1st July, 2013 : Comments by Amar Ambani, Head of Research, India Infoline
What a start to the week! After enjoying a fantastic Friday, the Indian equity market continued its winning streak on Monday with the Nifty ending a shade below the 5900 mark. The Sensex managed to close above the 19,500 mark at 19,577, up 182 points, while the Nifty shut shop at 5,899 up 57 points over Friday’s close.
But things weren’t hunky-dowry at the start of trade. The market opened flat given the lack of clear overseas cues. However, there was no looking back from thereon with the benchmark indices just surging higher. The rally was led by realty, power, capital goods, FMCG and metal stocks. Mid- and small-cap stocks outperformed the benchmark indices. On the other hand, IT and telecom stocks were under pressure.
The gainers pack was led by Ranbaxy, Reliance Infrastructure, DLF, Sesa Goa, JP Associates, Maruti, GAIL India, SBI, Bank of Baroda, NTPC, L&T and BHEL while Infoys, HCL Technologies, TCS, ONGC, Sun Pharmaceutical, NMDC, ACC, Lupin and ICICI Bank lost out.
The advance-decline ratio favoured the bulls. On the Bombay Stock Exchange, 1,611 stocks advanced against 768 declines, while 127 stocks remained unchanged.
Volatility, as measured by India VIX, remained flat at 18.09. It hit a day’s high of 18.72 and low of 17.95.
There seems to be no respite for auto players. Rising petrol prices, a slowing economy and fall in discretionary incomes are giving auto companies sleepless nights. Amar Ambani, Head of Research at IIFL, expects the weakness in domestic auto sales to persist for the remainder of the current fiscal. “Volumes continue to remain weak for most automotive players in June. While Maruti and Tata Motors saw declines in all segments they cater to, fall in M&M’s automotive volumes was offset by strong tractor segment sales. TVS Motors saw weakness in domestic volumes but registered robust growth in exports.”