For the last nine years on the priority list of the government has been building physical infrastructure like roads, highways, ports and airports. Binding all the infrastructure projects, whether big or small are two commodities, cement and steel. In the cement sector, small and mid sized companies have been able to take advantage of this focus and increased spending by the government and have been able to both clean up their balance sheet and in some cases, they have gone ahead and increased their capacities which would be getting commissioned soon. With continued focus on infrastructure, will these companies be able to see another round of re-rating?
Rakesh Arora discusses the outlook for the commodity sector, highlighting the factors that are supportive of a commodity price rally, such as China s potential stimulus and weaker US dollar. However, he notes that demand is still missing and China s production and export of surplus metal are pushing prices down. Arora also explains the divergence between the mining and processing industries, with mining commodity prices going up while steel prices come down. He suggests that it may be safer to invest in mining commodities.
Cement has been a sector where most of the analysts have been caught off guards. The stocks have done well and a large number of analysts have been sticking to their stands that pricing and capacity utilization is an issue. What they probably ignored was the fact that any industry which has been facing headwinds for a long time tends to sort the issues and few players are able to make a comeback as consolidation takes place. Pretty much what we have seen in power. Due to government focus on infrastructure for the last nine years, a number of cement players have been able to improve their balance sheets and also become operationally efficient. With the policy continuity there is a high probability that we may see a similar trend in coming years.