Mid and small Caps buck the trend

Mon, 19 Sep 01:30 pm

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The Indian stock market continue to trade weak due to selling pressure in heavyweights. Stocks from the capital goods, banking, metal and FMCG space are leading the pack of losers while those from consumer durables and realty sectors are finding investor interest.

The BSE-Sensex is trading down by 147 points while NSE-Nifty is trading 40 points below friday's closing. However, the BSE Mid Cap and BSE Small Cap indices are trading flat. The rupee is trading at 47.77 to the US dollar.

Energy stocks have been trading mixed with Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL), Chennai Petroleum Corporation and Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals (MRPL) leading the pack of gainers. However, Essar Oil, Petronet LNG and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL) are trading in the red. As per a leading financial daily, a high-level government panel has called for slashing customs duty on imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) to zero, instead of cross-subsidizing the costly imported gas by making domestic natural gas users pay more. The final report of an inter-ministerial committee headed by Planning Commission Member Saumitra Chaudhuri has suggested to align the import duty on LNG with that of crude oil, on which customs duty was reduced to nil from 5% in the month of June. It also suggests to treat LNG/natural gas as a 'declared good' and to have a common concessional rate of VAT. However, the department of revenue (also a part of the committee) has not agreed in the matter of aligning import duty and it did not wish to record a view on the issue of declared goods.

Aluminium stocks have been trading mixed as well with National Aluminium Company (Nalco) leading the pack of gainers. However, Hindalco is trading weak. As per a leading financial daily, the employees of Nalco have urged the Government to come up with a plan to stop the recurrence of crisis in supply of coal to the company. As per the working president of Nalco Employees' Sangha, the operation of company's smelter has been severely affected due to short supply of coal from the linkage provided by Mahanadi Coalfields (MCL). The company is already losing around Rs 10 m daily due to the short supply of coal. This could lead to further loss to the national exchequer in days to come if the problem is not solved soon. The company is receiving just 47% of its daily requirement of coal from the source due to heavy rains since last week. The recent decision of railways to impose restriction on rail movements has made matters worse. It has already shut down 60 out of its 960 aluminum making pots at its smelter to ensure safe operations and uninterrupted power supply for operation of the pot-lines.