Benchmarks trade in fine fettle in early deals

Extending their previous week’s rally, Indian equity benchmarks have made a positive start and are trading in fine fettle in early deals on Monday ahead of WPI inflation data for January, slated to be announced later in the day. Sentiments remained up-beat on reports that foreign institutional investors bought equities worth Rs 390 crore on Friday, as per provisional stock exchange data. Some support with Prime Minister Narendra Modi assuring more reforms while rolling out the red carpet to investors, especially the multinationals, inviting them to make use of the large pool of highly talented youth in the country.

On the global front, the US markets made a modestly positive closing in last session supported by some upbeat economic news from Europe and rise in crude oil prices, although the consumer sentiments suffered sharp decline in February. The Asian markets were trading mostly in the green at this point of time with the Japanese market surging to an eight year high after data showed that the economy emerged from recession in the final quarter of last year.

Back home, on the sectoral front, realty, fast moving consumer goods and infrastructure witnessed the maximum gain in trade, while healthcare and capital goods remained the top 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 1215 shares on the gaining side against 798 shares on the losing side while 66 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 29280.40, up by 185.47 points or 0.64% after trading in a range of 29156.04 and 29325.35. There were 23 stocks advancing against 7 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.48%, while Small cap index up by 0.42%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 1.68%, FMCG up by 1.29%, Infrastructure up by 1.13%, Metal up by 1.03% and Auto was up by 1.01% while, Healthcare down by 0.18% and Capital Goods was down by 0.12% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bharti Airtel up by 2.73%, Hindustan Unilever up by 2.26%, Tata Motors up by 2.02%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.51% and Sesa Sterlite up by 1.34%. On the flip side, Sun Pharma down by 2.49%, Larsen & Toubro down by 1.05%, BHEL down by 0.39%, Infosys down by 0.27% and GAIL India down by 0.18% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the government has asked oil producers to provide Rs 10,896 crore in subsidies to offset some of the losses incurred by state retailers that have been selling fuel at government-set low rates. In addition, the federal finance ministry has agreed to support the retailers with a Rs 5085 crore subsidy for the December quarter.

Since the government regulates retail prices of liquefied petroleum gas and kerosene, State-run producers Oil and Natural Gas Corp , Oil India and GAIL (India) sell crude and related products at a discount to the retailers get cash subsidies from the government for selling fuel at below market rates. The three fuel retailers i.e. Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corp and Hindustan Petroleum Corp, had suffered revenue losses of Rs 15981 crore during the quarter.

According to reports, while IOC, the country’s biggest refiner and fuel retailer will get a subsidy of Rs 8982 crore, HPCL and BPCL will get subsidy 3586 crore and Rs 3413 crore respectively. On the flip side, ONGC will pay a subsidy of Rs 9458 crore while Oil India`s share is pegged at Rs 1438 crore.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8849.60, up by 44.10 points or 0.50% after trading in a range of 8824.70 and 8870.10. There were 37 stocks advancing against 12 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were BPCL up by 3.44%, Bharti Airtel up by 2.75%, Hindustan Unilever up by 2.29%, Tata Motors up by 2.15% and Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.54%. On the flip side, Sun Pharma down by 2.56%, Jindal Steel & Power down by 1.31%, Larsen & Toubro down by 1.05%, Lupin down by 0.68% and BHEL down by 0.40% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in the green; KOSPI Index rose 2.16 points or 0.11% to 1,959.66, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI gained 5.42 points or 0.3% to 1,806.37, Shanghai Composite advanced 7.78 points or 0.24% to 3,211.60, Taiwan Weighted increased 33.2 points or 0.35% to 9,529.51, Hang Seng added 52.71 points or 0.21% to 24,735.25 and Nikkei 225 was up by 87.78 points or 0.49% to 18,001.14. On the flip side, Jakarta Composite decreased 18.29 points or 0.34% to 5,355.88 and Straits Times was down by 7.48 points or 0.22% to 3,418.74.