Indian share markets remain buoyant

Thu, 21 Mar 01:30 pm

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With buying sentiment strong in index heavyweights, Indian share markets continued to trade higher in the post-noon trading session. Majority of the sectoral indices are trading in green with consumer durables, banking and metal stocks being the biggest gainers. Auto, FMCG and pharma are among the few stocks trading in red.

BSE-Sensex is up 164 points and NSE-Nifty is trading up 55 points. While BSE Mid Cap is up 0.3%, BSE Small Cap index is trading up by 0.2%. The rupee is trading at 54.2 to the US dollar.

Most of the public sector bank stocks are trading in green, with Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank being the biggest gainers and Bank of Baroda and Canara Bank being the biggest losers. As per a leading financial daily, data by state-run banks shows that infrastructure projects worth Rs 7,000 bn have been stuck in limbo for want of environmental and forest clearances in case of land and fuel. The investment is locked up in 215 projects ranging across power, roads, ports, cement and steels each with an estimated cost of Rs 2.5 bn or more. Delay in approval will push up project costs and further raise the riskiness for public sector banks that have a credit exposure of Rs 540 bn to infrastructure projects. The power sector is the worst affected with pending projects amounting to Rs 5390 bn. This is followed by roads and steel having pending projects of Rs 1230 bn and Rs 325 bn, respectively. The data was compiled by the state-run banks for a meeting with the Finance Minister.

Most of the software stocks are trading in green with Moser-Baer India and CMC Ltd leading among the pack of gainers. As per the financial daily, IT leading companies viz., TCS and Infosys are competing for a contract worth Rs 2 bn from Corporation bank. The contract is for improving the bank's core banking software from the current version. This contract is currently served by Chennai-based software company Polaris Financial Technology. Other IT services companies including Wipro and HP are also bidding for the said contract. Reportedly, the bank is evaluating the offers received so far and the contract is expected to be awarded in April. This is one more deal, where the country's largest IT services firms are fighting to get the contract. Infosys, generates around 2% of its revenues from the domestic market. However company is now focusing in the Indian market. For TCS, India market contributes about 7.5% of its total revenues. Both the stocks TCS and Infosys were trading up by 0.5% and 0.4% respectively.