Rising Auto Sales, Sensex Up

123jump.com Staff
02 Apr, 2008
New York City

Vehicle sales in March rose despite a rise in interest rate. Mahindra sales in March surged 20% and sales at Tata rose 6%. However, Bajaj sales of motorbikes fell 10% on stiff competition in the segment. Maruti earlier reported flat sales from a year ago. Tata Motors rose 1.5% and Mahindra gained 2.6%. Indiabull Securities fell to a new low today.

[R]10:00AM New York, 8:30 PM Mumbai – Auto sales in March rose as reported by Tata and Mahindra but Bajaj sales declined. Maruti reported flat sales yesterday.[/R]

Indian stocks retreated from an early advance but managed to close up on robust performance in both the Asian markets and European markets.

Market Sentiment

The Sensex rose 0.80% or 123.78 at 15,750.40 and the S&P CNX Nifty gained 0.31% or 14.65 at 4,754.20.

Of the BSE stocks 1734 shares gained, 938 declined and 50 were unchanged. Total turnover amounted to 4,769 crore rupees on BSE as compared to 4,718 crore rupees yesterday and on the NSE the daily trading turnover was 11,199 crore rupees.

India’s steel makers to restrain prices

Reuters news reported today that Steel Secretary R.S. Pandey said India’s primary steel producers will not increase prices and he added that secondary steel producers would refrain from exports to improve local supplies.

Gainers & Losers

IT companies rose. Infosys Technologies edged up 4.34% to 1,483 rupees, Wipro rose 1.10% to 413.50 rupees, Satyam Computer Services advanced 1.91% to 405 rupees and TCS increased 2.06% to 852 rupees.

Oil refiner Reliance Industries declined 0.22% at 2,340 rupees after reporting yesterday in a statement that it has discovered more gas in an exploration block off the east coast.

Jaiprakash Associates increased 2.51% to 231 rupees, HDFC gained 3.82% to 2450 crore rupees and Bharti Airtel advanced 1.32% to 815.25 rupees.

Financial stocks gained as well. ICICI Bank gained 3.93% to 786.25 rupees, State Bank of India rose 1.51% to 1,649 rupees and HDFC Bank edged up 0.45% to 1,314 rupees.

Reliance Energy slid 5.15% to 1,222 rupees.

Steel stocks fell on news the government has asked steel makers to cut prices by 10% to 20%. Tata Steel, the country’s largest private sector in terms of sales, shed 3.50% to 644 rupees, JSW Steel fell 4.93% to 785 rupees, Steel Authority of India declined 4.13% to 167.30 rupees and Jindal Steel & Power climbed down 2.36% to 1965 rupees.

GSS America Systems was the most active stock on the BSE on 344.18 crore rupees turnover followed by Reliance Industries with 318.62 crore rupees, Reliance Capital had 277.80 crore rupees, Essar Oil with 209.51 crore rupees and Reliance Petroleum with 207.35 crore rupees.

Indiabulls Securities led the stocks most active by volume with volume of 1.50 crore shares followed by Reliance Petroleum with 1.22 crore, Kashyap Technologies 1.10 crore and Reliance Natural Resources with 1.02 crore and Essar Oil with 95.50 lakh respectively.

March unit sales at Bajaj Auto decline 10%

Bajaj Auto Ltd reported today that vehicle sales in March fell 10 percent to 176,101 units from 196,592 units a year earlier and sales of motorbikes fell 8% to 154,297 units from 168,505 units, while sales of three-wheelers declined 16% to 20,765 units from 24,608 units.

Also for the fiscal year ending in March, Bajaj Auto, a unit of Bajaj Holdings, posted a 10% fall in vehicle sales to 2.45 million units from 2.72 million from a year ago.

Mahindra & Mahindra rose 2.61% to 667.25 crore rupees after vehicle sales rose 20% to 24,682 units in March.

Similarly, Tata Motors rose 1.51% to 636.90 crore rupees after it said yesterday vehicle sales 6% to 66,495 units, while sales of commercial vehicles increased 17% to 35,993 units and sales of cars and utility vehicles fell 4% to 24,737 in March for the same comparative period last year.