The Indian stock market held the ground despite government’s lower growth projection for this year as investors awaited for the next major trigger from the Budget on 28 February.
At 09:38, the Sensex was at 19591.66, up 0.06 percent and the Nifty at 5937, down 0.03 percent. The BSE index got support form a rise in heavyweight Tata Motors.
Reuters
The earnings growth during the quarter has been at “very tepid pace” due to the economic situation, said Prabhat Awasthi of Nomura on CNBC TV18. The market has not taken this into account yet, he said.
The ministry of statistics yesterday released data that showed the country’s GDP could grow just 5 percent this year, lower than the government’s earlier estimate and that of the RBI’s.
The RBI’s forecast for 2012/13 had been 5.5 percent growth, while Finance Minister P. Chidambaram had projected a growth of 5.7 percent, down from 6.2 percent in 2011/12.
EBITDA margins of auto companies are expected to improve on higher volumes, better mix, favourable forex (depreciating the yen against dollar for Hero and Maruti Suzuki), brokerage Motilal Oswal said recently. It said it is upbeat on Tata Motors and Maruti Suzuki among large caps.
Tata Motors was up 1.6 percent at Rs 293, while Maruti Suzuki was flat at 1623.70.
NTPC, which garnered Rs 11,000 crore from its offer for sale, was up 0.4 percent at Rs 148.75.
ACC was down 1.3 percent at Rs 1,328 fter the company reported an 18.6 percent fall in consolidated net profit for the year 2012 to Rs 1,059 crore.
