Benchmarks trade with traction in early deals

Indian equity benchmarks have made a positive start and are trading with traction in early deals on Wednesday on firm global cues. The US markets coming out of initial weakness, ended modestly higher in last session, though stocks showed a lack of direction throughout much of the trading day. But traders were hopeful that Greece will eventually reach an agreement with its eurozone creditors. The Asian markets were trading mostly in the green at this point of time with some of the indices trading higher by over half a percent in early deals after Bank of Japan kept its monetary policy unchanged as expected.

Back home, sentiments remained up-beat as investors taking cues with the government initiative to further ease procedures for seeking permission of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) for foreign direct investment (FDI). However, gains remained capped upto certain extent as the SBI Composite Index, an indicator for tracking India's manufacturing activity, has registered a month-on-month decline in February to 48.3 in February 2015 from 52.1 in January 2015.

On the sectoral front, capital goods, fast moving consumer goods and power witnessed the maximum gain in trade, while metal, software and technology 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 1334 shares on the gaining side against 706 shares on the losing side while 72 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 29281.39, up by 145.51 points or 0.50% after trading in a range of 29126.91 and 29296.61. There were 17 stocks advancing against 13 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.56%, while Small cap index up by 0.92%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Capital Goods up by 1.35%, FMCG up by 1.30%, Power up by 0.89%, Realty up by 0.80% and Consumer Durables up by 0.68% while, Metal down by 0.45%, TECK down by 0.43%, IT down by 0.33% and Infrastructure down by 0.21% were the few losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were HDFC up by 2.22%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.84%, Tata Power up by 1.79%, ICICI Bank up by 1.55% and ITC up by 1.51%. On the flip side, Hero MotoCorp down by 4.01%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.90%, Sesa Sterlite down by 1.63%, Bajaj Auto down by 1.17% and SBI down by 0.95% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, in the second tranche of ongoing auction for 21 coal mines, the government has received 130 preliminary bids from companies like Essar Power, Hindalco, Adani Power and Jindal Power. A maximum of 16 bids came for Utkal C coal block in Odisha from bidders including Jindal Power, Essar Power, Sesa Sterlite and Adani Power Maharashtra, while another block Gare Palma IV/8 in Chhattisgarh received 13 bids from companies like Hindalco, JSPL, Sesa Sterlite and Balco among others.

Notably, Hindalco Industries piped six companies, including Monnet Ispat & Energy, Rungta Mines, UltraTech Cement and the prior allottee Usha Martin to bag the Kathautia mine in Jharkhand by offering Rs 2,860 per tonne of coal. While, Sunflag Iron & Steel beat Balco, Reliance Cement and Topworth Urja and Metals bagged Belgaon block in Maharashtra at Rs 1785 per tonne. The block was earlier owned by Sunflag and has 14 million tonne reserves.

In the first stage of the auction, the government 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 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 8848.85, up by 39.50 points or 0.45% after trading in a range of 8808.90 and 8851.05. There were 29 stocks advancing against 21 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were HDFC up by 2.31%, PNB up by 1.89%, ITC up by 1.72%, Tata Power up by 1.72% and Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.68%. On the flip side, Hero MotoCorp down by 3.99%, NMDC down by 3.63%, Bharti Airtel down by 2.05%, Sesa Sterlite down by 1.63% and Zee Entertainment down by 1.29% were the top losers.

Most of the Aisan equity indices were trading in the green; Straits Times increased 15.49 points or 0.45% to 3,431.40, Hang Seng rose 47.2 points or 0.19% to 24,832.08, Jakarta Composite surged 55.93 points or 1.05% to 5,393.43 and Nikkei 225 was up by 174.56 points or 0.97% to 18,161.65. On the flip side, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was down by 2.22 points or 0.12% to 1,807.87.