Broking firm, ICICIdirect has come out with report on sector outlook for 2012. We have collated key highlights for each sector from their report. The same is as follows:

Metals and Mining - Underperform
CY11 was a challenging year for the metals and mining sector on the back of a muted demand scenario, elevated raw material costs and restriction of mining of iron ore in certain areas. During the first nine months of CY11, prices of key raw materials such as iron ore and coking coal were on an upward trend while in Q4CY11 along with a decline in raw materials costs steel prices also tapered off resulting in no respite for steel companies. As a result, on the back of elevated cost structure the operating margins of steel players remained under pressure for CY11. Going forward, on the back of global uncertainty and a muted demand scenario, we expect global steel demand to remain subdued in CY12.

(Sourced from IRIS.com)