The Indian markets continued to hover around the dotted region during the post noon trading session. While stocks from the auto and power sectors seem to have found favour amongst investors, those form the realty and information technology spaces are amongst the top underperformers at the moment.
The Sensex today is trading flat, higher by about 15 points, while the NSE-Nifty is trading higher by about 7 points. Stocks from the midcap and smallcap spaces are trading weak with the BSE Mid Cap and BSE Small Cap indices down by about 0.2% each. The rupee is trading at 54.98 to the US dollar.
Mining stocks are trading mixed with National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) and Coal India trading in green and Gujarat NRE Coke and Sesa Goa trading in red. As per a leading financial daily, Coal India Ltd (CIL) has said that it will not be able to fulfill the domestic coal demand from indigenous sources until the 13th Five-Year Plan (2017-2022) on account of technical and environmental issues that need to be addressed. According to the company, it needs to supply coal to the additional 90,000 MW capacity over the 306 m tonnes currently being supplied by it to thermal electricity plants. While the production shortfall in the 11th Five-year plan (2007-2012) stood at 140 m tonnes, the gap is expected to widen to 185 m tonnes in the 12th Five-year Plan (2012-2017). The company has said that it will introduce a system of internal environmental audit which will be considered as important as production and off take. CIL has signed 30 fuel supply agreements with power producers till now.
Steel stocks are currently trading weak led by JSW Steel and JSW Ispat. A leading business daily has reported that steel prices are expected to move up given that global steel prices have firmed up. At the same time, the price hike cannot be too high given that the stronger Rupee has made imports cheaper. Steel prices in India have moved down by about 5% odd over the past month on the back of the weak demand. As per Business Line, steel prices in India have fallen to Rs 33,375 a tonne in November from Rs 35,000 last month. It may be noted that the Index of Industrial production fell by 0.4% during the month of September 2012 with the manufacturing sector down by about 1.5%. A lot of the revival in demand will depend on the demand from the auto sector.
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