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Indian Indices End on Flat Note
Tue, 8 Mar Closing

Indian equity markets closed the day on a flat note. Stocks from the energy and metal spaces led the gains, while banking stocks ended in losses. The BSE Mid Cap index ended lower by 0.3% while the BSE Small Cap index was up by 0.2%. The BSE Sensex closed higher by about 13 points (0.1%). The NSE-Nifty came in flat as well.

On the global front, most of the Asian indices have closed the day on a negative note. Hang Seng and Nikkei 225 ended lower by 0.7% and 0.8% respectively. The European indices trade in the red. The FTSE 100 is down 1% while France's CAC 40 is down 1.73% and Germany's DAX is down 1.58%. The rupee was trading at Rs 67.39 to the dollar at the time of writing.

Stocks from the auto space ended the day on a mixed note with Eicher Motors leading the gains and Maharashtra Scooters leading the losses. As per a leading financial daily, Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) is re-thinking its strategy for loss-making Korean automaker SsangYong Motor Company. The company is planning to tie-up with a Chinese company to manufacture SsangYong vehicles for the China market.

The company is in talks with Chinese firms to enter into a contract manufacturing agreement or form a joint venture for this purpose.

Further, as per the strategy, the company is discounting its planned push into the United States. M&M was to launch SsangYong in the US; but has now changed its strategy to focus on China. At present, Korean manufactured models are sold through a distributor in China. The company's management stated that it makes sense to focus on expanding sales in an existing market before going to the US and building a distribution network from the ground up.

M&M acquired over 70% stake in SsangYong in 2011. However, the Indian major has not been able to turn it around and SsangYong continues to report losses. SsangYong is also witnessing declining sales in Russia, which was once a major market for it. The Korean carmaker sold about 145,000 units in 2015, slightly higher than 141,000 a year earlier. Moreover, exports accounted for just a third of its sales in 2015, as against more than half in 2014.

M&M is investing almost a billion dollars to boost SsangYong's product lineup. The company is of the view that the launch of its new compact sport-utility vehicle (SUV) Tivoli, which has seen strong demand in South Korea, will help drive up sales in China, where smaller SUVs are booming.

M&M closed the day in the red, down by about 0.3%.

In another news update, it is reported that gems and jewellery exports declined by 14.5% to US$ 25.95 billion during the first ten months of the current fiscal. This was witnessed on the back of a slowdown in global demand.

Exports of cut and polished diamonds fell to US$ 15.8 billion during April 2015-January 2016. A year ago, the figure stood at US$ 19 billion. However, exports of gold medallion and coins increased to US$ 4.5 billion during the period as against US$ 2 billion in the same period previous fiscal.

Apart from the global slowdown in demand, the rejection of consignments was one of the reasons for dip in the value of exports. During the ten-month period of the current fiscal, consignments worth US$ 5.2 billion were returned as compared to US$ 2.7 billion during the same period previous year.

Indian exports have fallen dramatically. Export have been poor since the second half of 2015. A recent articles by Vivek Kaul explains the reasons behind the same. You can read it here.

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