Indian equity markets continued to trade weak over the previous two hours of trade. IT witnessed maximum buying interest, while auto and realty stocks witnessed maximum selling pressure.
The Sensex today is down by 115 points, while the NSE-Nifty today is down by 41 points. BSE Mid Cap index and the BSE Small Cap index is down by 0.45% and 0.37% respectively. The rupee is trading at 55.14 to the US dollar.
Energy stocks are trading weak led by Cairn India and Essar Oil. According to a leading financial daily, Reliance Industries is planning to restart a crude distillation unit one to two days after a fire at its older, 660,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) refinery in Jamnagar. The fire broke out during maintenance on the unit, which was shut at the time. The company is still investigating the cause of the fire. The fire was minor and was contained immediately. The company is planning to shut a 13.5 metric tonnes per annum (270,000 bpd) crude distillation unit for about 40 days in January. It is also planning to shut a 6.5 mmtpa vacuum gasoil hydrotreater unit.
Automobile stocks are trading in the red led by Tube Investments and Tata Motors. As per a leading financial daily, output of passenger cars has declined in India in the financial year so far (April-November) by 1%. Of the 16 car manufacturers, 9 companies have reported fall in production while 3 others have reported marginal rise in the same. The reasons for such a dismal performance are attributed to high interest rates, increase in fuel price and higher input cost. The fortunes of the passenger vehicle industry are directly related with GDP growth which too has been very low. The companies with reduced production include Fiat India Automobiles (47% fall), Mercedes Benz (26.8% fall) and General Motors (23.7% fall) among others. However, the ones that have done well so far are Renault India (616% growth), Honda Cars India (83% growth) and a couple of others.
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