Post Session: Quick Review

Indian markets witnessed another day of good gains on Wednesday, though the trade showed some volatility but the major indices managed to hold considerable gains till last. The gains were aided by law minister Sadananda Gowda’s statement that India plans to amend its arbitration law, setting time limits for courts and easing judicial rules to decide corporate disputes, as it seeks to attract more foreign investment. The markets kept moving up and down throughout the session but comfortably in the green, with Nifty reclaiming 8600 and 28500 levels respectively.

On the global front, while the US markets ended in green, the Asian markets too after some initial jitters managed mostly a positive close. Though, there was cautiousness on concerns about the Greece debt crisis. The European markets made a soft-to-cautious start ahead of a meeting between Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis and his euro-area counterparts in Brussels with its current bailout due to expire at the end of the month.

Back home, it was the second straight session of gains for the Indian equity markets with investors keenly awaiting the union budget and slew of new reforms in offing. Though, all the sectoral indices performed well, but capital good, metal, healthcare, power and banks, especially the private banks surged and helped the markets post considerable gains for the day. The IT sector stocks recovering from their last session’s fall posted gains of over half a pecent after Nasscom, the IT industry body in its latest forecast 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. In the non sectoral gauge, sugar witnessed some buzz after Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said his ministry is in favour of extending export subsidy to only 1.4 million tonnes of raw sugar in the ongoing 2014-15 marketing year, as the country would be left with surplus quantities even after meeting the domestic demand of 24.8 million tonnes during this year. Last year, the Centre had announced a subsidy for exports of raw sugar of up to 4 million tonnes. Broader markets outperformed the benchmarks with quiet a margin and the BSE Midcap index showed a consistent upmove. Meanwhile, the result announcements kept the markets in action and related reaction was visible on the stocks, JP Associates lost around a percent and half after reporting a net loss of Rs 116.09 crore in the third quarter on the otherhand Godrej Industries gained around half a percent after reporting around 40% rise in its consolidated net profit.

The BSE Sensex last traded at 28533.97, up by 178.35 points or 0.63% after trading in a range of 28424.39 and 28618.91. There were 22 stocks on gainers side against 8 stocks on the declining one.(Provisional)

The broader indices outperformed the benchmarks; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 1.55%, while Small cap index gained 1.47%.(Provisional)

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Capital Goods up by 2.00%, Metal up by 1.68%, Power up by 1.16%, Bankex up by 1.05%, FMCG up by 0.85%.(Provisional)

The top gainers on the Sensex were Axis Bank up by 2.87%, Larsen & Toubro up by 2.57%, Maruti Suzuki up by 2.10%, Tata Steel up by 2.08% and Reliance Industries up by 2.07%. On the flip side, ONGC down by 2.63%, BHEL down by 2.41%, Tata Motors down by 0.90%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 0.81% and Cipla down by 0.50% were the top losers.(Provisional)

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 ended at 8627.40, up by 61.85 points or 0.72% after trading in a range of 8593.65 and 8651.95. There were 36 stocks advancing against 14 stocks declining on the index.(Provisional)

The top gainers on Nifty were Jindal Steel & Power up by 5.96%, Tech Mahindra up by 2.87%, Axis Bank up by 2.73%, Larsen & Toubro up by 2.61% and Bank Of Baroda up by 2.58%. On the flip side, ONGC down by 2.74%, BHEL down by 2.31%, Zee Entertainment down by 1.29%, Tata Motors down by 0.92% and Cairn India down by 0.89% were the top losers..(Provisional)

The European markets have made a soft start and the France’s CAC was down by 26.15 points or 0.56% to 4,669.50, Germany’s DAX was lower by 24.69 points or 0.23% to 10,729.14 and UK’s FTSE 100 was down by 13.39 points or 0.2% to 6,815.73.

The Asian indices ended mostly in green on Wednesday, as confidence grew that Greece would reach a new debt deal with its European creditors enabling it to stay in the euro currency bloc. Japan’s Stock Exchange was closed on account of ‘National Founding Day’ holiday. Chinese Central Bank Vice Governor Yi Gang stated that the country’s economy is now more sustainable and domestic consumption is steadily rising. China’s central bank stated that it will fine-tune policy to help head off an economic slowdown but avoid over-stimulating the economy. In its fourth-quarter monetary policy implementation report, the People’s Bank of China added that it would use both quantitative and pricing tools to keep liquidity levels appropriate and to maintain reasonable credit growth. Japanese tertiary industry activity index fell to a seasonally adjusted -0.3%, from 0.2% in the preceding month while Japan’s M2 Money Stock fell to a seasonally adjusted 3.4%, from 3.6% in the preceding month. Philippines Industrial Production fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.2%, from 7.5% in the preceding month.