Firm trade prevails; Oil & Gas, Metal lead

Indian equity benchmarks continued its firm trade in the late afternoon session on account of buying in frontline counters. The market was on optimistic note from the early trade after data showed that foreign funds remained net buyers of Indian stocks on Friday i.e. May 2, 2014. The Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 386.95 crore as per provisional data from the stock exchanges. The sentiments also got support as rupee was trading strong against the dollar. The weak American currency overseas and continued dollar sales supported the rupee. Traders were seen piling up positions in Oil & Gas, Metal and Capital Goods stocks, while selling was witnessed in TECK, IT and HealthCare sector stocks. In scrip specific development, V-Guard Industries was trading firm after reporting net profit which surged 129.08% to Rs 20.48 crore on 12.80% rise in net sales to Rs 418.99 crore in Q4 March 2014 over Q4 March 2013. Suzlon Energy was trading in green after the board approved cashless restructuring of its Foreign Currency Convertible Bonds (FCCBs).

On the global front, the Asian markets were trading mostly in green, while the European markets traded on pessimistic note. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above their psychological 6,700 and 22,500 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was neutral in the ratio of 1278:1277 while 124 scrips remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 22531.22, up by 127.33 points or 0.57% after trading in a range of 22,592.03 and 22,354.45. There were 19 stocks advancing against 11 stocks declining while 1 stcok remained unchanged on the index.

The broader indices were trading mixed; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.37%, while Small cap index was down by 0.07%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Oil & Gas up by 2.43%, Metal up by 1.93%, Capital Goods up by 1.41%, PSU up by 1.18% and Bankex up by 0.79%. While, TECK down by 0.72%, IT down by 0.64%, and HealthCare down by 0.50% were the only losing indices on BSE.   

The top gainers on the Sensex were Hindalco Industries up by 5.60%, ONGC up by 3.01%, RIL up by 2.90%, Tata Steel up by 2.74% and L&T was up by 2.16%.

On the flip side, HDFC down by 1.88%, Cipla down by 1.62%, Infosys down by 1.24%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.14% and Wipro down by 1.09% were the top losers on the index.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister P Chidambaram has emphasised the need to increase investments, especially in infrastructure sector to revive India’s economic growth. At present, Indian economy is struggling with slowdown and its growth has slowed down to a decade low of 4.5 percent in FY13 and was at 4.6 percent during the first three quarter of FY14.

The Finance Minister added that the global economy has shown signs of strengthening over the past few months and policies to revive growth in most emerging markets, including India, will have to be rooted in increasing investments, particularly in infrastructure. Chidambaram further asserted that as most of the emerging markets are resource constrained, it is necessary to have recourse to foreign savings for investment and urged the Asian Development Bank to increase its annual lending capacity to $ 20 billion in the next ten years. Finance Minister further stated that the fund flow to emerging countries should be stable adding that the best option would be investment flows through Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).

The infrastructure development is a most critical prerequisite to boost the economic growth. However, the government has been taking various measures to boost the infrastructure sector’s growth.  It has set the $1-trillion investment target for the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17) to overhaul its infrastructure sector such as ports, airports and highways to boost growth. Further, in order to expedite the implementation of infra projects, the government has set up Cabinet Committee on Investment (CCI). Till January 2014, the CCI had cleared around 296 projects with estimated project cost of Rs 6,60,000 crore.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,727.10, up by 32.30 points or 0.48% after trading in a range of 6,741.05 and 6,680.45. There were 31 stocks advancing against 18 declining stocks on the index, while 1 stock remained unchanged.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Hindalco up by 6.34%, Jindal Steel up by 3.60%, Tata Steel up by 3.17%, Reliance Industries up by 2.90% and ONGC up by 2.88%.

On the flip side, HCL Tech down by 2.37%, HDFC down by 2.01% Cipla down by 2.00%, NMDC down by 1.77% and Wipro down by 1.29% were the major losers on the index.

Asian equity indices were trading mostly in green; Shanghai Composite was up by 0.05%, Jakarta Composite up by 0.10% and Taiwan Weighted up by 0.04% were the gainers among Asian pack while, Hang Seng plunged 1.28% and Straits Times was down by 0.15%.

Japanese and South Korean markets were shut for trade on account of ‘Children’s Day’ holiday.

The European markets were trading in red; France’s CAC 40 was down 1.03% and Germany’s DAX lost 0.92% while UK’s market was closed on account of Early May Bank Holiday.