Fertiliser Shares Rally On Good Harvest Season

Shares of fertiliser producers are going strong this morning, in line with their recent rally, on the back of good rabi season and normal rainfall. The fact that rural India is less affected by the Covid-19 crisis, in comparison to urban areas, is further aiding the positive sentiment on these counters. Major fertiliser stocks such as Tata Chemicals (up 0.9 per cent at Rs 299), Coromandel International (up 0.6 per cent at Rs 675) and National Fertilisers (up 0.4 per cent at Rs 37) and Zuari Global (up 1.4 per cent at Rs 50) rallied around 1 per cent each on the BSE in early trading, outperforming the BSE's gains of 0.9 per cent.

While most economic activity came to a standstill in April-May 2020 due to Covid 19-induced lockdown, the government's decision to exempt farming activities from the lockdown facilitated good crop output during the sowing season.

A good monsoon has also been an enabling factor for agriculture. The monsoon rainfall has been 19 per cent above normal and 83 per cent of the country has received normal or better rainfall, reports suggest. In fact, the Indian Meterological Department has forecasted that the monsoon this year would be 102 per cent of long-period average.

The BSE Sensex was trading at 38063, higher by 370.90 points or 0.9 per cent and the NSE Nifty was at 11202.25, up 107.40 points or 0.96 per cent at the time.