Metal stocks bleed as China data shows slowdown

Major Metal stocks traded in the deep red zone on Wednesday. The stocks mirrored the correction in the price of metals in international commodity markets.

The metal prices dipped following the Chinese government's move to shutdown polluting industries and its measures to bring in more financial prudence in lending to infrastructure projects, which will in turn slowdown economic growth and thus bring down the consumption of metals.

Nifty Metal was at 3,527.00 points, down by 74.15 or 2.06 per cent, while BSE Metal 13311.54 points, down by 299.61 points or 2.20 per cent.

At lunch, among major metal stocks, only Coal India was trading higher at Rs. 265.85 per share, up by 0.23 per cent. But stocks including Tata Steel, NMDC, National Aluminum, SAIL, JSWSTEEL were down by around 2 per cent, while Hindustan Zinc, Vedanta, Hindalco, Jindal Steel were down by around 3 per cent.

In the international markets, copper had its biggest drop in two years on Tuesday. Benchmark copper closed down 4.2% at $6,542 per tonne at London Metal Exchange (LME), benchmark LME aluminium fell 0.8 per cent to $2,052 per tonne, Zinc fell 2 percent to $3,112 per tonne, while nickel was down 4.6 per cent at $10,865 per tonne.