Profit booking caps Sensex gains

Wed, 7 Dec Closing

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Indices in the Indian stock market managed a positive start and stayed in the positive territory throughout the session today. However, profit booking in heavyweights from power, pharma, banking and telecom sectors led the indices to come off from the day's highs during the final hours of trade. While the BSE-Sensex closed higher by around 71 points (up 0.4%), the NSE-Nifty closed higher by around 23 points (up 0.5%). The BSE Mid Cap and BSE Small Cap closed marginally in the positive (0.2%) as well. Losses were largely seen in FMCG and healthcare stocks.

As regards global markets, Asian indices closed mixed today while the European indices have opened in the green. The rupee was trading at Rs 51.57 to the dollar at the time of writing.

As per a business daily, the engineering, construction and contracts division (ECC) of Larsen & Toubro (L&T) has bagged an order worth Rs 27 bn. In the building and factories segment, the company secured new orders worth Rs 11 bn from reputed customers for the construction of a major residential complex consisting of 23 towers of up to 29 stories. The company has also bagged an order for the construction of warehouse facility. In the infrastructure segment, orders valued at Rs 3.5 bn have been secured by the company for the construction of a viaduct, including two stations building for Kolkata metro railway. The other order secured through Rail Vikas Nigam, pertains to the construction of viaduct and related work for the Kolkata Metro. In the power transmission and distribution segment, the company has secured orders worth Rs 7.6 bn from various clients for the construction of transmission lines, electrical works including substations.

The company has a healthy order book to the tune of Rs 1.4 tn. This provides strong revenue visibility into the future. The company is also looking to diversify and increase its presence in international markets. L&T aims to garner 15-20% of its revenues from international markets as compared to 10-12% garnered last year in order to eschew local concerns. This should further support revenue growth in the future.

Meanwhile, tractors and utility vehicles manufacturer Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) is planning to double the output of the XUV500 in phases over the next eight months. Recently, the company announced that, it is likely to re-open bookings of its latest sports utility vehicle XUV500 from January 2012. The company had stopped taking new orders from customers since October 11 after it received over 8,000 bookings of the vehicle within just 10 days of launch. The production for the XUV500 is as per schedule and the company is also in the process of ramping up production at its plant in Chakan, which will enable it to re-open bookings next month.

The auto industry in recent times has been facing many headwinds in the form of rising fuel prices and interest rates which have dampened demand and consequently led to lower sales for many players in this space. But this has not deterred M&M's performance. Besides logging in strong growth rates in FY10 and FY11 in tandem with the buoyancy in the industry, the company put up a healthy show in 1HFY12 as well with sales growing by 33% YoY.