Benchmarks trade in fine fettle in early deals

Indian equity benchmarks have made a positive start and are trading in fine fettle in early deals on Wednesday as investors opted to buy beaten down but fundamentally strong stocks after five days of continuous drubbing. Some support also came in with reports that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will meet his state counterparts to discuss the roadmap for rolling out Goods and Services Tax (GST) from April 2016. The state ministers will discuss amongst themselves various issues relating to the implementation of the new indirect regime.

On the global front, the US markets made a mixed closing in last session, while the tech heavy Nasdaq ended in green, the Dow and the S&P 500 both spent much of the day in the red, reflecting uncertainty about the near-term outlook for the markets. Asian markets were trading mixed at this point of time, though the Japanese market was surging over a percent, extending a seven-year high in early deals on weak yen.

Back home, on the sectoral front, realty, healthcare and capital goods witnessed the maximum gain in trade, while software, technology and infrastructure 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 negative; there were 1272 shares on the gaining side against 561 shares on the losing side while 70 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 27757.02, up by 80.98 points or 0.29% after trading in a range of 27702.77 and 27827.66. There were 19 stocks advancing against 11 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.36%, while Small cap index up by 0.61%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 0.99%, Healthcare up by 0.91%, Capital Goods up by 0.78%, FMCG up by 0.52% and Oil & Gas up by 0.47% while, IT down by 1.02%, TECK down by 0.97%, Infrastructure down by 0.37% and Consumer Durables down by 0.14% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Hindustan Unilever up by 2.21%, Sun Pharma Inds. up by 1.85%, Dr. Reddys Lab up by 1.67%, Hero MotoCorp up by 1.52% and Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.43%. On the flip side, Wipro down by 4.34%, GAIL India down by 1.76%, Hindalco down by 1.15%, Infosys down by 0.86% and Bharti Airtel down by 0.80% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, suspecting a major Railway scam of over Rs 4,000 crore, CBI is likely to file a case soon into alleged manipulation in reporting the actual weight of loaded goods wagons. In FY 2012-13, railways transported 1,008 million metric tonnes of freight and earned Rs 85,262 crore through it, which constituted 67% of the total revenue for the period.

According to the procedure, the goods were required to be weighed at the originating station or en route or at the destination point with a view to plug the leakage of revenue and to avoid over-loading of the wagons.

However, CBI officials found this system to be manipulated at several places in such a way that over-loading was concealed and weight of the wagon appeared to be within the permissible limit. It also suspected the involvement of highly sophisticated methodology of crime for manipulating the software of system and believed involvement of railway officials, private vendors and freight operators for alleged manipulation. CBI officials pointed that even 5% under-reporting of actual weight of freight could lead to a difference of Rs 4,263 crore by 2012-13.

Railways had in consultation with Research Development and Standards Organization (RDSO) installed 200 'Electronic In-Motion Weigh Bridges' at various locations across the country to weigh the freight in transit. A total of six vendors were roped in by RDSO for setting up the bridges, which automatically measured the weight of goods train wagons passing through them at a speed of 15-km per hour.

However, during the surprise operation, CBI found 'systematic' under-weighing with the system programmed to give readings which were lower than the actual weight. It found that the quantum of under-weighing increased with an increase in speed of the rake at some of the locations. Notably, also the preliminary digital analysis of the forensic image taken at some of the locations revealed old weighing logs showing past manipulations in weighing.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8399.35, up by 21.60 points or 0.26% after trading in a range of 8380.65 and 8423.20. There were 32 stocks advancing against 18 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Hindustan Unilever up by 2.34%, ACC up by 1.81%, Sun Pharma up by 1.70%, Dr. Reddys Lab up by 1.68% and BPCL up by 1.60%. On the flip side, Wipro down by 4.34%, HCL Tech down by 2.22%, Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 1.88%, GAIL India down by 1.37% and Tech Mahindra down by 1.18% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in the green; KOSPI Index rose 7.48 points or 0.35% to 2,152.27, Taiwan Weighted increased 70.84 points or 0.74% to 9,604.82, Shanghai Composite soared 76.28 points or 1.78% to 4,369.90, Hang Seng gained 78.48 points or 0.28% to 27,928.97 and Nikkei 225 was up by 181.58 points or 0.91% to 20,090.67.

On the flip side, Jakarta Composite decreased 6.05 points or 0.11% to 5,454.52, Straits Times slipped 5.49 points or 0.16% to 3,503.12 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was down by 4.25 points or 0.23% to 1,858.55.