Sensex, Nifty slip into red; IT, oil & pharma laggards

1:50 pm Price rise?  Bajaj Auto is looking to raise prices of its two models - Platina and Discover - from next month in order to partially offset increase in input costs. The Pune-based company had earlier raised prices of its Pulsar model range by Rs 1,000 at the end of festival season this year.

"We plan to hike prices of Discover and Platina models in January. We have not hiked the prices of these models so far," Bajaj Auto Ltd President (Motorcycle) Eric Vas told PTI.

The company has, however, not yet decided on the quantum of the price hike, he added. "We have'nt decided on the quantum of the hike so far but it will definitely depend on two things. One, we will have to look at the sales performance and secondly also have to consider excise duty structure going ahead," Vas said.

1:30 pm Interview: RK Jain, Group President Finance, Uflex in an interview to CNBC-TV18 said there will be no major impact on margins from crude derivatives. Neither does he expect exceptional jump in profits because there's being a pass through industry, both fall or rise in raw material costs is passed on to the consumers. So, this time too the benefits of crude derivatives will be passed on, says Jain.

However, only if there is too much volatility in the raw material costs then it becomes a bit difficult to pass though and causes problems in fixing the prices of products, he adds.

Jain says 85-90 percent of raw material costs for the company are on account of crude derivatives.

SAIL slips as OFS kicks off, Macquarie maintains underperform  The market has slipped into red as IT stocks drag. The Sensex is down 61.06 points at 28501.76, and the Nifty is down 15.80 points at 8548.60. About 1391 shares have advanced, 1319 shares declined, and 123 shares are unchanged. IT stocks TCS, Infosys and Wipro are down 1-2 percent each. Among other losers include Dr Reddy's Labs and ONGC. Sesa Sterlite, M&M, ITC, Tata Power and L&T are top gainers in the Sensex. Manufacturing and services sectors in India expanded at a faster pace than China in November, even as emerging market output slipped for the second consecutive month to a six-month low, a HSBC survey said today. The HSBC Emerging Markets Index (EMI), a monthly indicator derived from PMI surveys, slipped for the second month running to 51.2, signalling the weakest rate of expansion since May.