Much of the project land was earmarked for Posco’s ill-fated 12 MT steel plant for which the Korean steel giant had signed a memorandum of understanding with Odisha in 2005. Following protests from land losers and environmentalists, the project never took off and Posco withdrew from it in 2017
Steel prices have corrected nearly 33% in the past two years in the international market. However, stocks of key Indian steel companies as well as the Nifty Metal Index are trading near all-time highs. The divergence between metal prices and companies stocks might lead to the start of a downtrend in this sector going ahead, feel experts.
The aggregate earnings of the companies in the MOFSL universe exceeded expectations and rose 29% year-on-year (YoY) versus an estimated 19%. Earnings for the Nifty-50 jumped 17% YoY versus an estimated 11%.
Automobiles and financials continued to propel the overall earnings growth, while they were also joined by global cyclicals such as oil and gas and metals. The only heavyweight sector to disappoint was information technology, with the overall earnings seeing a decline for the first time in 26 quarters.