Small caps buck the trend

Wed, 9 Dec 02:30 pm

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Amidst a choppy session of trade, the Indian indices managed to pare part of their early losses during the previous two hours of trade. Some buying activity witnessed in the telecom, IT, auto and realty sectors helped the benchmark indices to move up towards the dotted line. However, currently stocks from the metal, banking, oil & gas and FMCG sectors are weighing heavy on the indices.

The BSE-Sensex and the NSE-Nifty are in the red, shedding around 70 points and 21 points respectively. While the BSE-Midcap is trading lower by around 0.4%, BSE-Smallcap is trading marginally up by 0.5%. The rupee is trading weak at 46.71 to the dollar.

According to a leading business daily, Suzlon, the world’s third largest wind turbine maker, has won a 31.5 MW order from a Rajasthan state PSU for building 15 units of Suzlon’s S88 wind turbines. This is the seventh order and single largest of its kind that Suzlon has won from Rajasthan State Mines and Minerals (RSMML). With this RSMML aims to increase its total wind energy portfolio to 106 MW. This project once completed is expected to produce enough electricity to power as many as 6,000 households. RSMML which is a leading PSU in the renewable energy segment has continued its partnership with Suzlon, thereby strengthening the latter’s presence in India. Suzlon is currently trading in the negative.

As per a leading business daily, there appear to be more hiccups in the way of much awaited 3G spectrum auction. The auction might get delayed beyond the previous scheduled date of 14 January on account of uncertainty over available spectrum and also the number of slots to be put up for bidding. Currently the bone of contention is the 5 Mhz of 3G spectrum which is currently held by the Indian defence sector. According to the MOU, the spectrum will become available only after 3 years when the alternate defence network gets completed. However, the market conditions may be very different then. This situation has resulted in a dilemma about whether to auction that bandwidth or not.

It may be noted that about 20 Mhz of 3G spectrum will be available from the Defence department by September 2010, 5 Mhz of which will go to government telecom players like BSNL and MTNL and the rest 15 Mhz could be auctioned amongst private players in 3 blocks of 5 Mhz each. We believe that the sooner the issue gets resolved the better for the Indian telecom players like Bharti Airtel, Idea and RCom. These telecom players are betting big on 3G as the next wave of growth.  Stocks from the telecom segment are trading higher.