Benchmarks add gains; Nifty surpasses 8800 mark

Indian equity markets added gains and continued its trade in green hovering near the highest point of the day in the late afternoon session on account of buying in frontline blue chip counters. Traders were seen piling positions in IT, TECK and Bankex stocks while selling was witnessed in Consumer Durables, Power and Realty sector stocks. In scrip specific development, JK Lakshmi Cement was trading in green after the company reported a 31% rise in net profit for the October-December quarter, at Rs 18.48 crore on higher sales and net sales realization. Godrej Consumer Products (GCPL) was trading in green on reporting 34.63% growth in its consolidated net profit at Rs 263.57 crore for the quarter ended December on account of robust sales. On the global front, the Asian markets were trading mostly in red while the European markets were trading on pessimistic note. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above the psychological 8,800 and 29,100 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was negative in the ratio of 1306:1403 while 124 scrips remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 29179.36, up by 296.25 points or 1.03% after trading in a range of 28824.88 and 29197.37. There were 15 stocks advancing against 15 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.09%, while Small cap index up by 0.04%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were IT up by 2.76%, TECK up by 2.12%, Bankex up by 1.01%, FMCG up by 0.96%, Auto up by 0.26% while, Consumer Durables down by 1.10%, Power down by 0.94%, Realty down by 0.92%, Metal down by 0.63%, INFRA down by 0.50% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were HDFC up by 4.23%, Infosys up by 3.32%, Wipro up by 3.31%, Axis Bank up by 2.99% and TCS up by 2.39%. On the flip side, Tata Power down by 3.77%, ONGC down by 2.29%, Sesa Sterlite down by 2.19%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 2.14% and GAIL India down by 1.88% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the Minister of State for Finance, Jayant Sinha, has expressed concern about the rupee's appreciation against all major currencies, except the US dollar. He further stated that “As of now, we do have to find a zone for the rupee that prevents obviously inflation, etc., in India - which is one of the things that we are concerned about - but at the same time it doesn’t push out of the zone of competitiveness.” He added that the rupee's 60-65 level against the dollar is a “good zone to be in”.

Separately, the Minister of State for Finance stated that India needs to grow at 7-8 per cent a year to create more job opportunities for young people and double the size of the economy in 10 years. Earlier Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan too had said that India should not settle for anything less than double-digit economic growth in the medium term. Sinha had stressed that Indian economy has potential to become a $ 4-5 trillion economy in the next 10-12 years, adding that it’s great time to invest in India. We are going to take India's $ 2 trillion economy to $4-5 trillion economy in the next 10-12 years.

Indian rupee has been the strongest performing currency in 2014 and was in December last year overvalued by 10 percent compared to a basket of 36 currencies. Recently RBI governor too has expressed his concern over rupee appreciation, though he said that we are perfectly comfortable with where the rupee is. But, going forward, with the massive amount of quantitative easing in the rest of the world, there are possible dangers of us becoming uncompetitive.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8812.35, up by 88.65 points or 1.02% after trading in a range of 8705.05 and 8816.05. There were 26 stocks advancing against 24 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were BPCL up by 6.29%, HDFC up by 4.26%, HCL Tech up by 3.49%, Infosys up by 3.29% and Axis Bank up by 3.20%. On the flip side, Tata Power down by 3.94%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 2.53%, Cairn India down by 2.52%, Jindal Steel & Power down by 2.44% and ONGC down by 2.41% were the top losers.

The Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Nikkei 225 decreased 174.12 points or 0.98% to 17,504.62, Jakarta Composite decreased 55.11 points or 1.04% to 5,260.17, Shanghai Composite decreased 37.6 points or 1.18% to 3,136.53, Straits Times decreased 15.22 points or 0.45% to 3,402.35, KOSPI Index decreased 9.95 points or 0.51% to 1,952.84, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 2.02 points or 0.11% to 1,801.00 and Taiwan Weighted decreased 1.87 points or 0.02% to 9,512.05.

On the other hand, Hang Seng increased 85.73 points or 0.35% to 24,765.49.

The European markets were trading in red; Germany’s DAX decreased 51.76 points or 0.47% to 10,859.56, France’s CAC decreased 41.36 points or 0.88% to 4,654.94 and UK’s FTSE 100 decreased 49.98 points or 0.73% to 6,810.04.