Realty in the limelight

Fri, 1 Oct 01:30 pm

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Persistent buying activity led the Indian markets to rise steadily during the previous two hours of trade. Currently, stocks across the board are trading firm. Leading the pack are stocks from the realty, metal and auto spaces, while those from the FMCG and banking spaces are amongst the key underperformers.

The BSE-Sensex is currently trading higher by about 280 points (up 1.4%), while the NSE-Nifty is trading higher by about 80 points (up 1.3%). Investors seem to prefer stocks from the small and midcap spaces as the BSE-Midcap and the BSE-Smallcap indices trading higher by 1.5% and 1.6% respectively. The rupee is trading at 44.66 to the US dollar.

Auto stocks are currently trading firm led by Escorts, Tata Motors and Bajaj Auto. The stock of Maruti Suzuki is trading firm on the back of the company reporting strong sales volumes for the month of September 2010. The company sold 108,006 units during the month. This is the highest ever monthly sales volumes recorded by the company. On a month on month basis, this is higher by 2.8%. During the corresponding month last year, the company’s sales volumes stood at 83,306 units, indicating a strong increase of about 30% YoY.

During the month, exports formed about 12% of total volumes as compared to 14% during the same month last year, indicating that the volume growth has been stronger in the domestic markets. Domestic volumes during the month increased by about 33% YoY, while exports increased by about 10% YoY. Maruti's C (Omni, Versa, Eeco), A2 (Alto, Wagon-R, Zen, Swift, Ritz, A-Star) and A3 (SX4, DZire) segments led the volume growth during the month. While the C segment reported a volume growth of 67% YoY, volumes in the A2 and A3 segments rose by 31% YoY and 43% YoY respectively. The A2 segment had the largest share of 64% in total volumes during the month. As for the volume sales for the year till date, total volumes are up by 26% YoY, with domestic volumes up by 28% YoY and exports up by 15% YoY.

As per government data released today, India's exports in August have grown by 22.5% YoY to US$ 16.6 bn in over the same period last year. Imports for August stood at US$ 29.7 bn a growth of 32.2% YoY over that of August 2009. Oil imports increased 12.4% YoY in August from the prior year to US$ 7.8 bn, while non-oil imports grew by 41.1% YoY to US$ 21.9 bn. The trade deficit as a result widened to US$ 13.0 bn from US$ 8.9 bn last year. For the period April - August this fiscal, exports stood at US$ 85.3 bn, a growth of 28.6% YoY over the same period last year. Imports during the same period grew by 33.1% YoY to stand at US$ 141.9 bn. The trade deficit widened as a result to US$ 56.6 bn from US$ 40.3 bn deficit last year. The Commerce Secretary had recently said that India's export growth this fiscal is relatively slow and well below the level of 2008-09.