Metal stocks lead among gainers

Fri, 18 Oct 01:30 pm

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Indian markets continued to trade strong during the post noon trading session. All the sectoral indices are trading in green, with metal and banking stocks leading the pack of gainers.

BSE-Sensex is up by 396 points and NSE-Nifty is trading up by 119 points. While BSE Mid Cap is trading up by 0.84%, BSE Mid Cap index is trading up by 0.59% The rupee is trading at 61.38 to the US dollar.

Majority of the Software stocks are trading in the green with NIIT and Wipro being among the major gainers. As per the financial daily, Infosys is looking to hire approx 8,000 new employees in Pune in next six months. The company is looking for expansion plan for which company is getting another 150 acres in Pune. Reportedly, the company will shortly, begin operations in Hinjewadi, Phase II. The company will be hiring nearly 4,200 software employees now and more in March 2014, once the company’s third unit becomes operational. The company expects growth from various verticals viz; finance, insurance, banking, energy, retail and manufacturing segments. On back of this, the company will equip itself with sufficient manpower. Infosys was trading up by 1.10% at the time of writing.

Majority of the engineering stocks are trading in the green with Jyoti Structure & Jain Irrigation being the biggest gainers. AIA Engineering and Alstom T&D are among the few stocks trading in the red. As per a leading financial daily, the ultra mega power project (UMPP) programme has been rejuvenated by the government after five years to provide an impetus to the ailing power sector. The government has invited bids for two 4,000 MW units each at Bedabahal in Orissa and Cheyyur in Tamil Nadu which are likely to be awarded by February 2014. The new bidding guidelines make it mandatory for developers to source power equipment from Indian or foreign companies or joint ventures that have manufacturing base in India. This means that the two UMPPs would have to source boiler, turbine, generator and other core equipment for the power plant valued at Rs 240 bn locally. This is likely to provide a boost to domestic capital goods companies that are currently sitting on idle capacity. The earlier UMPP developers had sourced equipment from Chinese and Korean manufacturers due to cheaper price as well as lack of capacity for capital goods giant, Bharat Heavy Electricals (BHEL). However, BHEL has expanded its capacity to 20,000 MW and even private companies have entered power equipment business by forming joint-ventures with foreign companies such as Larsen & Toubro - Misubishi Heavy Industries, JSW Energy-Toshiba Corp, Bharat Forge-Alstom and Thermax-Babcock and Wilcox company.