As selling continued across the board, Indian share markets slipped deeper into the red in the post noon trading session. Barring IT, all the sectoral indices are trading in the negative with realty, oil and gas and auto stocks being the biggest losers.
BSE-Sensex is down 135 points and NSE-Nifty is trading down 47 points. While BSE Mid Cap is trading down 0.9%, BSE Small Cap index is trading down by 0.8%. The rupee is trading at 55.1 to the US dollar.
Majority of the fertilizer stocks are trading in the red with Nagarjuna Fertilizers and Zuari Industries being the major losers. According to leading financial daily, Tata Chemicals is launching a program to optimize fixed costs across business segments to ward off margin pressures from higher fuel & oil prices as well as aggressive pricing by China. Tata Chemicals is the world's leading producer of soda ash with manufacturing facilities in India, UK, Kenya and the US. The company also manufactures urea and phosphatic fertilizers through its subsidiary Rallis. Tata Chemicals concluded the implementation of 'project energise' for shared services in India which is expected to yield fixed cost savings of at least Rs 300 m. In both Kenya and United Kingdom, Tata Chemicals has embarked on projects to optimize costs and improve efficiency. However, the European markets are a cause of concern for the company on account of falling consumer demand. Tata Chemicals stock is currently down 0.6%.
As reported by a business daily, Planning Commission Deputy Montek Singh Ahluwalia believes that India should see better growth during the second half of the current fiscal on the back of the government's efforts to propel growth. According to the projection of the Finance Ministry, the growth rate in the second half of the current fiscal is expected to be close to about 6%. The growth during the first half stood at 5.4%. As for the full year, growth is expected to be in the range of 5.7% to 5.9%. Growth rate during FY12 stood at 6.5%.
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