Indian equity markets continued to trade in the green during the last two hours of trade. Sectoral indices traded in the green except IT stocks.
The BSE-Sensex is trading higher by 72 points and NSE-Nifty is trading up by 20 points. BSE Mid Cap and BSE Small Cap indices are trading up by 0.2% and 0.4% respectively. The rupee is trading at 53.81 to the US dollar.
Hotel stocks are trading strong led by Hotel Leelaventure and EIH. Tata group company Indian Hotels had earlier expressed its desire to take over the entire operations of US-based hospitality chain Orient Express Hotels. Indian Hotels is now prepared to increase its offer from earlier offered US$ 1.86 bn if it finds more value in the business after going through the books of the Orient Express Hotels. Earlier, the company had made an offer solely on the basis of publicly available information which could now be revised upwards if Indian Hotels finds Orient Express to be more valuable. In the meanwhile, Orient Express has described Indian Hotels attempt to acquire it as "unsolicited".
FMCG stocks are trading in the green led by Godrej Consumer and Paper Products. Dabur India announced results for second quarter of financial year 2012-2013 (2QFY13). The FMCG company reported a 21% YoY growth in sales backed by robust growth in all business segments. Consumer care grew by 18%, home care and health supplement businesses posted growths of 23% and 15.7% respectively, and food segment grew by 19% during the quarter. Operating margin contracted by 1.8% during the quarter due to a steep rise in ad-spends and other expenditure. Net profits were up by 16% YoY on the back of higher sales growth, lower interest expenses and jump in other income that grew by 77% YoY during the quarter.
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