Markets pare some gains; rate sensitives decline

Markets despite paring some gains were trading firm in the early noon session, rejoicing the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) projection that India’s growth rate will surpass China and improve to 7.8 percent in next fiscal and further to 8.2 percent in 2016-17. Buying was being witnessed across the board and apart from bluechips, broader markets too were showing decent gains. Traders were also getting some support with the continuous rise in rupee on sustained selling of dollars by exporters. The IT pack which usually mirrors a reveres trend to the currency, too was in bullish mood as the US President Barack Obama announced an easing of the process to obtain L-1B work visas for corporate executives, a move that could end the large scale harassment of IT professionals from India. Obama argued that it would attract larger foreign direct investment to the US. From other sectoral indices, healthcare, consumer durables and oil & gas were prominent gainers, while some profit booking was being seen in the rate sensitives, auto and banking stocks.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 28315.73, up by 123.71 points or 0.44% after trading in a range of 28157.83 and 28366.41. There were 21 stocks advancing against 9 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices too were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.14%, while Small cap index gained 0.15%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were INFRA up by 0.87%, Consumer Durables up by 0.85%, Oil & Gas up by 0.60%, TECK up by 0.56%, IT up by 0.36%, while Bankex down by 0.13%, Auto down by 0.13%, Realty down by 0.13% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bharti Airtel up by 2.56%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 2.07%, Sun Pharma Inds up by 1.91%, HDFC up by 1.77% and Sesa Sterlite up by 1.60%. On the flip side, Hindalco down by 1.80%, Tata Motors down by 1.43%, Hero MotoCorp down by 1.14%, Hindustan Unilever down by 1.02% and Tata Steel down by 1.01% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the government has announced its borrowing calendar saying that it will borrow a majority of its fund requirements for 2015-16 in the first half of the fiscal, raising Rs 3.6 lakh crore from the market between April and September 2015. This amounts to 66.7 per cent of the targetted gross market borrowing of Rs 6 lakh crore in 2015-16. It also announced measures to smoothen the management of government debt including framing of guidelines to reduce the pressure of repayment of loans raised earlier.

Finance Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi has said that the government also plans to raise long term bonds of 40-year duration from the market. 'We will issue long-term bonds of 40 years in early next financial year. It will help us in the long run and will provide stability in the system.'  Mehrishi further stated that the Central Government would be borrowing about Rs 17,000-18,000 crore through bonds every week. The borrowing in the first half of the next fiscal will be raised from the market through bonds during the year. After deducting the repayments of loans maturing in the April-September period, the net borrowings of the government during the period will be Rs 2.25 lakh crore.

The calendar for market borrowing was decided at a meeting between officials of the Finance Ministry and Reserve Bank (RBI). It was also decided that in the next financial year the government would exchange Rs 50,000 crore worth of bonds that are maturing in the next two to three years with bonds of longer tenor. This will reduce the amount of loan that the government will have to repay during the period. The government would come out with a concept paper for switching of bonds in the coming days that would lay out the principle on which it would be done in future.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8585.50, up by 34.60 points or 0.40% after trading in a range of 8536.45 and 8602.95. There were 33 stocks advancing against 17 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Lupin up by 3.54%, BPCL up by 3.33%, Bharti Airtel up by 2.61%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.97% and Jindal Steel & Power up by 1.85%. On the flip side, Hindalco down by 1.99%, Tata Motors down by 1.91%, Bank Of Baroda down by 1.50%, Tata Steel down by 1.42% and NMDC down by 1.17% were the top losers.

Asian markets were showing mixed trend, Straits Times was up by 2.14 points or 0.06% to 3,412.27, KOSPI Index gained 4.78 points or 0.23% to 2,041.37, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was higher by 10.83 points or 0.6% to 1,806.68 and Jakarta Composite added 11.56 points or 0.21% to 5,448.66.

On the other hand, Hang Seng slumped by 102.49 points or 0.42% to 24,392.02, Nikkei 225 declined by 40.91 points or 0.21% to 19,713.45, Taiwan Weighted lost 26.43 points or 0.27% to 9,731.66 and Shanghai Composite was down by 24.88 points or 0.67% to 3,662.85.