Benchmarks trade in fine fettle; Sensex surpasses 29,000 mark

Extending their winning streak to sixth straight session, Indian equity benchmarks have made a positive start and are trading in fine fettle in early deals on Thursday with frontline gauges surpassing their crucial 29,000 (Sensex) and 8,750 (Nifty) levels. Sentiments remained up-beat on report that the government may raise the limit on foreign holding of Indian corporate bonds as it believes that the existing $51 billion cap could be exhausted given the surging demand for Indian fixed income securities. Some support also came in from report that foreign institutional investors were net buyers in equities to the tune of Rs 2,065 crore on January 21, 2015, as per the provisional stock exchange data.

Global cues too remained supportive with the US markets ending higher in last session as investors widely expect the European Central Bank (ECB) to deliver on monetary stimulus at its key meeting on Thursday. The Asian markets were trading mostly in the green amid speculation the European Central Bank will boost stimulus through a sovereign-bond purchase program under the quantitative-easing strategy.

On the sectoral front, healthcare, fast moving consumer goods and capital goods witnessed the maximum gain in trade, while realty and infra remained the only losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices too were trading in-line with benchmarks, while the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 1,197 shares on the gaining side against 715 shares on the losing side while 70 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 29025.14, up by 136.28 points or 0.47% after trading in a range of 28941.93 and 29037.71. There were 20 stocks advancing against 10 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.44%, while Small cap index up by 0.53%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Healthcare up by 1.53%, FMCG up by 1.25%, Capital Goods up by 0.77%, Metal up by 0.64% and IT up by 0.43% while, Realty down by 0.48% and Infrastructure down by 0.12% were the only losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Sun Pharma up by 2.84%, Sesa Sterlite up by 2.26%, ONGC up by 1.61%, ITC up by 1.57% and Cipla up by 1.40%. On the flip side, NTPC down by 1.18%, Reliance Industries down by 0.73%, SBI down by 0.58%, ICICI Bank down by 0.57% and Bharti Airtel down by 0.37% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, amidst lot of expectation, Finance minister Arun jaitley will be presenting NDA government’s first full year budget on February 28, 2015. Also, the budget session of Parliament would commence from February 23 and would continue till March 20. While, the first part of the session would be between February 23 and March 20, the second part would be conducted between April 20 and May 8.

As per schedule, Railway Budget will be presented on February 26, Economic Survey on February 27 and the General Budget will be presented on February 28. Notably, all eight ordinances, including one on raising the FDI limit in the insurance sector from 26% to 49% and e-auctioning of coal mines will be taken up for ratification in the Budget session. However, atleast six of these ordinances will lapse if they are not passed in the first part of the Budget Session.

Besides these, issues like environment, land, power, coal, mining are likely to be effectively addressed through administrative and clearance process. This will manifest the impact of relaxed FDI limits in defence, railways and planned increase in insurance. With Finance Minister Arun Jaitley indicating start of second-generation reforms going forward, upcoming budget would be widely eyed by market-participants across the globe.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8760.60, up by 31.10 points or 0.36% after trading in a range of 8734.90 and 8764.60. There were 30 stocks advancing against 20 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Sun Pharma up by 3.01%, Asian Paints up by 2.77%, Sesa Sterlite up by 1.95%, Zee Entertainment up by 1.85% and Ultratech Cement up by 1.62%. On the flip side, NMDC down by 1.27%, Bank of Baroda down by 1.19%, NTPC down by 1.15%, HCL Tech down by 1.09% and Reliance Industries down by 0.95% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in the green; KOSPI Index rose 2.8 points or 0.15% to 1,924.03, Straits Times gained 7.36 points or 0.22% to 3,361.82, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI increased 11.05 points or 0.62% to 1,781.14, Jakarta Composite surged 23.72 points or 0.45% to 5,238.99, Taiwan Weighted added 39.26 points or 0.42% to 9,358.97 and Hang Seng was up by 105.54 points or 0.43% to 24,458.12.

On the flip side, Shanghai Composite decreased 6.6 points or 0.2% to 3,317.01 and Nikkei 225 was down by 3.65 points or 0.02% to 17,276.83.