Reliance Struggles to Lift Gas Ouput; Maruti Suzuki, Sterlite Up

Devan Biswas
25 Apr, 2011
New York City

Stocks in Mumbai traded higher but in a directionless trading and silver and gold surged to highs. Reliance Industries confirmed the difficulty of increasing gas output and also planned to increase production at fields in the Bay of Bengal. Sterlite and Maruti reported higher than expected earnings.

[R]5:00 PM Mumbai – Stocks in Mumbai traded higher but in a directionless trading and silver and gold surged to highs. Reliance Industries confirmed the difficulty of increasing gas output and also planned to increase production at fields in the Bay of Bengal. Sterlite and Maruti reported higher than expected earnings.[/R]

Stocks in Mumbai vacillated in trading but edged lower at close. The index in volatile trading but in a narrow range lacked momentum in the late afternoon. Reliance Industries dropped 3% after it indicated difficulty in increasing gas output.

The Sensex index declined 17.92 to 19,584.31 and the Nifty index fell 10.20 to 5,874.50.

Of the stocks traded on the Bombay Stock Exchange, 1,562 declined, 1,317 increased and 107 were unchanged.

Among the stocks in the Sensex index, 18 declined and 12 increased.

The rupee closed at 45.28 to a dollar and the price of ten grams of gold increased Rs 60 to Rs 22,380.

Silver price for a kilo increased Rs 2,300 to Rs 74,300 and closed at a new record. The precious metal increased Rs 11,100 in the last seven trading days.

At 138 companies so far announcing quarterly results, earnings rose 27.1% to Rs 18,715 crore and sales increased 27.2% to Rs 156,428 crore. Only five companies accounted for 50% of all the earnings.

Stock Movers

Sterlite Industries increased 4.4% after it reported fourth quarter net income excluding one time items rose 35.05% to Rs 1,925 crore on sales increase of 38.5% to Rs 10,781.51 crore.

Maruti Suzuki increased 1.4% after the largest automaker in India reported quarterly net profit increased 16.7% to Rs 659.90 crore and sales increased 6.1% to Rs 10,212.10 crore.

For the fiscal year ended in March, net profit fell 8.4% to Rs 2,288.60 core on sales increase of 24.6% to Rs 37,522.40 crore.

Reliance Industries declined 3% after it reported lower than expected profit increase in the latest quarter of 14.1% to Rs 5,376 crore on 26.5% increase in sales of Rs 73,591 crore.

Gross refining margin in the quarter was $9.20 a barrel, lower than expected on the shutdown of a key chemical unit for 46 days.

Also, natural gas output declined to 50 million cubic meters a day from 60 million cubic meters a day in the quarter a year ago and fallen short of the expectations of 69.8 million cubic meters a day.

Software export companies retained a positive momentum after TCS reported sharply higher earnings. TCS increased 0.16%, Wipro added 1% and Infosys gained 1.3%.

Unitech declined 1.3% after the real estate developer appointed a new chairman for its telecom joint venture Uninor with Norway based Telenor. Last week a court rejected bail application for the current chairman Sanjay Chandra for CBI charges related to 2G spectrum telecom licenses.