Nifty Metals rocks D-Street, stays top gainer

Today, Shares of the Metal Companies were trading in a high range in an otherwise range-bound market as the Nifty Metal Index hitting new 52-week high on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) on Monday 10^th October 2016.

At 09:50 am, Nifty Metal Index was up 1.52% at 2,707.15, against 0.28% rise in the Nifty50 Index. Nifty Metal became the largest gainer among Sectoral Indices. The Metal Index traded at a new 52-week high of 2,712.25 in intra-day, surpassing its previous high of 2685.15 that it had touched on September 8, 2016.

NALCO share price went up 7% at Rs 52.50, Vedanta share price went up by 3% to 201.70, Tata Steel share price hiked 3% at Rs 418 and NMDC share price increased 1.6% at Rs 119.70 and have hit their respective 52-week highs on the NSE in intra-day trade. All the four of them are the top 500 pick for the quarter identified by Dynamic Levels. Hindalco Industries and Steel Authority of India (SAIL) were up 2% and 3%. These two stocks are included in the top 500 pick for the quarter as well.

 Tata Steel share price has surged 7.5% in past two trading sessions after the company declared that its sales have rallied by 12% year on year (y-o-y) to 2.62 million tonnes (MT) in the quarter ended September 30, 2016 (Q2FY17). The company had recorded sales of 2.33 MT in the corresponding quarter of the financial year 2015-16.

According to certain reports, the second extension of the Central Government-set Minimum Import Price (MIP) in steel is likely to place the ground for more price increases by domestic producers.

On 4^th October, via a notification, the Ministry of Commerce had declared MIP continuation on 66 steel products till December 4. It was first urged in February for six months and then extended till October 4, to control the flow of cheaper imports.

Since April, steel prices have gone up by around Rs 5,000 a tonne. If steel demand increases in the peak consumption season and the cost of production hikes due to increased raw material prices, domestic producers will surely raise prices in the coming months.

With MIP and related measures, import of finished steel decreased 35 per cent in April-August to three million tons as compared to the corresponding period of last year.

Nifty Metal has been gaining consistently since past one year, hence remaining the top gainer throughout and looking promising even against the Benchmark Index Nifty50.