Asian stock markets have opened the day on a mixed note. Stock market in Japan (down 1.4%), China (down 1.2%), Indonesia (down 1.0%), Hong Kong (down 0.9%), Malaysia (down 0.8%) and Singapore (down 0.6%) is in the red. The Indian stock market have opened the day on a weak note. Stocks in the Capital Goods and Metal space are leading the losses while IT stocks are in the green.
The BSE-Sensex is trading down by 46 points (0.3%) and the NSE-Nifty is down by around 18 points (0.4%). BSE Midcap and BSE Small cap stocks have opened on a weak note, with the BSE Mid Cap indices down by 0.5% and BSE Small Cap down by 0.1%. The rupee is trading at 53.30 to the US dollar.
Power Stocks have opened the day on a weak note with Coal India Ltd and Tata Power in the red. The trade unions of Coal India Ltd (CIL) have demanded an increase of 50% in pay in the next wage agreement. This will be the 10th five years pact and will come in effect from 1st July 2011. In the last wage agreement CIL had increased hikes worth 24%. CIL has opened a 2 day discussion with joint bi-partite consultative committee (JBC) meeting at Bhubaneswar. CIL has offered a 10% hike against the demand of 50% hike by the workers. In a official statement, CIL said, "Considering the economic downturn and the hardship faced by consumers, we requested the trade unions to accept 10% hike." The unions also had forced CIL to pay Rs 21,000 as festival bonus to all of its 363,000 employees.
IT Stocks have opened the day on a firm note with Infosys and Wipro trading in the red. Nearly 150,000 employees of Infosys worked extra hard this quarter as the company shortened weekend break from 4 to 2 for the month. This is a rare step which will help the company to probably meet its revenue growth targets. Infosys has guided a 3-5% of revenue growth and is unlikely to meet the upper-end of growth target. The employees worked extra on November 19 and December 10 (both Saturdays). The chief financial officer, V Balakrishnan, said that the company may not reach the upper end of its sales growth forecast of 17.1% to 19.1% for the financial year. Traditionally, Infosys has always delivered on the higher end of the forecasts.
For information on how to pick stocks that have the potential to deliver big returns, download our special report now!
Read the latest Market Commentary
Equitymaster requests your view! Post a comment on "Weak Rupee drags Indian stocks markets". Click here!
Comments are moderated by Equitymaster, in accordance with the Terms of Use, and may not appear
on this article until they have been reviewed and deemed appropriate for posting.
In the meantime, you may want to share this article with your friends!