Firm trade prevails; Nifty holds 7100 mark

Indian equity benchmarks trimmed gains but continued their firm trade in the late afternoon session taking cues from global counterparts. The sentiments were on optimistic note from the early trade on exit polls projections of Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi becoming India's next prime minister, with his opposition party the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies sweeping a parliamentary majority in the world’s biggest-ever election. The sentiment also got boosted by data showing that foreign funds made substantial purchases of Indian stocks on Monday i.e. May 12, 2014. Traders were seen piling up positions in Capital Goods, Consumer Durables and Power stocks, while selling was witnessed in HealthCare sector stocks. In scrip specific development, NHPC was trading in green on bagging a solar power project order. BHEL was trading firm on buzz that the Cabinet is likely to ratify the decision to sell 4.66% stake in the power equipment maker through a block deal.

On the global front, the Asian markets were trading mostly in green, while the European markets too traded on optimistic note. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above their psychological 7,100 and 23,800 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was positive in the ratio of 1469:1286 while 151 scrips remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 23888.70, up by 337.70 points or 1.43% after trading in a range of 24068.94 and 23729.25. 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 1.19%, while Small cap index up by 1.25%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Capital Goods up by 3.39%, Consumer Durables up by 3.25%, Power up by 3.10%, PSU up by 2.42% and Realty up by 2.18% while, HealthCare down by 0.35% was the sole loser.

The top gainers on the Sensex were BHEL up by 10.46%, ONGC up by 4.16%, Tata Power up by 3.92%, Gail India up by 3.08% and Hero MotoCorp up 2.93%.

On the flip side, Dr Reddy’s Lab down by 2.23%, HDFC Bank down by 0.85%, Sun Pharma down 0.82%, Hindalco Industries down by 0.24% and Coal India down 0.24% were the top losers on the index.

Meanwhile, India’s pharmaceutical exports grew by 10.5 percent to $1.26 billion in the month of April from a year earlier. The Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council (Pharmexcil) expects a healthy rate of growth in pharma exports at around 12 percent in current fiscal on the back of rising demand of drugs from African countries. The government has set pharma exports target for current fiscal at $25 billion.

In the previous fiscal, Indian pharma exports grew at a slowest pace in 15 years at 1.2 percent to $14.84 billion amid growing tension with the US over intellectual property rights (IPR) related issues. The previous slowest growth rate for domestic pharma exports was in FY10 at 5.9 percent. The US accounts for about 25 percent of India's pharma exports. Presently, US pharma industry is contending that India's IPR laws particularly with regard to pharma sector discriminate American firms and put pressure on the US government to take actions against India. Further, major domestic players such as Ranbaxy and Wockhardt are facing imports alerts on some major plants issued by the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) in 2013.

Indian is the top exporters to the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) region countries. The prevailing political turmoil between Ukraine and Russia which has led to political and economic tensions in the Crimean region, has also hit the businesses of leading Indian pharmaceutical companies.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 7,118.80, up by 104.55 points or 1.49% after trading in a range of 7,172.35 and 7,067.15. There were 43 stocks advancing against 7 declining on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were BHEL up by 10.34%, Bank of Baroda up by 4.57%, ONGC up by 4.41%, Ambuja Cement up by 4.21% and DLF up by 4.14%.

On the flip side, PNB down by 3.13%, Dr. Reddy’s Lab down by 2.45%, Cairn India down by 1.15%, HDFC Bank down by 0.88% and Sun Pharma down by 0.86% were the top losers on the index.

Asian equity indices were trading mostly in green; Hang Seng up by 0.41%, Taiwan Weighted up by 0.11%, Nikkei 225 surged 1.95% and Jakarta Composite added 0.04% while, Shanghai Composite down by 0.10% was the sole losers on the index.

Malaysia and Singapore markets remained shut for the trade today on account of Wesak Day holiday.

The European markets were trading mostly in green; France’s CAC 40 was up by 0.20%, Germany’s DAX added 0.66% and UK’s FTSE 100 gained 0.26%.