew by 24% whereas the second-largest personal care segment clocked growth of 17% largely driven by volumes. The company has managed to improve operating margin by 170 basis points to 15.2% on the back of lower raw material costs and other expenses (as a proportion to sales). Earnings surged by 112% mainly on account of profit of Rs 6 bn from sale of property and gains of Rs 1.8 bn from disposal of investments. Excluding the impact of extraordinary income, net profit was up by 27.8%.

Most of the large IT stocks are trading in red with Wipro and Info Edge being the biggest losers. IT major Wipro announced its results recently. The company reported a consolidated gross revenue growth of 6.8% QoQ during the quarter ended June 2012. In terms of US dollar, the IT services revenues (78% of total Revenue) witnessed a decline of 1.4% QoQ. Wipro's operating margins declined by 0.6% to 18.8%, mainly due to higher selling & marketing expenses (as percentage of sales). However, despite lower margins, net profits grew by 6.7% QoQ. This was mainly on account of higher exchange gains as well as slightly lower effective tax rate, which offset the negative effects of higher finance expenses during the quarter. The headcount in IT services business increased by 2,632 (on net basis) during 1QFY13. Attrition declined to 15.6% as compared to 17.5% for the previous quarter (4QFY12). The gross employee utilization rate stood at 68.3% during the quarter as compared to 67.4% seen in the preceding quarter (4QFY12).