Auto stocks down on poor sales performance in Nov

After a disappointing year-on-year sales performance in November, stocks of auto companies were declined by 0.5% on Tuesday. The decline in the BSE auto index was led by losses in Mahindra & Mahindra, Hero MotoCorp, Bajaj Auto and Tata Motors.

“Inventory level at the beginning of the month was very high, which gradually normalized during the festive season. However, second half of the month witnessed massive slowdown across segment including tractors,” said a report on the auto sector sales by Karvy Stock Broking.

Passenger and commercial vehicle sales remained subdued compares to those of the tractor and two-wheeler segment. However, growth in the tractor and two-wheeler segment declined sharply in the month of November.

Volumes of Mahindra& Mahindra declined for the fourth month in a row with an 18.5% fall year-on-year. Its tractor volumes were up 13% year-on-year but were down 40% month-on-month.

Tata Motors volumes were down 38.6% while volumes of Maruti Suzuki were down 11% year-on-year.

In the two-wheeler segment, Hero MotoCorp saw a 5.6% growth in volumes while that of TVS Motors was down 6%.

On Tuesday, the stock of Mahindra&Mahindra saw the highest decline at 1% to Rs 948.70. Among the passenger vehicle segment, Tata Motors was down 0.5% to Rs 398 per share while Maruti was up 0.4% to Rs 1667.30.

The two-wheeleer segment fared no better with TVS Motors declining 1.2% while Bajaj Auto and Hero MotoCorp were down 0.6 and 0.4%, respectively.

The BSE Sensex was during the day down 0.1% to trade at 20,870. The NSE Nifty was down 0.2% to 6,205.