Benchmarks continue to trade in green in afternoon session

Indian bourses continued to trade in green in afternoon session amid buying witnessed in frontline blue chip stocks amid firm global cues. However, gains remain capped in the absence of any major directional cues and selling witnessed in defensive stocks such as IT, teck and FMCG. There was also cautiousness among investors as 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. Meanwhile, most of the major sectoral indices were trading in green and gains in capital goods, metal and auto stocks provided support to the market. Sector front, IT index was major loser on BSE down by around 0.57% and IT major Wipro were trading down by over 5% to around Rs 550 after company's information technology revenue guidance for the first quarter (Q1FY2015) of current fiscal was seen below estimates.

Liberty Shoes has rallied 14% to Rs 188 after reporting an over four-fold jump in net profit at Rs 4.27 crore in March quarter due to higher sales. Natco Pharma has surged 8% to Rs 769 after the company said the US Supreme Court on Friday rejected Teva’s application for an injunction seeking to prevent the launch of generic version of Copaxone. The decision could help pave the way for Natco to launch a generic version of Teva's Copaxone drug as soon as next month.

On global front, Asian equity indices were trading in green with Nikkei 225 up by 0.14% and  and Straits Times was up by 0.10%. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above their psychological 6,750 and 22,600 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was positive, out of 2,340 stocks traded, 1,458 stocks advanced, while 758 stocks declined on the BSE.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 22,693.43 up by 64.59 points or 0.29% after trading in a range of 22,726.86 and 22,636.75. There were 24 stocks advancing against 6 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 up by 1.05%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Capital Goods up by 1.83%, Metal up by 1.19%, Auto up by 1.04%, Consumer Durables up by 0.87% and Bankex up by 0.67%. While, IT down by 0.57%, Teck down by 0.27% and FMCG down by 0.18% were the losing indices on BSE.   

The top gainers on the Sensex were BHEL up by 2.79%, L&T up by 2.30%, Maruti Suzuki up by 2.28%, M&M up by 2.13% and SSLT up by 1.97%. On the flip side, Wipro down by 5.47%, Hindustan Unilever down by 1.14%, HDFC down by 0.70%, Cipla down by 0.55% and Infosys down by 0.15%.

Meanwhile, fertiliser Ministry will soon hold a meeting with the fertilizer firms selling phosphatic and potassic (P&K) fertilizers at higher prices and delaying reporting of their MRPs to the government. Under the nutrient based subsidy (NBS) scheme, fixed amount of subsidy is provided by the government on each grade of P&K fertilizers based on their nutrients content and companies have been allowed to fix maximum retail price (MRP) of subsidised P&K fertilisers at reasonable rates. P&K on non-urea fertilizers include complex NPK, DAP and MOP compounds.

Fertiliser companies are required to report the MRPs of their products to the government for monitoring of prices in order ensure that the MRPs fixed are reasonable. Fertiliser Ministry has reported that delays in reporting of MRPs by companies, practice of reporting higher MRPs and absence of a proper mechanism to cross verify their authenticity are causing difficulties in monitoring MRPs to find out the reasonableness of the P&K fertilizers prices. In the previous year, Ministry has issued notice to fertiliser companies to reduce the price following the fall of prices in the international market.

The Government has pegged subsidy provisioning at around Rs 68,000 crore for 2014-15 and has reduced potash subsidy by Rs 3.33 per kg. Meanwhile, the government has also notified that reduction in subsidy rates would not lead to an increase in retail prices of potash, as international market prices of potash have come down. Domestic farmers are presently using more nitrogenous fertilizers particularly urea as comparison to the P&K fertilizers because of their higher prices. Total domestic demand of both potash and phosphate stands at around 10 million tonnes per annum.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,798.30 up by 18.90 points or 0.28% after trading in a range of 6,806 and 6,787.90. There were only 33 stocks advancing against 17 declining on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were PNB up by 2.72%, BHEL up by 2.57%, L&T up by 2.45%, M&M up by 2.42% and Maruti Suzuki up by 2.08%. On the flip side, Wipro down by 5.55%, Cairn down by 1.59%, HUL down by 1.24%, Asian Paints down by 1.06% and DLF down by 1.00% were the major losers on the index.

Asian equity indices were trading in green; Nikkei 225 up by 0.14% to 14,537.18, Straits Times was up by 0.10% to 3,256.33, Jakarta Composite up by 0.08% to 4,900.80 and Hang Seng up by 0.28% to 22,760.24. While, Shanghai Composite down by 0.42% to 2,088.84 and Taiwan Weighted down by 0.17% to 8,951.19.