Nifty ends in red; auto, tech, metals down

Indian markets ended in the red after briefly moving into positive terrain. Gains in oil&gas, FMCG and capital goods were offset by losses in auto, technology and metals space.

National Stock Exchange’s Nifty ended at 5537.30, down 27.95 points or 0.50 per cent. The broader index touched a high of 5578.80 and low of 5503 intraday.

Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensex closed at 18469.36, down 65.33 points or 0.35 per cent. The 30-share recovered from intraday low of 18339.53 and high of 18604.36.

BSE Midcap Index was down 0.45 per cent and BSE Smallcap Index moved 0.54 per cent lower.

Amongst the sectoral indices, BSE Auto Index was down 1.33 per cent, BSE IT Index moved 1.08 per cent lower and BSE Metal Index slipped 1.05 per cent. BSE Oil&gas Index was up 1.2 per cent and BSE FMCG gained 0.36 per cent.

ACC (-6.20%), Ambuja Cement (-5.61%), Bajaj Auto (-4.91%), Dr Reddy’s Laboratories (-4.64%) and Grasim (-4.57%) and were the top losers.

ONGC (5.73%), BPCL (4.18%), Punjab National Bank (3.47%), HDFC Bank (1.76%) and Ranbaxy Laboratories (1.62%) were the major Sensex gainers.

Market breadth was negative on the NSE with 1687 declines against 1110 advances.

Sensex slips into red; Realty, auto stocks fall

The markets have reversed direction and have slipped into the red. The Sensex fell 111 points to 19,479 and the Nifty declined 37 points to 5,848.

The markets have been consolidating over the past 3-4 sessions after the sharp up move that saw the benchmark indices gaining 10 per cent over 10 days. Analysts say there is little headroom for the markets on the upside from these levels.

Ambareesh Baliga of Way2Wealth said, "The markets are towards the end of the rally seen in the last 2-3 weeks. There are no data points for the markets to shoot above these levels."

Somil Mehta of Sharekhan said, "Investors need to be cautious because the markets have entered a euphoric stage because small caps and mid-caps are moving too fast. The Nifty is likely to head towards 5,700 levels."

All sectoral indices slipped into the red. Realty stocks saw sharp cut with the BSE Realty index slipping 1.6 per cent. Indiabulls Real Estate declined 4 per cent. HDIL fell 3.5 per cent. DLF was trading 1.4 per cent lower.

Auto stocks declined 1.2 per cent. TVS Motors fell 2.7 per cent. Tata Motors declined 2.2 per cent. Bajaj Auto, Hero Honda, M&M and Maruti were trading 1-2 per cent lower.

On the Sensex, only 5 stocks were trading higher. Bharti took the lead, rising 1.8 per cent. ITC, HUL, Sterlite and HDFC Bank were in the green. Jaiprakash Associates and Wipro fell 2-2.5 per cent.


Shilpi Cable Tech had a strong listing today but the stock has come under selling pressure and was trading 1 per cent lower.

Asian markets rose overlooking another strong quake in Japan. The Nikkei 225 in Japan was trading 2 per cent higher. The Hang Seng and South Korea's Kospi gained more than 0.5 per cent.

Overnight, the Dow closed with minor losses, down 17 points to 12,409.

Read more at: http://profit.ndtv.com/news/show/sensex-slips-into-red-realty-auto-stocks-fall-148311?pfrom=home-Business&cp

Bajaj Auto may see sales of 4 lakh units by Q1FY12

In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Rajiv Bajaj, managing director of Bajaj Auto, spoke about the latest happenings in his company and the road ahead.

Below is a verbatim transcript of the interview. Also watch the video.

Q: Can you start by giving us the March total numbers and a breakup?

A: March is actually been a good month for us — possibly our best March ever. We have done close to 300,000 motorcycles and 40,000 three-wheelers. So that’s a total of 340,000 vehicles. It includes an export of about 101,000 motorcycles and three wheelers. But I hasten to add one thing that as is the case with every March we have some vehicles, which are in transit, as far as exports are concerned, that is about 32,000. But otherwise we have had a wonderful March. This 32,000 would be accounted for in April.

Q: How did it breakup between Pulsar and Discover?

A: Pulsar is about 75,000 vehicles, while Discover is about 125,000-130,000 vehicles. Due of the technicality of vehicles in transit, I myself don’t have absolutely exact figures. The balance as usual is equally divided between the Platina, which we sell in the domestic market and Boxer for exports. That makes up 300,000 bikes and the balance 40,000 is three wheelers.

Q: You have a new launch as well. Before we talk about the details of that, on the basis of that new launch are you relooking your full year volume targets for this new financial year?

A: We have basically set ourselves a target of 20% growth for this year. That would mean that from about 3.85 million vehicles we have to move up to about 4.6 million vehicles, hopefully a little more, but at least 4.6 million. Somewhere between 4.1 and 4.2 million motorcycles is what we are targeting and about half a million three wheelers.

The growth in motorcycle volumes to 4.1 million or 4.2 million would be difficult or challenging let’s say because that needs to grow by 20% in a market that we anticipate will grow by perhaps between 12-14%. That’s where the Discover 125cc, we launched towards the end of the last financial year, would be valuable.

We are looking at initial sales level of 25,000 vehicles a month from that particular product and hopefully we can do some more.

Q: So in these 4.6-4.7 million units marked in for FY12, what is the breakup that you have done internally between the Discover, Pulsar and also the new 125 cc?

