A majority of auto stocks ended in the red on April 1 following weak sales data for the previous month.
The relentless fall in sales continued in March as well and most automakers reported a steep decline in their numbers.
The country’s top carmaker, Maruti Suzuki India, reported a 47 percent fall in sales for March. The company sold 83,792 vehicles in March against 1,58,076 units in year-ago period. Shares of Maruti ended 1.03 percent lower.
Hinduja group flagship firm Ashok Leyland reported a 90 percent decline in vehicle sales at 2,179 units. The company sold 21,535 units in the same month last year, Ashok Leyland said in a regulatory filing. Shares of the company closed 4.53 percent lower.
Eicher Motors’ total VECV sales plunged nearly 83 percent YoY. The stock closed 0.66 percent down.
Escorts’ tractor sales more-than-halved to 5,444 in March 2020 against 11,905 tractors sold in the same month last year. Shares of Escorts plunged 9.64 percent.
The BSE Auto index closed 1.54 percent lower, with TVS Motor (down 7.04 percent), MRF (down 5.22 percent), Motherson Sumi (down 5.08 percent) and Cummins (down 5.07 percent) as the top losers.
On the other hand, Hero MotoCorp (up 2.21 percent), Balkrishna Industries (up 1.64 percent), Bajaj Auto (up 1.12 percent), Amara Raja (up 0.19 percent) and Exide (up 0.11 percent) closed in the green.
A day after logging healthy gains, market benchmarks the Sensex and the Nifty were back in the negative territory on April 1, tracking weak global cues.
The 30-share Sensex ended 1,203 points, or 4.08 percent, down at 28,265.31 and the Nifty settled 344 points, or 4 percent, lower at 8,253.80. The BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices remained better off than the benchmarks, down 2.18 percent and 1.06 percent, respectively.
All sectoral indices ended in the red on BSE, with the BSE Bankex, IT and Teck falling over 5 percent each.
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