Markets hold gain supported by capital goods and banking stocks

Indian markets amid some intermittent profit taking, are maintaining their morning lead and were trading with gain of around half a percent in early noon trade. Today there is follow up of last session’s upmove supported by some upbeat earnings announcements. Meanwhile, RBI Deputy Governor H R Khan has said that though the country’s forex kitty was at an all-time high of $330 billion, it may not cushion extreme volatility. Traders are going for value buying and there is some short covering in the beaten down sectors. All the sectoral indices on the BSE were trading in green, led by healthcare and banking. The IT sector stocks too have recovered from their last session’s fall but were trading with modest gains only as the Nasscom, the IT industry body in its latest forecast has said that IT sector are expected to grow at 13 percent this fiscal year 2014-15, and estimated that it would be between 12 percent and 14 percent in the coming year, lower than its own previous forecast.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 28507.53, up by 151.91 points or 0.54% after trading in a range of 28424.39 and 28563.83. There were 19 stocks advancing against 11 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were outperforming the benchmarks; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.73%, while Small cap index surged by 1.09%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Capital Goods up by 1.33%, Bankex up by 1.20%, Power up by 0.97%, FMCG up by 0.62%, Consumer Durables up by 0.52% while, Realty down by 0.17%, Oil & Gas down by 0.04% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Larsen & Toubro up by 1.94%, ICICI Bank up by 1.93%, Axis Bank up by 1.72%, Coal India up by 1.71% and Sun Pharma Inds. up by 1.47%. On the flip side, ONGC down by 2.62%, BHEL down by 2.58%, Sesa Sterlite down by 1.99%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.69% and Wipro down by 1.17% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the National Association for Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), the IT industry body in its latest forecast has said that IT sector are expected to grow at 13 percent this fiscal year 2014-15, and estimated that it would be between 12 percent and 14 percent in the coming year. NASSCOM had earlier forecast the industry to grow 13-15 percent this fiscal.

The Indian IT outsourcing sector is expected to see export revenue growth of 12-14 per cent in the financial year starting in April, while the sector's exports in 2015-16 are forecast to rise to as much as $110-$112 billion from about $98.5 billion in the 2015 fiscal ending March. The overall Indian IT-BPM revenues are expected to be in the range of $165-169 billion next year, compared to $146 billion this year.  As per the industry body, the revenue growth rate target stands at 13.1 percent in constant currency terms and 13.9 percent in rupee terms.The domestic IT-BPM sector (including hardware, e-commerce and software products) is expected to grow by 15-17 percent to $55-$57 billion, compared to $48 billion in the current fiscal.

Indian IT sector growth has been slowing over the last few years and with the projected growth is slower than last year, there are concerns of big IT companies catching up with double digit revenue growth again. Though, Nasscom chairman R Chandrasekaran said the sector had posted phenomenal growth this year despite macro-economic challenges.'We had articulated a vision to touch $300 billion by 2020; we are half way there. We are confident of meeting that billion target.”

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8621.75, up by 56.20 points or 0.66% after trading in a range of 8593.65 and 8631.20. There were 34 stocks advancing against 16 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Indusind Bank up by 2.22%, ICICI Bank up by 2.01%, Lupin up by 1.99%, Power Grid Corpn up by 1.96% and Asian Paints up by 1.91%. On the flip side, ONGC down by 2.68%, BHEL down by 2.39%, Cairn India down by 2.11%, Sesa Sterlite down by 1.79% and Zee Entertainment down by 1.71% were the top losers.

The Asian markets were trading mostly in green, Shanghai Composite was up by 7.2 points or 0.23% to 3,148.80, Straits Times was higher by 7.92 points or 0.23% to 3,442.16, KOSPI Index gained 9.84 points or 0.51% to 1,945.70, Jakarta Composite was higher by 15.22 points or 0.29% to 5,336.70 and Taiwan Weighted gained 68.52 points or 0.73% to 9,462.22.

On the other hand, Hang Seng slumped by 190.45 points or 0.78% to 24,337.65 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia declined by 1.09 points or 0.06% to 1,810.03.