Hefty across the board buying pull benchmarks to day’s high

Indian markets are witnessing huge position build up in the Friday afternoon session, helping the benchmark indices to come out of the range bound trades and hit new highs. Hefty across the board buying pulled the frontline indices closer to the psychological 4,900 (Nifty) and 16,150 (Sensex) levels. The Real-Estate, Metal and Power counters led from the front in the session while Reliance AGA group stocks too made their presence felt in the session as stocks like R Power and R Com rocketed by 8% and 5% respectively. Sentiments remained optimistic on hopes that the government will resort to proactive measures in order to keep the growth momentum going after getting the pleasantly surprising November industrial output figures which showed IIP surpassed all estimates to stage a sharp rebound to 5.9% in November while food prices fell for the second consecutive week as food inflation remained in the negative zone at -2.90% for the week ended December 31, 2011. The markets also climbed as investors added positions with conviction on tentative improvement in risk appetite after the successful bond auctions in Italy and Spain as well as on the ECB’s decision to keep benchmark rates at 1%. On the global front, Asian markets largely exhibited optimistic trends on the back of encouraging developments from the European region. The European futures on the other hand indicated a positive opening for the markets there amid hopes that Italian bond auction later in the session will attract strong demand in line with Thursday's successful Spanish bond sale. Back home, on the BSE sectoral front, only information technology counter languished in the negative terrain with over half a percent cuts a day after bellwether Infosys reported its third quarter earnings and gave a muted guidance.

Moreover, the broader markets extended their streak of outperformance against larger peers by garnering significant gains of around one and half a percent. The bourses gained on good volumes of over Rs 0.50 lakh crore. The market breadth on BSE was in favor of advances in the ratio of 1792:727 while 85 scrips remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 16,138.23 up by 100.72 points or 0.63% after trading as high as 16,168.99 and as low as 16,049.78. There were 20 stocks advancing against 10 declines on the index.

The broader indices were trading on a positive note; the BSE Mid cap index surged 1.39% and Small cap soared 1.69%.

On the BSE sectoral space, Realty up 3.06%, Power up 2.18%, Metal up 2.14%, Capital Goods up 1.97% and PSU up 1.60% were the major gainers while IT down 0.63% remained the only loser in the space.

Coal India up 4.39%, Tata Steel up 4.05%, DLF up 3.68%, Bharti Airtel up 3.59% and Tata Power up 3.49% were the major gainers on the Sensex, while GAIL India down 2.80%, TCS down 1.52%, Bajaj Auto down 1.35%, HDFC down 1.24% and Hero Moto down 1.17% were the major losers in the index.

Meanwhile, intensifying the historically strong bilateral relations between the two nations, Indian and Japanese officials held talks on increasing co-operation in Indian infrastructure sector. India has been a major beneficiary of Japanese cooperation through Japan Bank for International Co-operation (JBIC) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

A high level delegation led by Japanese Minister for Land Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT), Takeshi Maeda met  C P Joshi, Minister of Road Transport and Highways and discussed bilateral cooperation in infrastructure sector with special reference to road construction. A Memorandum of Cooperation (MOC) which is being prepared by India’s Ministry of Road Transport and Highways is in the process of finalizing which will be signed by Japanese minister of MLIT.

The proposed MOC will enable India and Japan to exchange technical knowledge and expertise in the Road Transportation and Highways sector including capacity building and advanced technology for road transport management system and intelligent transport system. Japanese companies have been participating in National Highways Development Programme (NHDP) of India as Supervision Consultants. Four projects have already been completed where their performance has been satisfactory.

The Japanese minister of MLIT also held extensive talks with Dinesh Trivedi, Indian Minister of Railways on bilateral issues in the field of rail transportation and various aspects of high speed train corridors. Japan’s External Trade Organisation and Oriental Consultancy along with Parsons Brinkhoff India have secured the contract to conduct pre-feasibility study of the Hyderabad-Vijayawada-Chennai corridor, one of the six corridors identified by Indian Railways for high speed train operations.

Union Minister of Shipping GK Vasan also was called upon by Takeshi Maeda for discussion on bilateral issues concerning the port and shipping sectors and other issues of mutual interest like ship-breaking, ship-building, connectivity projects to ports and exchange programmes, etc. Specific issues relating to development projects with respect to connectivity to the ports, draft, new berths, terminals and other facilities especially relating to Chennai and Ennore ports were also discussed.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 4,857.40, higher by 26.15 points or 0.54% after trading as high as 4,868.35 and as low as 4,834.20. There were 33 stocks advancing against 17 declines on the index.

The top gainers on the Nifty were R Power up 8%, R Com up 5.20%, Coal India up 4.53%, Tata Steel up 3.97% and Tata Power up 3.61%.

GAIL down 2.99%, HDFC down 1.64%, HCL Tech down 1.64%, Bajaj Auto down 1.53% and TCS down 1.30% were the major losers on the index.

Asian markets were trading largely on a positive note; Hang Seng advanced 0.32%, Jakarta Composite ascended 0.24%, Nikkei 225 surged 1.36%, Straits Times soared 0.92% and Seoul Composite climbed by 0.60%.

On the flip side, Shanghai Composite plunged 1.39% and Taiwan Weighted eased 0.07%.