Markets pare some early gains in afternoon session

Indian bourses continued to trade in green in the afternoon session as buying momentum in the equities persisted, however a marginal downfall from day's high levels was seen as some selling appeared in FMCG and IT stocks. Firm global cues and positive economic related reports provided support to the major indices and all sector indices on BSE were trading in green with consumer durables as the top gaining index up by over 2.50%. Sentiments got some support as the FDI for April-November period of the ongoing fiscal, grew by 22% to $ 18.88 billion as against $ 15.45 billion in the same period in previous fiscal. Buying was broad based with both mid cap and small cap indices were trading up by over 0.65%. Sector wise, investors were seen piling up position in IT stocks led by the strong gains in Wipro which has surged around 6% post its better-than-expected third quarter earnings. Among blue chip stocks, Wipro was top gainer up by around 5.71%, while HUL was top loser trading marginally down by around 1.64%.

Shares of Symphony surged over 7% to Rs 2,153, after hitting a record high of Rs 2,225, on the back of robust second quarter earnings because of higher volume growth and realisations on air coolers. On the other hand, Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M) Financial Services has dipped 7% to Rs 287 after the company reported 14% yoy decline in consolidated net profit to Rs 157 crore in Q3FY15, due to higher loan provisions and write offs.

On global front, most of the Asian markets were trading in green with Straits Times up by 0.22% and Nikkei 225 up by 0.89%, tracking firm cues from the US markets which ended higher in last session supported by sharp increase by the price of crude oil, with crude for February delivery jumping $2.44 to $48.69 a barrel. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above their psychological 8,500 and 28,000 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was positive, out of 2,620 stocks traded, 1,605 stocks advanced, while 925 stocks declined on the BSE.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 28241.90, up by 120.01 points or 0.43% after trading in a range of 28228.19 and 28334.06. There were 21 stocks advancing against 9 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.66%, while Small cap index up by 0.77%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Consumer Durables up by 2.70%, INFRA up by 1.14%, Capital Goods up by 0.97%, Oil & Gas up by 0.90% and Bankex up by 0.86%. There was no losing index on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Wipro up by 5.71%, GAIL India up by 4.55%, Axis Bank up by 1.98%, ICICI Bank up by 1.55% and Cipla up by 1.39%. On the flip side, Hindustan Unilever down by 1.64%, Hero MotoCorp down by 1.02%, HDFC down by 0.86%, TCS down by 0.82% and Infosys down by 0.76% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the HSBC, in its latest report, has highlighted that the onus of getting the economy back on track has fallen again on government as the domestic corporate are over-leveraged, while banking industry have gripped with the NPAs issues.

The report further added that during the September quarter of the current fiscal the gross capital formation (GCF) has been remained zero as compared with the 10-year average of 9 percent. Further, GCF has fallen by over 4 percent of GDP over the past five years, as there was hardly any capex both by the government as well as corporate. HSBC India Chief Economist Pranjul Bhandari asserted that the government could play a crucial role in crowding in private investment in three ways such as getting the stalled projects restarted, increasing capital spending and introducing a new workable model for public private partnerships.

By adding further, he stated that 1 percent GDP increase in the government's capex leads to an 110 bps increase in real GDP growth over a year and a half, rising to a cumulative 170 bps over three years. Conversely, a similar 1 percent GDP increase in the government's current expenditure leads to a smaller 40 bps increase in real GDP growth over a year and a half, rising to 70 bps in three years. The report further added that half of the top 100 stalled projects, worth over Rs 27 trillion, could benefit from the Project Monitoring Group.

After registering an average growth rate of 8% during FY08-FY12, Indian economic growth had slowed down to below 5% over the last two financial years. The factors like high interest rate and stubborn inflation, low investments and slow execution of infrastructure projects have impacted country’s economy growth. However, the domestic economy has shown signs of nascent recovery and expanded at 5.5% during H1FY15 as compared to 4.9% in the same period of previous fiscal.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8544.10, up by 30.30 points or 0.36% after trading in a range of 8538.85 and 8570.95. There were 33 stocks advancing against 17 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Wipro up by 6.20%, GAIL India up by 4.51%,  HCL Tech up by 2.07%, Axis Bank up by 2.02% and IDFC up by 2.01%. On the flip side, Power Grid Corpn down by 1.80%, BPCL down by 1.50%, Hindustan Unilever down by 1.41%, Hero MotoCorp down by 1.09% and HDFC down by 0.92% were the top losers.

Asian Markets were trading in red, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI up by 5.92 points or 0.34% to 1,749.49, Straits Times up by 7.23 points or 0.22% to 3,307.91, KOSPI Index up by 14.49 points or 0.77% to 1,902.62, Taiwan Weighted up by 35.77 points or 0.39% to 9,174.06 and Nikkei 225 up by 150.86 points or 0.89% to 17,015.02. While, Hang Seng down 347.13 points or 1.44% to 23,756.39, Shanghai Composite down 236.54 points or 7.01% to 3,139.95 and Jakarta Composite down 0.26 points or 0.01% to 5,148.12.