Benchmarks add gains; trades near highest point of day

Indian equity markets added gains and continued trading in green hovering near the highest point of the day in the late afternoon session on account of buying in frontline blue chip counters. Traders were seen piling positions in Oil & Gas, TECK and Infra stocks while selling was witnessed in Realty sector stocks. In scrip specific development, Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) and Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) were trading in green after the foreign brokerage firm upgraded both the stocks. The brokerage has stated that the valuations of the oil marketing companies are inexpensive and downstream oil companies remain in a bright spot. NIIT Technologies was trading weak after the company reported a dispute between one of the company’s subsidiaries and its client in the APAC region. The market may remain volatile this week as traders roll over positions in the Futures & Options (F&O) segment from the near month i.e. March 2015 series to next month i.e. April 2015 series. The near month March 2015 derivatives contracts expire on Thursday i.e. March 26, 2015.

On the global front, the Asian markets were trading mostly in green while the European markets were trading on optimistic note. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above the psychological 8,600 and 28,400 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was negative in the ratio of 1080:1583 while 114 scrips remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 28418.07, up by 226.05 points or 0.80% after trading in a range of 28157.83 and 28432.48. There were 22 stocks advancing against 8 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.08%, while Small cap index down by 0.39%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Oil & Gas up by 1.07%, TECK up by 0.81%, INFRA up by 0.79%, Consumer Durables up by 0.76% and IT up by 0.69% while, Realty down by 0.09% was the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Mahindra & Mahindra up by 3.15%, Bharti Airtel up by 2.99%, HDFC up by 2.52%, Sesa Sterlite up by 2.07% and Sun Pharma up by 1.88%.

On the flip side, Hero MotoCorp down by 0.75%, Hindalco down by 0.74%, Tata Steel down by 0.68%, SBI down by 0.66% and Tata Motors down by 0.53% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, with the Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) 2014-19 all set to expire March 31, 2014, the government is may yet again miss the deadline. The policy, which was last set to expire in March last year was extended by a year as the government did not announce a new FTP. The new policy had been expected to be put in place quickly after the Narendra Modi government came to power in May 2014. But the finance ministry’s reluctance to give sizeable funds for export sops forced the commerce ministry to delay it to the next fiscal year.

However, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman expressed hopes of coming up with the policy soon. She also dismissed claims of exports falling substantially on account of delay in putting up new FTP. Justifying this she said that exports suffered even when the FTP was explicit and was there in place between 2009 and 2014. Further, the Minister in an attempt to reason out the delay in FTP said that the new five-year FTP with a ‘Make in India’ focus needed comprehensive deliberations on various sectors and exporting destinations.

She underlined that the new policy had to be out-of-the-box and was expected to support India’s exports, which could be done by assessing various sectors and their capability and new and traditional markets of the world.

Further, Commerce Minister pointed that the FTP would not lay emphasis on subsidies and incentives to exporters and would rather make it easier for them to do business. She highlighted that her ministry has already reduced the number of mandatory documents required for import and export of goods to three in each case from close to a dozen at present.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8616.25, up by 65.35 points or 0.76% after trading in a range of 8536.45 and 8616.80. There were 36 stocks advancing against 14 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were BPCL up by 3.90%, Lupin up by 3.86%, Bharti Airtel up by 2.96%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 2.87% and HDFC up by 2.67%.

On the flip side, Hindalco down by 0.99%, Grasim Industries down by 0.82%, Tata Steel down by 0.78%, Hindustan Unilever down by 0.74% and Power Grid down by 0.70% were the top losers.

The Asian markets were trading mostly in green; Straits Times increased 2.62 points or 0.08% to 3,412.75, Shanghai Composite increased 3.68 points or 0.1% to 3,691.41, Jakarta Composite increased 4.04 points or 0.07% to 5,441.14, KOSPI Index increased 4.78 points or 0.23% to 2,041.37 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI increased 13.61 points or 0.76% to 1,809.46.

On the other hand, Hang Seng decreased 94.91 points or 0.39% to 24,399.60, Nikkei 225 decreased 40.91 points or 0.21% to 19,713.45 and Taiwan Weighted decreased 26.43 points or 0.27% to 9,731.66.

The European market were trading on optimistic note; France’s CAC increased 11.83 points or 0.23% to 5,066.35, UK’s FTSE 100 increased 15.71 points or 0.22% to 7,053.38 and Germany’s DAX increased 42.86 points or 0.36% to 11,938.70.