Markets continued firm trade in late afternoon session

Indian equity benchmarks continued to trade firm in the late afternoon session amid buying witnessed in frontline blue chip stocks. Domestic benchmarks were hovering near life-time high levels on continued buying by foreign funds and retail investors as global crude oil prices fell to over 4-year lows, which is likely to help the government to tackle both current account and fiscal deficits and also lower subsidy bill. Moody's latest report that country's GDP could grow at 5.3% in the July-September quarter of the current fiscal also added to the optimistic sentiments. All major sectoral indices on the BSE were trading in green with banking as the top gaining index up by 3.12%. Banking stocks were on buyer's radar amid report that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is likely to coax RBI Governor to cut interest rates ahead of the central bank’s monetary policy meeting. Further, sharp buying witnessed in realty, NBFCs, PSU and auto stocks also provided support to the major indices. Among blue chip stocks, SBI was top gainer up by around 4.64%, while Bharti Airtel was top loser trading down by around 1.5%. Buying was broad based with both mid and small cap indices were trading up by over 0.67%.

Shares of Jet Airways surged nearly to 14% to Rs 322 after ICRA upgraded rating of Rs 3,210-crore loan facility given to the company based on improvement in cash flows. Shares of Bajaj Corp has moved higher by 6% to Rs 334 after the company said that after its board approved to increase the aggregate investment limit of FIIs from 24% to 49% of the paid-up equity capital.

On global front, most of the Asian markets were trading mixed with Shanghai Composite up by 1.99% and Hang Seng down 0.07%. Meanwhile, European markets made negative opening.  Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above their psychological 8,600 and 28,500 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was positive, out of 2,589 stocks traded, 1,584 stocks advanced, while 917 stocks declined on the BSE.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 28759.38, up by 320.47 points or 1.13% after trading in a range of 28483.99 and 28822.37. There were 25 stocks advancing against 5 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 1.18%, while Small cap index up by 0.67%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Bankex up by 2.94%, PSU up by 2.03%, Realty up by 1.96%, Auto up by 1.77% and Consumer Durables up by 1.51%. There was no losing index on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were SBI up by 4.63%, Axis Bank up by 2.99%, Tata Steel up by 2.79%, Tata Motors up by 2.56% and ICICI Bank up by 2.31%. On the flip side, Bharti Airtel down by 1.52%, Sesa Sterlite down by 1.28%, Bajaj Auto down by 0.38%, ONGC down by 0.18% and BHEL down by 0.02% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, fund raising through the Qualified Institutional Placement (QIP) seems to be gaining traction among Indian corporates as domestic firms have garnered about Rs 29,582 crore through QIP route in the first ten months of 2014, much higher than Rs 12,634 crore raked up in the entire 2013.

During January-October period of 2014, companies have mopped up Rs 29,582 crore through 33 QIP issues. There was a large gap between the capital raised through QIPs and funds garnered via other routes and it was reported that return of investor confidence in the equity markets has encouraged some of the large firms to mop up funds through the QIP route. Most of the funds were raised through QIP issuances after May when the election verdict was announced, clearly indicating the revival of investor sentiment backed by a strong secondary market.

The companies which garnered funds via QIP segment this year included State Bank of India (SBI), Yes Bank, Idea Cellular and Reliance Communications among others. The funds were raised mainly for expansion purpose and to support working capital requirements. It is expected that fund raising through this route will go up further as many companies have lined up with their plans.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8602.20, up by 108.00 points or 1.27% after trading in a range of 8516.25 and 8617.00. There were 39 stocks advancing against 11 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were PNB up by 7.18%, Bank Of Baroda up by 6.95%,  Asian Paints up by 5.29%, Indusind Bank up by 4.61% and SBI up by 4.51%. On the flip side, Cairn India down by 3.93%, Sesa Sterlite down by 1.62%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.34%, BHEL down by 0.48% and HCL Tech. down by 0.44% were the top losers.

Most of the Asian markets were trading mixed, Straits Times up by14.92 points or 0.45% to 3,355.88, Taiwan Weighted up by 21.84 points or 0.24% to 9,187.15, Shanghai Composite up by 52.35 points or 1.99% to 2,682.84, Nikkei 225 up by 211.35 points or 1.23% to 17,459.85. While, Hang Seng down 16.83 points or 0.07% to 23,987.45, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI down 9.96 points or 0.54% to 1,819.95, Jakarta Composite down 9.71 points or 0.19% to 5,135.60 and KOSPI Index down 1.31 points or 0.07% to 1,980.78.

Meanwhile, European markets made a negative closing. UK’s FTSE 100 down 21.39 points or 0.32% to 6,702.03, Germany’s DAX down 9.99 points or 0.1% to 9,964.88 and France’s CAC down 9.32 points or 0.21% to 4,373.02.