Benchmarks continue to trade in green in late morning session

After getting a cautious but positive start, benchmarks continued to trade in green in late morning session on emergence of buying by funds and retail investors amid positive cues from other Asian markets. Sentiment on the street also improved after industry body CII has hailed the government's decision to extend validity period of industrial licence to three years, saying that it sends strong signal that the government is committed to enhance the ease of doing business in India. Some support also came in from reports that foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 950.82 crore on July 03, 2014. At present, Sensex and Nifty were trading above the crucial 25,850 and 7,700 levels respectively, with gains of over 0.15%. Healthcare stocks lead gains with Dr Reddy's Laboratories was gaining 1.9 percent and Sun Pharmaceutical Industries up by 0.5 percent. Further, the technology shares such as Infosys also gained on the back of encouraging U.S. jobs data which showed the lowest unemployment rate in six years and underscored the strength of the economic recovery. In scrip specific development, shares of Bharti Airtel gained as much as 2.5 percent after the Reserve Bank of India increased limit for overseas investors to buy shares in the company. Shares in Fertilizers and Chemicals Travancore (FACT) has surged over 7% on reports that  the government will provide about Rs 990 crore revival package for the ailing PSU company.

On the global front, Asian equity indices were exhibiting mixed trade in early deals, tracking cues from positive US markets after June jobs report were stronger than expected. The U.S. economy added 288,000 jobs last month, and the unemployment rate fell to 6.1 per cent, down from 6.3 per cent in May. Back home, stocks from Healthcare, Consumer Durables and Realty counters were supporting the markets’ uptrend, while those from Metal and Capital Goods counters were adding to the underlying cautious undertone.  The market breadth on BSE was positive, out of 2439 stocks traded, 1451 stocks advanced, while 872 stocks declined on the BSE.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 25872.48 up by 48.73 points or 0.19% after trading in a range of 25893.31 and 25809.04. There were 22 stocks advancing against 8 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 0.92%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Healthcare up by 1.05%, Consumer Durables up by 0.91%, India Infrastructure Index up by 0.85%, Realty up by 0.82% and Oil & Gas up by 0.70%, while Metal down by 0.32% and Capital Goods was down by 0.20% were the only losers on the sectoral index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Dr Reddys up by 1.85%, Cipla up by 1.08%, RIL up by 0.86%,  ITC up by 0.85% and Hero MotoCorp up by 0.83%. On the flip side, M&M was down by 0.92%, SSLT was down by 0.66%, Coal India was down by 0.54%, L&T was down by 0.50% and Wipro was down by 0.47% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, the telecom department (DoT) is mulling introducing a new category of license that will enable cable TV players and DTH operators to offer broadband services in the country, to be called Cable TV Internet Service Providers licence, which will be part of the broadband policy.

Under the existing broad-band policy, operators with either the unified licence or an ISP licence are allowed to offer broadband services. While some of the cable TV players have taken ISP licence, the broadband policy of 2004 had permitted using the country's cable TV infrastructure as a franchisee network of internet service providers for providing broadband services. However, this has not found many takers.

Further, the new broadband policy is also expected to explore ways to attract large investments from potential developers of fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) networks, since driving broadband growth in the medium and long term, especially to transform cities and towns into an always connected society, will require huge investments.

Nevertheless, the new BJP-led government's renewed focus on broadband is influenced by a recent International Telecom Union report which suggests that every 10% rise in broadband penetration will trigger 0.31% GDP growth and a 0.28% jump in jobs creation.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 7,729.20 up by 14.40 points or 0.19% after trading in a range of 7,733.50 and 7,708.90. There were 28 stocks advancing against 22 declining on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Dr Reddys up by 1.97%, Asian Paints up by 1.70%, Lupin up by 1.63%, BPCL up by 1.61% and IDFC up by 1.09%. On the flip side, M&M down by 0.66%, Ultratech Cement down by 0.66%, HDFC down by 0.66%, Hindalco down by 0.65% and SSLT down by 0.63% were the major losers on the index.

Asian markets were trading mixed; Nikkei soared 0.55%, Hang Seng gained 0.11%, Straits Times increased by 0.17% and Jakarta Composite was up by 0.34%. On the flip side, KOSPI Index slipped 0.07%, Shanghai Composite dropped by 0.20%, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI contracted by 0.09% and Taiwan Weighted was down by 0.12%.