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India's Jindal Steel and Power reported a drop in second-quarter profit on Wednesday, hurt by weak domestic demand and lower steel prices.

The company's consolidated net profit fell 38% year-on-year to 8.61 billion rupees ($102.2 million) for the quarter ended Sept. 30.

Its revenue from operations declined 8.5% to 112.13 billion rupees.

KEY CONTEXT

India's steel demand fell during the quarter as above-normal rainfall slowed down activity in the auto and infrastructure sectors.

This, along with lower domestic steel prices, which plunged to a more than three-year low from July to September, weighed on steel companies' profits.

While declining steel prices remain a concern, the onset of the construction season - which spans from October to April - is set to improve demand and support prices, analysts said.

Last week, bigger peer JSW Steel reported a bigger-than-expected drop in profit.

Tata Steel is expected to report its quarterly results later in the day.

PEER COMPARISON

Valuation (next 12 Estimates (next 12 Analysts' sentiment

months) months)

RIC PE EV/EBITDA Revenue Profit Mean No. of Stock to Div

growth (%) growth rating* analyst price yield

(%) s target** (%)

Jindal Steel 12.54 7.30 18.23 30.34 Buy 25 0.87 0.22

JSW Steel 15.68 9.37 9.71 45.44 Hold 30 0.97 0.76

Tata Steel 13.11 7.18 6.09 93.62 Hold 30 0.89 2.42

Steel Authority of 12.95 6.84 3.55 17.06 Sell 11 1.00 1.72

India

* The mean of analyst ratings standardised to a scale of Strong Buy, Buy, Hold, Sell, and Strong Sell ** The ratio of the stock's last close to analysts' mean price target; a ratio above 1 means the stock is trading above the PT

JULY-SEPTEMBER STOCK PERFORMANCE

-- All data from LSEG

-- $1 = 84.2770 Indian rupees