Bourses climb to day’s high tailing positive European markets start

Local bourses yet again recovering from lows were trading near day’s high point tailing positive start of European markets, which provided the required impetus to Indian equity markets in the highly volatile session of trade. Besides, bargain buying activities by market-participants, which brought into every dips, were mainly supporting the markets after every drop. At day’s high, both Sensex and Nifty were trading above the crucial 22,750 and 6800 levels respectively, with gains of close to quarter of a percent. Meanwhile, broader indices continuing to outperform larger peers were trading with gains of over 3/ 4 of a percent.

On the global front, receiving a positive handover from Asian counterparts, European shares rebounded on Wednesday, led by gains in automakers, despite prevailing caution ahead of the European earnings season which could curb the market's progress. Meanwhile, Asian shares extended recent solid gains on Thursday after minutes of the Federal Reserve's latest policy meeting suggested the Fed may be more cautious towards raising interest rates than markets had thought.

Closer home, the uptrend of market was most supported by the stocks belonging from Power, Capital Goods and Realty counters which were the major pillars of strength. On the flip side, Healthcare, Fast Moving Consumer Goods and Information Technology counters emerging as major pockets of weakness were limiting the further upside of markets. The overall market breadth on BSE was favoring advances which were outnumbering declines in the ratio of 1203:24; while 24 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 22765.50, up by 63.16 points or 0.28% after trading in a range of 22,792.49 and 22,672.72. There were 17 stocks advancing against 13 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices continued to outperform; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.85%, while Small cap index up by 0.89%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Power up by 1.89%, Capital Goods up by 1.31%, Realty up by 0.96%, Bankex and Auto up by 0.72%. While, Healthcare down by 0.59%, FMCG down by 0.40%, IT down by 0.33% and Teck down by 0.15% were the losing indices on BSE.   

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Motors up by 2.99%, SBI up by 2.42%, BHEL up by 2.39%, NTPC up by 1.41% and Wipro up by 1.29%. On the flip side, M&M down by 1.48%, Dr Reddy’s Lab down by 1.39%, ONGC down by 1.07%, Hero MotoCorp down by 0.95% and Sun Pharma down by 0.80% were the top losers on BSE.

Meanwhile, showing some signs of recovery and stabilization in Indian business environment, Indian companies raised $29.68 billion more through external commercial borrowings (ECB) during the first 11 months of financial year 2013-14 as comparison to $26.96 in the year-ago period.

Further, Indian companies mopped up $4.30 billion in the month of February which was almost 140 percent more than the amount raised in the previous month. High ECB by domestic firms indicate that global investments are confident about Indian businesses. The overseas fund-raising spree by corporates must have been triggered by expectations on the US hiking interest rates in some time and also as the Fed's tapering in the bond purchase programme would eventually run its course. The corporates, which collected large fund in February include ONGC Videsh (raised ECB for an overseas acquisition in two tranches- $1.77 billion for five-years and $725 million for a year), Indian Railway Finance Corporation ($500 million for five years), HDFC ($300 million through a five-year ECB for on-lending to low-cost housing projects) and Bharat Petroleum Corporation ($300 million for three years for working capital purpose).

An external commercial borrowing (ECB) is an instrument used in India to facilitate the access to foreign money by Indian corporations and PSUs (public sector undertakings). ECBs include commercial bank loans, buyers' credit, suppliers' credit, securitised instruments such as floating rate notes and fixed rate bonds etc among other.   

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,812.50, up by 16.30 points or 0.24% after trading in a range of 6,819.05 and 6,781.25. There were 28 stocks advancing against 20 declining stocks on the index, while 2 shares remained unchanged

The top gainers of the Nifty were Tata Motors up by 3.14%, BHEL up by 2.62%, SBI up by 2.51%, NMDC up by 2.38%, and Cairn India up by 2.15%. On the flip side, M&M down by 1.81%, Dr Reddy’s Lab down by 1.53%, Sun Pharma down by 1.31%, Tech Mahindra down by 1.25% and Cipla down by 1.16% were the major losers on the index.

Asian equity indices were trading in green; Hang Seng up by 1.31%, Taiwan Weighted up by 0.20%, Shanghai Composite up by 1.72% and Nikkei 225 up by 0.43%. While, Jakarta Composite down by 3.18% and Straits Times was down by 0.11% were the only losers on the index.

European markets got off to a positive start; with CAC 40 adding 0.40%, DAX rising 0.16% and FTSE 100 index gaining 0.68%.