After trading in the negative territory during post noon trading session, the Indian equity markets lost further ground and closed in the red. While the BSE-Sensex today closed lower by 229 points, the NSE-Nifty closed lower by 63 points. Midcaps and Smallcaps too closed in the red today. While the BSE Mid Cap index was down by 0.6%, the BSE Small Cap index closed lower by 0.67%. Oil & gas and realty stocks were the biggest losers today.
As regards global markets, the Asian pack too closed weak. The rupee was trading at Rs 62.31 odd levels to the dollar at the time of writing.
Sugar stocks ended the day on a strong note today after government increased the price for procurement of ethanol to Rs 48.5-49.5 per litre. The rates (lower or higher end) will depend upon the distance between sugar mill and the depot of an oil company which procures ethanol. The new rate is much higher than what the oil companies currently pay to sugar manufacturers for supplying ethanol. It may be noted that ethanol is blended with petrol and is a by-product of sugar. Hence, oil companies have to buy it from sugar producers; the price of which is fixed by the government. An increase in price of ethanol shall benefit sugar producers as their realizations shall improve. This led to a huge rally in sugar stocks today.
Oil & gas stocks have ended the day on a weak note. The demand for OPEC crude is likely to fall to 28.9 m barrels per day in 2015; the lowest level seen in a decade. Slower growth in Europe & Asia and higher supply from non-OPEC sources is one of the many reasons for a fall in demand for OPEC crude. The US shale boom is another reason for reduced demand for OPEC crude. However, considering that the US shale oil will be expensive in nature as it requires huge investments, it would be interesting to see if it is indeed able to suppress the OPEC output in the long term.
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