Markets soar to day’s high on sustained buying activity

Local equity markets continuously gaining strength were trading at day’s high point on sustained buying activities on the back of a firming trend in global market. The sentiment was buttressed with consumer prices for January coming within market expectations and well below the central bank's inflation target, bolstering prospects for further interest rate cuts. Data showed that consumer prices rose an annual 5.11% compared with a 4.28% gain in December. However, the country's industrial production growth, slowing to 1.7% in December last year, limited gains to some extent. At day’s high, both Sensex and Nifty were trading above psychologically crucial 28,950 and 8,750 levels respectively, with gains of over half a percent. Meanwhile, the broader indices too participating into the rally were trading with gains of over half a percent.

On the global front, Asian shares soared on Friday on news of a ceasefire accord in Ukraine, while Sweden's surprise move to cut its main rate into negative territory and hopes of a resolution between debt-strapped Greece and its creditors burnished risk appetite.

Closer home, most of the sectoral indices on BSE were trading higher, however stocks from Power and Oil & Gas counters were the only losers of the session. On the flip side, maximum buying activity was witnessed in Consumer Durable, Realty and banking counters. The gains of bourses was also triggered by better than expected earnings of index heavyweight, State Bank of India, the stocks of which spurted over 6% after the bank reported 30.24% rise in its net profit at Rs 2910.06 crore for the quarter under review as compared to Rs 2234.34 crore for the same quarter in the previous year. The overall market breadth on BSE was in the favour of advances which thumped declines in the ratio of 1409:1110; while 103 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 28963.24, up by 158.14 points or 0.55% after trading in a range of 28835.70 and 29022.04. There were 18 stocks advancing against 12 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.67%, while Small cap index was higher by 0.61%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Consumer Durables up by 1.08%, Realty up by 0.95%, Bankex up by 0.88%, IT up by 0.77%, Auto up by 0.69% while, Power down by 0.31%, Oil & Gas down by 0.25%, INFRA down by 0.06% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were SBI up by 5.17%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 2.72%, Sun Pharma Inds. up by 2.38%, TCS up by 2.27% and Wipro up by 1.83%. On the flip side, BHEL down by 3.28%, ONGC down by 1.89%, GAIL India down by 1.77%, Tata Motors down by 0.69% and HDFC Bank down by 0.47% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, moving forward in the process of coal block auctions, the government has found as many as 134 applications “technically qualifiable” of the total 176 preliminary bids received for 21 coal blocks that have been put for electronic auction.

Sector major’s like Jindal Steel and Power (JSPL), Bharat Aluminium Co (Balco), Essar Power M P, GMR Chhattisgarh Energy, GVK Power, JSW Energy, Reliance Cement Company, Ambuja Cement, Hindustan Zinc, Sesa Sterlite are among some of the other major companies whose bids have been found technically qualified.

Out of short-listed, top 50% of the bids or top 5 bidders, whichever less would go ahead for the final round of e-auction starting February 14. The selected authority for the coal e-auction would open the financial bids on Saturday to select the e-auction participants.

Notably while, low initial price offer (IPOs) would be shortlisted for bidding in coal blocks for power sector, higher IPOs would be selected for unregulated - steel, cement and captive power.

The government had initially planned to auction 23 mines in first lot but had put on hold bidding for two mines due to litigations. The Ministry would go ahead of with the auction of mines as per schedule though there have some court cases as a consequence of which there have been some changes

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8759.60, up by 48.05 points or 0.55% after trading in a range of 8729.65 and 8781.00. There were 35 stocks advancing against 15 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were SBI up by 3.20%, Ultratech Cement up by 2.79%, Lupin up by 2.69%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 2.60% and TCS up by 2.30%. On the flip side, BHEL down by 3.40%, ONGC down by 1.92%, GAIL India down by 1.89%, Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 0.71% and Tech Mahindra down by 0.66% were the top losers.

Asian markets were holding firmly into positive territory; with Straits Times trading higher by 3.37 points or 0.1% to 3,422.54; FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI trading higher by 6.22 points or 0.35% to 1,795.29; KOSPI Index trading higher by 15.87 points or 0.82% to 1,957.50;  Jakarta Composite trading higher by 24.76 points or 0.46% to 5,368.17;  Shanghai Composite trading higher by 32.72 points or 1.03% to 3,206.14; Taiwan Weighted trading higher by 33.2 points or 0.35% to 9,529.51;  Hang Seng trading higher by 218 points or 0.89% to 24,640.15. On the flip side, Nikkei 225 was trading lower 66.36 points or 0.37% to 17,913.36