Benchmarks Magnify gains; Realty, Consumer Durables lead

Indian equity benchmarks Magnified gains in the late afternoon session on account of buying in frontline counters and taking cues from global counterparts. The sentiments got additional boost after Finance and Defence Minister Arun Jaitley stated that India needs to act now to fix the health of its economy, which is facing a challenging time. Asia’s third-largest economy has been growing below 5% for the past two years, the longest spell of sub-par growth since the 1980s. Traders were seen piling up positions in Realty, Consumer Durables and Power while selling was witnessed in HealthCare, IT and TECK sector stocks. In scrip specific development, Bajaj Hindusthan was trading firm as the company has repaid its foreign currency convertible bonds (FCCBs) amounting to $17.72 million, coupled with sugar sops and import duty hike. The Indian markets may remain volatile in the near future as traders roll over positions in the Futures & Options (F&O) segment from the near month i.e. June 2014 series to next month i.e. July 2014 series. The near-month June 2014 F&O contract expire on Thursday i.e. June 26, 2014.

On the global front, the Asian markets were trading in green, while the European markets too traded on optimistic note. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above their psychological 7,550 and 25,400 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was positive in the ratio of 2013:866 while 115 scrips remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 25407.76, up by 376.44 points or 1.50% after trading in a range of 25414.69 and 25115.83. There were 26 stocks advancing against 4 stocks declining on the index.   

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 1.73%, while Small cap index up by 1.93%.   

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 3.59%, Consumer Durables up by 2.62%, Power up by 2.51%, India Infrastructure Index up by 2.36% and Capital Goods up by 1.90% while there were no losing indices on BSE.   

The top gainers on the Sensex were Gail India up by 4.30%, Tata Power up by 3.15%, BHEL up by 2.74%, HDFC up by 2.71% and ITC up by 2.32%.

On the flip side, Sun Pharma down by 0.51%, Infosys down by 0.50%, ONGC down by 0.27% and Wipro down by 0.09% were the only losers.   

Meanwhile, the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) has recommended the government to abolish the Planning Commission and constitute Reform and Solution Commission as a government think tank through an Act of Parliament. The IEO, which was set up by the Planning Commission in the previous year, assesses the effectiveness of government programmes, institutions and policies.

The IEO, in a draft note sent to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), has suggested the government that the powers of disbursing funds to the state governments should be given to the finance ministry, which is accountable to Parliament unlike the Plan Panel. The IEO suggested that Finance Ministry should disburse funds on the recommendation of Finance Commission, which already existed in country and has authority bestowed upon it by the constitution. Financial commission should be a permanent body responsible for the allocation of centrally-collected revenues to the states working with the help of a panel of advisors having domain-level expertise, the notification added.

Regarding the working of planning commission, the IEO noted that Plan Panel is susceptible to pressures from the PMO and exceeds the scope of its authority which leads to partial treatment in allocation of resources amongst the states. Further, Panning Commission consist mostly IAS officer having less domain knowledge, making the panel structure same as central ministries in way of its administration.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 7,587.80, up by 94.45 points or 1.26% after trading in a range of 7593.35 and 7515.20. There were 38 stocks advancing against 12 stocks declining on the index.   

The top gainers on Nifty were DLF up by 5.05%, Gail India up by 4.41%, Bank of Baroda up by 3.77%, NMDC up by 3.40% and BPCL up by 3.14%.

On the flip side, Kotak Bank down by 1.58%, Sun Pharma down by 0.74%, HCL Technologies down by 0.70%, Infosys down by 0.70% and Cairn India down by 0.45% were the top losers. 

Asian equity indices were trading in green; Hang Seng up by 0.33%, Taiwan Weighted up by 0.19%, Straits Times gained 0.27%, Jakarta Stock Index added 0.31%, Shanghai Composite up by 0.47%  and Nikkei 225 up by 0.05%.

The European markets were trading mostly in green; Germany’s DAX added 0.08%, France’s CAC 40 gained 0.25% while UK’s FTSE 100 was down by 0.07%.