Petroleum refinery scrips gain on freight rate cut in rail budget

Mumbai, Feb 24: The stock markets did not seem to have any immediate reaction on the announcements made in the Railway Budget today.

Both the key indices Sensex and Nifty of the Bombay and National Stock Exchanges did not have any unusual movement beacuse of the measures announced in the budget and finally closed less than half a per cent lower on overall profit-booking.

The Sensex closed lower by 43 points at 10,200 points and Nifty closed lower by 12 points at 3,050 points.

However, among the petroleum refining companies, there was upward movement with the Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav annoucing reduction in freight rates of petro products by eight per cent.

Indian Oil Corporation and Essar Oil gained two per cent, MRPL gained 1.5 per cent, Bongaigaon Refineries gained by 1.3 per cent, HPCL gained 0.9 per cent, Reliance Industries gained 0.27 per cent and BPCL ended 0.2 per cent up.

Spicejet scrip traded slightly lower as the budget announced cut in upper class passenger fares by 18 to 10 per cent, which could attract the airline passengers to the trains, the scrip ended 1.54 per cent lower at Rs 76.65.

The Jet Airways scrip ended flat with a gain of 0.36 per cent at Rs 966, almost unaffected.

Railway Budget announcements brought to limelight select scrips like HMT, Kernex Microsystems, Kalindee Rail Nirman Engineers and cement scrips like Shree Cement, which would bring new business to them.

Kernex Microsystems, which supplies railway safety equipment, gained 19 per cent or Rs 44, perked up by the Railway Budget announcements.

UNI