Market remains firm supported by capital goods stocks

Markets continue to remain firm trading in green, though there is no major upmove but sustained buying by funds and retail investors is keeping the spirit high for the markets after an extended weekend. While, the stocks who announced their numbers during the weekend were reacting to their numbers there was some cautiousness going for the F&O expiry scheduled a day in advance of the usual expiry. Traders were also cautious with global rating agency Crisil in its study saying that there is a one-in-two chance of achieving 6.5% average GDP growth over the next five fiscals and India can no way achieve above 9% as it did in the past. Broader indices were outperforming the benchmarks, while on the sectoral front, barring the IT and Technology, most of the counters were showing good trend Capital Goods taking the lead followed by metal and auto.

The market breadth on BSE was positive, out of 2131 stocks traded, 1359 stocks advanced, while 666 stocks declined on the BSE.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 22692.57 up by 63.73 points or 0.28% after trading in a range of 22726.86 and 22636.75. There were 23 stocks advancing against 7 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.81%, while Small cap index gained 0.86%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Capital Goods up by 1.53%, Metal up by 0.99%, Auto up by 0.97%, Power up by 0.76% and Bankex up by 0.64%, while IT down by 0.62%, Teck down by 0.31% and Realty down by 0.06% were the top losers on the sectoral index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Maruti Suzuki up by 2.55%, BHEL up by 2.29%, L&T up by 1.89%, SSLT up by 1.84% and Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.56%. On the flip side, Wipro down by 5.47%, Hindustan Unilever down by 1.06%, HDFC down by 0.45%, Infosys down by 0.11% and TCS down by 0.10% were the only losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, India's gems and jewellery exports fell by about 9 percent to $39.5 billion during the fiscal year 14 as compared to $43.34 billion in the previous fiscal. The exports of gems and jewellery, which contribute about 15 percent of the country's overseas shipments, declined mainly due to the sluggish demand in global markets and stern Government’s norms on gold imports.

Gold is the second largest import item for India after crude oil and is mainly utilised to meet the demand of jewellery industry. The government had taken various measures like high customs duty of 10% and 80/20 rule to curb gold shipments to check country’s widening current account deficit (CAD). Under the 80/20 scheme, which was introduced in August last year, nominated agencies could import gold on condition that 20 percent of the shipment would be exported and the remainder would be kept for domestic use. The export of gems and gewellary has been declining since October 2013.

Concerned over the declining gems and jewellery exports fell, Commerce Ministry has asked the Ministry of Finance to relax curbs on gold imports adding that these restrictions were leading to gold smuggling.  Meanwhile, contracting India’s gold imports has helped to contain the current account deficit (CAD) to $31.1 billion (2.3% of GDP) during the April-December FY14 period as compared to $69.8 billion (5.2% of GDP) reported in the same period of previous fiscal year.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,796.60 up by 17.20 points or 0.25% after trading in a range of 6,806.00 and 6,787.90. There were 35 stocks advancing against 15 declining on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Maruti Suzuki up by 2.34%, BHEL up by 2.15%, L&T up by 2.05%, PNB up by 2.01% and SSLT up by 1.76%. On the flip side, Wipro down by 5.54%, Cairn down by 1.40%, Hindustan Unilever down by 1.13%, Ambuja Cements down by 1.04% and DLF down by 1.03% were the only losers on the index.

The Asian equity indices were trading mixed; Jakarta Composite increased by 0.08%, KLSE Composite advanced 0.54%, Nikkei 225 soared 0.17% and Straits Times was up by 0.12%.

On the flip side, Shanghai Composite slipped by 0.28%, Seoul Composite dropped 0.50% and Taiwan Weighted was down by 0.10%.

Hong Kong market remained shut for the trade today for Easter holidays.