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Flat Finish to a Volatile Day
Fri, 29 Apr Closing

After having witnessed a fairly volatile day with the index crossing the dotted line in the afternoon session, the Indian stock markets ended the day marginally in the green amid weak international cues. At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex closed higher by 4 points, the NSE Nifty finished higher by 3 points. The S&P BSE Midcap finished up by 0.2% while, the S&P BSE Small Cap finished down by 0.1%. Losses were largely seen in consumer durables and IT stocks.

Asian markets finished broadly lower today with shares in Japan leading the region. Hong Kong's Hang Seng is off 1.50% and China's Shanghai Composite is lower by 0.25%. The Nikkei 225 lost more than 5% for the week. European equities fell sharply and headed for their biggest weekly decline in one month with shares in France leading the losses. The CAC 40 is down by 1.3%, while the markets in London and Germany are trading down by 0.5% and 0.8% respectively.

The rupee was trading at 66.52 against the US$ in the afternoon session. Oil prices were trading at US$ 46.58 at the time of writing.

Shares of Dabur India surged more than 2% in intraday trading today after it was reported that the company has received an approval for capital expenditure of Rs 2.5 billion for setting up a manufacturing plant at Tezpur, Assam which shall be financed through internal accruals. The plant is likely to commence the operations in the year 2017.

This step has been taken in order to meet the growing demand for products of the company. The board of directors at its meeting held on April 28, 2016 has approved for the same.

Further the sentiments were also boosted as the company has posted a rise of 16.56% in its net profit after taxes, minority interest and share of profit of associates at Rs 3.31 billion for the quarter ended March 31, 2016 as compared to Rs 2.84 billion for the corresponding quarter in the FY15. Total income of the company increased by 11.19% at Rs 22.17 billion for quarter under review as compared to Rs 19.94 billion for the same quarter ended previous year.

FMCG stocks finished the day on a mixed note with Marico Ltd and Bata India leading the gains.

The FMCG sector has had quite a volatile run over the past year. This can be gauged from the kind of valuation changes the sector has seen in recent times. With rural consumption slowing down, volume growth declining to single digit levels and the intensifying competition, the volumes of market leaders have taken a hit. All of these factors have led to a major shift in valuations of FMCG companies over time.

Moving on to news from the energy sector. According to an article in The Economic Times, Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) is investing Rs 450 billion to expand its refining capacity to meet the rapidly rising fuel consumption in the country. The company plans to raise its refining capacity by a quarter in brownfield expansion, debottlenecking and fuel quality upgrade projects in the next five to seven years. Under this, its freshly-built Paradip refinery will expand to 20 million tonne from 15 million tonne today, so will its Panipat facility. The company also plans to invest heavily in fuel marketing and distribution infrastructure as well as exploration and production.

India's fuel consumption grew 11% in 2015-16 and is expected to rise more than 7% in the current fiscal. Meanwhile, the company is reportedly also preparing for a future when batteries will increasingly replace car fuel tanks. So if petrol and diesel were to run out of car owners' favor tomorrow, the refinery should be flexible enough to tweak its output to be able to supply more raw material to the company's growing petrochemicals business. The company is also investing heavily in research and development in this regard. The scrip of IOC finished the day up by 2.1% on the BSE.

Buying was witnessed across majority of the energy stocks with BPCL and Cairn India leading the charts.

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