Benchmarks continue firm trade in late morning session

After getting a gap-up start, benchmark equity indices continued to trade in fine fettle in late morning deals on account of strong buying in rate sensitive sectors like banks, Consumer Durables, realty and select metal shares. Besides, firm global cues coupled with the appreciation in rupee value against the dollar added to the optimistic sentiments. Some support also came after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley asked the chiefs of public sector banks (PSBs) to increase the flow of credit to various sectors of the economy without being unduly conservative and firmly deal with the issue of rising non-performing assets (NPAs). He assured banks that their professional decisions would not be influenced by instructions from the Centre and asked them to act without any fear or favour. However, gains remained capped on report that foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares worth a net Rs 477.15 crore on November 20, 2014. At present, Sensex and Nifty were trading above the crucial 28,200 and 8,450 levels respectively, with gains of over 0.50%.  Apart from blue chips, broader indices too equally participated in the rally with both mid cap and small cap indices trading up by over half a percentage point. There is no sign of profit booking from any corner and the gains are visible across the board. 

On the sectoral front, pharma stocks rose on report that the Government will be rolling out a new industry friendly pharma policy for bulk drugs in 10-15 days, which could help the sector in growing manifold over the next 5-7 year. Furthermore, some non-financial companies came into jubilant mood after Global ratings agency Moody's Investors Service has changed the outlook for Indian non-financial corporates to stable from negative. In scrip specific development, shares of Yes Bank surged after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) notified that foreign institutional investors (FIIs) can buy equity shares in private lender as shareholding by foreign investors has gone below the prescribed limit. Furthermore, Tech Mahindra rose after the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire US-based Lightbridge Communications Corporation for an enterprise value of $240 million.

On global front, most Asian markets rose on data showing broad U.S. economic strength, while the yen rebounded from overnight multi-year lows after a Japanese official expressed concern about the pace of its recent descent. Back home, Indian rupee appreciated by 8 paise to 61.86 against the Greenback in early trade on increased selling of the US dollar by exporters and banks. The market breadth on BSE was positive, out of 2374 stocks traded, 1426 stocks advanced, while 863 stocks declined on the BSE. 

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 28227.08 up by 159.52 points or 0.57% after trading in a range of 28254.85 and 28038.40. 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 0.70%, while Small cap index gained 0.67%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Bankex up by 1.72%, Consumer Durables up by 1.47%, Realty up by 1.42% and Metal up by 0.72% and Auto up by 0.70% while, IT down by 0.80% and TECK down by 0.51% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Cipla up by 3.29%, Axis Bank up by 2.51%, Hindalco up by 2.44%, SBI up by 2.04% and Tata Motors up by 1.88%. On the flip side, Infosys down by 1.68%, Coal India down by 0.50%, Tata Power down by 0.22%, Hindustan Unilever down by 0.20% and TCS down by 0.16% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan has said that the government is yet to take a call on extending sops for overseas sale of sugar in the 2014/15 marketing year that started in October. Though, the minister had earlier said that the government is open to extending export subsidy on raw sugar but the things are being contemplated in the current marketing year amid fall in global prices, making the exports unviable. Meanwhile, some members of the World Trade Organization (WTO), including Australia, the European Union, Pakistan, have raised questions over India's export subsidy on sugar.

The subsidy scheme which ended in September 2014 was actually started by the previous government in February this year, with the government announcing a subsidy for exports of raw sugar up to 4 million tonnes in order to help the cash-starved industry clear sugarcane arrears to farmers. The subsidy was originally fixed at Rs 3,300 per tonne for February-March and it was decided to review the quantum of subsidy every two months.

The Incentive was reduced to Rs 2,277 per tonne for April-May but was reinstated at Rs 3,300 per tonne for June- July and for August-September the subsidy was hiked to Rs 3,371 per tonne. The subsidy were mainly to clear the sugarcane arrears and in this regard the minister has stated that the total sugarcane arrears to farmers in the country till November 18 this year have come down to Rs 4,300 crore from Rs 14,095 crore in May-end. The government has pegged overall output at 250.5 lakh tonnes for this season, while Isma has predicted 250-255 lakh tonnes.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8,453.10 up by 51.20 points or 0.61% after trading in a range of 8,461.65 and 8,398.60. There were 38 stocks advancing against 12 declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Kotak Mahindra Bank up by 5.81%, Cipla up by 3.32%, Axis Bank up by 2.58%, Hindalco up by 2.50% and SBI up by 1.97%. On the flip side, Infosys down by 1.72%, Tech Mahindra down by 1.32%, Lupin down by 0.72%, Coal India down by 0.42% and Tata Power down by 0.34% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in the green; KOSPI Index 0.34%, Shanghai Composite increased 0.57%, Taiwan Weighted gained 0.19%, Straits Times surged 0.67% and Hang Seng was up by 0.11%. On the other hand, Nikkei 225 declined 0.53%, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 0.54% and Jakarta Composite was down by 0.08%.