Markets managing to hold their morning gains

Indian markets have got some respite after five consecutive days of decline and were managing to hold their morning gains in the early noon trade. Value buying at lower levels after recent drubbing has led to the bounce back in the markets, however there were some intermittent profit booking too but gains in realty and capital goods were supporting the markets to remain in green. Traders were also taking cues from the recovery in the rupee, which strengthened on sustained selling of the American currency by exporters. Metals stocks, especially steel makers were showing some upmove after World Steel Association (WSA) said that India retained its position as the world's third-largest steel producer in the month of March. On the other hand IT pack remained in somber mood, after India’s third largest software services firm Wipro posted a net profit of Rs 2,286.5 crore in January-March 2015, modestly higher by 2.1 per cent than Rs 2,239.1 crore a year-ago, missing the street estimates. On the non sectoral front, sugar stocks were in jubilant mood on reports that the government is likely to raise sugar import duty. Bajaj Hindusthan Sugars was up by 2.45%, Balrampur Chini gained 2.86% and Shree Renuka Sugars added 2.19%.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 27770.07, up by 94.03 points or 0.34% after trading in a range of 27687.78 and 27827.66. There were 20 stocks advancing against 10 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.40%, while Small cap index gained 0.58%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Capital Goods up by 0.72%, FMCG up by 0.58%, Realty up by 0.55%, Metal up by 0.37%, Oil & Gas up by 0.34%, while IT down by 1.06%, TECK down by 0.86%, INFRA down by 0.27%, Auto down by 0.06% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Hindustan Unilever up by 2.91%, Hero MotoCorp up by 2.58%, Sun Pharma Inds up by 2.25%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.77% and Axis Bank up by 1.48%. On the flip side, Wipro down by 4.10%, Infosys down by 1.27%, Sesa Sterlite down by 1.04%, ONGC down by 0.98% and Tata Motors down by 0.77% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, domestic steel makers are going to get an encouragement with World Steel Association (WSA) report that India retained its position as the world's third-largest steel producer, with a production of 14.6 million tonnes (MT) in the first quarter of 2015. In February, India toppled the US to become the world's third-largest steel producer, after China and Japan.

In March, the country’s crude steel production grew by 10 percent to 7.2 MT, while the global average declined by 2.7 percent, led by China, which produces half of the world's steel witnessing a decline of around 2 percent to 203.5 MT in the first three months of the year. World number two steel producer Japan too saw a fall of 3 percent to report production of 26.74 MT during the January-March period.

World Steel Association has said that with Chinese growth slowing down to multi-decadal low, India will lead the world steel output growth, which is expected to touch 2,000 million tonnes by the turn of 2030 clipping at 25 per cent from 2014. India's steel production rose by 7.9 per cent to 88.12 million tonnes last fiscal compared with the previous year.

Earlier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had linked steel production to India's defence preparedness and said India cannot afford to lag behind China in this field. The government has set a target of 300 million tonne steel production by 2025 to become the second largest steel producer globally.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8397.35, up by 19.60 points or 0.23% after trading in a range of 8367.75 and 8423.20. There were 31 stocks advancing against 19 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Hindustan Unilever up by 2.94%, Hero MotoCorp up by 2.70%, Sun Pharma Inds up by 2.34%, ACC up by 2.01% and Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.84%. On the flip side, Wipro down by 4.04%, HCL Tech. down by 1.97%, Zee Entertainment down by 1.64%, Tech Mahindra down by 1.57% and Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 1.54% were the top losers.

The Asian markets were trading mostly in red, barring Shanghai Composite which was up by 67.66 points or 1.58% to 4,361.29, Taiwan Weighted gaining 79.02 points or 0.83% to 9,613.00 and Nikkei 225 surging by 224.81 points or 1.13% to 20,133.90.

On the flip side, Straits Times lost 8.92 points or 0.25% to 3,499.69, Hang Seng declined by 7.44 points or 0.03% to 27,843.05, Jakarta Composite was down by 7.23 points or 0.13% to 5,453.35, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI lost 4.07 points or 0.22% to 1,858.73 and KOSPI Index tad lower by 0.9 points or 0.04% to 2,143.89.