Indian equity markets continue to trade flat over the last two hours of trade. Power and realty stocks witnessed maximum buying interest while FMCG and IT stocks witnessed maximum selling pressure.
The Sensex today is up by 10 points, while the NSE-Nifty today is up by 6 points. BSE Mid Cap index and the BSE Small Cap index are up by 1.10% and 1.15%. The rupee is trading at 53.26 to the US dollar.
Energy stocks are trading in the red. Gas Authority Of India Ltd. (GAIL) and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) are the biggest losers while Gujrat State Petronet (GSPL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) are the biggest gainers. According to a leading financial daily, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. (BPCL) has allocated Rs 400-450 bn towards capital expenditure (capex) for the next four to five years. This allocation will be spent on upstream, refinery expansion and other infrastructure development. The company has also said that raising funds of this magnitude would not be a problem as BPCL has many discoveries and is already in talks with domestic banks. A consortium of domestic banks led by State Bank of India (SBI), is ready to lend and these will be dollar-dominated borrowings. The company has many gas blocks in Mozambique, 10 oil blocks in Brazil, and some oil and gas blocks in Indonesia, Australia, Britain, East Timor, and a shale gas project.
Auto stocks are trading strong led by Escorts and Maruti Suzuki. According to a leading financial daily, Hero MotoCorp Limited is planning to enter the retail finance business thereby enabling potential customers to purchase their products. The Munjal family owned company, already has a financing arm Hero FinCorp (formerly Hero Honda FinLease). Hero FinCorp supports some of its component suppliers and dealers by financing their working capital expenditure. The auto company is mulling providing dedicated easy loan options for its customers. Hero's peer Bajaj Auto too has a similar financing arm by the name of Bajaj Finance. We may note here that financing two wheeler purchases is a costly affair. Two-wheeler finance comes at a steep 22-24%, almost double that of the car segment.
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