Benchmarks enter into positive territory

Indian bourses pared all early losses and entered into the positive territory in late afternoon session as fresh buying appeared in frontline blue chip stocks such as ONGC, BHEL and NTPC among others. Providing support to domestic benchmarks, oil and gas, PSU, power and realty sector stocks witnessed sharp buying, however, FMCG, IT and tech companies stock continued to trade in red. Sentiments got some support as the HSBC services Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) rose to five-month high at 52.6 in the month of November from 50 in October. Further, the RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan statement that a rate cut was likely early next year if the inflation momentum continue to follow downward path also added to optimistic sentiments. Among blue chip stocks, ONGC was top gainer up by around 3.32%, while Dr Reddys Lab was top loser trading down by around 1.95%. Buying also continued in the broader markets with both the mid and small cap indices trading up by over 1.50%.

Atul Auto has zoomed around 18% to Rs 658. In past seven trading sessions, the shares of three-wheelers maker rallied around 58% from Rs 417 on November 24, after Goldman Sachs India Fund bought nearly 300,000 shares of the company from the open market. Shares of BHEL gained over 3% at Rs 281, after the company commissioned India's first Phase Shifting Transformer for the Kothagudem Thermal Power Station Stage-VI in Telangana.

On global front, Asian markets were trading mixed with Taiwan Weighted up by 1.55% and Hang Seng down 0.95%. European Markets also made positive opening.  Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading below their psychological 8,600 and 28,500 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was positive, out of 2,940 stocks traded, 1,867 stocks advanced, while 961 stocks declined on the BSE.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 28458.28, up by 14.27 points or 0.05% after trading in a range of 28370.73 and 28504.65. There were 18 stocks advancing against 12 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 1.52%, while Small cap index up by 1.65%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Oil & Gas up by 1.41%, PSU up by 1.35%, Power up by 1.35%, Realty up by 1.26% and Capital Goods up by 1.11%. On the flip side, IT down by 0.60%, TECK down by 0.51% and FMCG down by 0.22% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were ONGC up by 3.32%, BHEL up by 2.76%, NTPC up by 1.99%, Sesa Sterlite up by 1.79% and Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.41%. On the flip side, Dr. Reddys Lab down by 1.95%, HDFC down by 1.38%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.38%, Hindalco down by 1.28% and TCS down by 1.14% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, The activity in Indian services sector, which accounts for around 60% of country’s GDP, expanded at a faster pace in November as order books filled up at a faster rate. The HSBC services Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), based on the survey of around 350 private service sector companies, rose to five-month high at 52.6 in the month of November from 50 in October, above 50 mark indicating a seventh consecutive monthly expansion in service sector output.

The HSBC Survey highlighted that business activity was driven higher by faster growth of new business in November and the pace of expansion was solid overall and the quickest since July. The new business sub-index accelerated to 52.5 in November, signaling improving demand. Among the six monitored sub-sectors, Post &Telecommunications was the best performing of the broad areas monitored, while contractions in activity were registered in Financial Intermediation and Hotels & Restaurants. Indicating expansion in business activity overall, the HSBC India Composite Output Index, which measures activity in both the manufacturing and services sector, increased to 53.6 in November from 51 in the previous month. In spite of significant growth of activity and new business, workforce numbers in sector declined for the first time in four months. Amid rising demand and declining employment level, backlogs of work held by Indian services companies increased for the second consecutive month in November. However, the rate of increase eased from the previous month and was moderate overall.

On inflation front, the Survey indicated that input costs for services providers fell for the first time since March 2009 and the rate of decline was the second-quickest in the survey’s nine-year history. Subsequently, prices charged by Indian services firms deteriorated for the first time in more than four years in November. Despite the uptick in order flows, new business optimism index slipped to the weakest since mid-2007, suggesting that continued policy action that addresses investor concerns is needed to sustain growth momentum.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8537.60, up by 12.90 points or 0.15% after trading in a range of 8508.35 and 8546.95. There were 32 stocks advancing against 18 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Jindal Steel & Power up by 7.57%,  ONGC up by 3.47%, BHEL up by 2.80%, IDFC up by 2.74% and Asian Paints up by 2.34%. On the flip side, Dr. Reddys Lab down by 2.13%, Zee Entertainment down by 1.91%, HDFC down by 1.51%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.34% and TCS down by 1.24% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mixed; KOSPI Index up by 4.08 points or 0.21% to 1,969.91, Shanghai Composite up by 15.98 points or 0.58% to 2,779.53, Nikkei 225 up by 57.21 points or 0.32% to 17,720.43 and Taiwan Weighted up by 140.47 points or 1.55% to 9,175.26. While, Hang Seng down 225.68 points or 0.95% to 23,428.62, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI down 23.17 points or 1.3% to 1,762.80, Straits Times down 14.51 points or 0.44% to 3,307.81and Jakarta Composite down 10.02 points or 0.19% to 5,165.77.

European Markets made positive opening; France’s CAC up by 1.95 points or 0.04% to 4,390.25, UK’s FTSE 100 up by 6.28 points or 0.09% to 6,748.38 and Germany’s DAX up by 21.61 points or 0.22% to 9,955.69.