A: We expect to do over a million Pulsars. We are close to 900,000 this year so we would like to do over million that is both domestic plus exports and we are looking close to 1.7 million Discovers, which would be a growth of about 25% over what we have done last year

The growth in Discover, we hope, will be greater and we expect it will be greater than in Pulsar partly because we have started the year with the new Discover and also partly because as you perhaps know Pulsar is about 50% market share in the sport segment. So it’s not so easy to grow market share there whereas with the Discover we still have some headroom to grow market share.

So between the two that I refer as our bigger and sportier bikes we are hoping to do almost 3 million vehicles which should augur well for our EBITDA to keep it in the 20% or so space that we like to be in. the balance 1.1 million would be Platina and Boxer.

Q: So to get to 4.6-4.7 million you would imagine that at some point in the year you would be starting to clock more 4 lakh vehicles a month. When do you expect to hit that kind of run rate?

A: What might happen is we might get lucky and do close to that in April and May itself because, as I mentioned earlier, technically 32,000 vehicles will be accounted for in April. We are looking at April total sale of about 3.8 lakh vehicles and May is usually better than April.

I would like to think sometime in the Q1 we can at least touch that figure of 400,000 vehicles but surely as we are halfway through the year we should be closer to it because we will launch the Boxer sometime in August again into the commuter space — not in the low price space — but in the space of typical large selling commuter deluxe motorcycles.

We are hopeful that since this motorcycle also sort of creates its own category we are looking at it contributing another 200,000-300,000 vehicles for Bajaj next year as well. So once that is in we should be firmly in the region of 400,000 a month.

www.moneycontrol.com

Maruti, Hero Honda, Toyota, M&M, Nissan sales end fiscal year in top gear

NEW DELHI: Indian automobile manufacturers ended fiscal year 2010-11 on a high note. Most leading car and two-wheeler companies posted record sales, as rising disposable income with the middle-class and a pick up in new product launches kept the demand momentum going, despite price hikes.

The country's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki and number one two-wheeler manufacturer Hero Honda posted their best-ever monthly and fiscal sales numbers despite pressure from rising interest rates and soaring crude-oil prices.

Maruti Suzuki reported 28% year-on-year growth in sales to 121,000 units in March, which includes all-time high domestic sales of 110,000 units, up 39%. The company's A2 segment vehicles, including Alto, WagonR, Estilo, Swift , A-Star and Ritz, witnessed 43% sales growth to 78,460 units. In April-March 2010-11, the company's total sales stood at 11.32 lakh units, up 30% from a year ago.

Toyota Kirloskar Motor sold a record number of 9,726 units in March, a growth of 41% year-on-year, led by 3,257 units sales of its sedan Etios. Mahindra & Mahindra registered 19% growth in its passenger car sales during the month to 17,320 units, while new entrant Nissan Motor sold 2,101 cars, including 2,060 units of its hatchback Micra. Czech carmaker Skoda Auto posted 65% year-on-year jump in sales to 3,009 units.

However, some like Hyundai Motor , the country's second-largest carmaker, could not quite cash in on the customer enthusiasm due to rising input cost. Hyundai Motor's domestic sales in March remained flat year on year at 31,822, while exports grew a tad by 0.9% to 23,526 units. Its total sales in March were up a mere 1% to 55,552 units.

"We managed to grow our overall volumes but the rate has slowed down signalling tough times ahead," Hyundai's director, marketing and sales, Arvind Saxena, said.

The two-wheeler segment was also on the fast track with Hero Honda selling a record 515,852 bikes in March. For the full year, the company posted its highest ever sales number of 54.02 lakh, up 17% year-on-year. Chennai-based TVS Motors sold 191,000 units in March, up 28%.

Fiscal year 2010-11 was the best year for the Indian automobile industry, but further rate hikes by the Reserve Bank of India could weigh on sales in the year ahead, said industry experts and analysts.

However, some analysts have a more optimistic take on the sector for the months ahead. According to Umesh Karne, analyst with Brics Securities, even if the central bank hikes key rates by 50-100 basis points, it will not likely be an immediate dampener for the automobile sector, though any further rate increase could hit car sales in coming months.

"For FY12-13, Indian auto industry is likely to record a volume growth of 14%, with passenger cars expected to be the leader. Growth will be fuelled by urbanisation and rising per capita income," said Karne.

economictimes.indiatimes.com

Audi launches R8 Spyder at Rs. 1.47 crore

German luxury car-maker Audi on Friday launched its two-seater sports car R8 Spyder, which is priced at around Rs. 1.47 crore (ex-showroom Maharashtra).

Powered by a 5.2 litre, V10 engine delivering 525 HP, the car zooms from zero to 100 kmph in 4.1 seconds. Spyder will be available for customers from next month onwards. It weighs just 1.7 tonnes and has a top speed of 313 kmph.

The car, the second in the R8 series to be launched in India, has "immense power, eager response, powerful acceleration and free-revving," Audi India Head Michael Perschke said.

"It will add to the spurring demand for excellence in auto performance and will allow us to build upon our leadership position in the super sports car segment," he said.

At present, Audi sells its sedans A4, A6 and A8, sport utility vehicles Q5 and Q7, besides the original R8, in India, one of the largest auto markets in the world.

Read more at: http://profit.ndtv.com/news/show/audi-launches-r8-spyder-at-rs-1-47-crore-146363?cp