Benchmarks snap three days losing streak

Snapping their three days losing streak, Indian equity benchmarks ended the session with a gain of over three fourth of a percent with key gauges reclaiming their crucial 8,250 (Nifty) and 27,350 (Sensex) levels as investors opted to buy beaten down but fundamentally strong stocks after three days of continuous drubbing. Markets after a positive start alternately swung between positive and negative zone in noon deals, but hectic buying activity which took place during last leg of trade mainly drove the markets higher, with frontline gauges ending near intraday high levels.

Sentiments remained up-beat after World Bank said that India’s economy seems to have turned the corner and outlook has improved significantly, but even then it projected the economy to expand by 7.5 per cent during the current financial year, quite lower than the Budget assumption of 8.5 per cent. Some support came in with report that the foreign direct investment (FDI) in India jumped about 63 percent to $3.28 billion in February, 2015, compared to FDI of $ 2.01 billion in same period last year. Meanwhile, GST Empowered Committee Chairman K M Mani has said that the new indirect tax regime will boost India’s economy and the panel of state finance ministers needs to build a consensus among all states on the contentious matters before April 1, 2016.

On the global front, European counters have made a awful start with CAC, DAX and FTSE were trading in red in early deals, with Commerzbank dropping after announcing plans to raise Euro 1.4 billion ($1.52 billion) and Swiss sanitary equipment maker Geberit slipping following poor results. Asian markets ended mostly in the red as sentiment gave way to caution ahead of the Federal Reserve's policy two-day meeting scheduled to start later in the session.

Back home, there was broad based buying witnessed in the markets and apart from the blue chips, the broader markets too participated strongly in the rally. Appreciation in Indian rupee too supported the sentiments. The partially convertible rupee was trading at 63.18 per dollar at the time of equity market closing against the Tuesday’s close of 63.47 on the Interbank Foreign Exchange.

Rally in banking counter too aided the sentiments, led by over 8% surge in ICICI Bank on value buying and in wake of the fact that domestic brokerages upgraded the stock with ‘buy’ rating on expectations of improvement in asset quality going forward. Public sector oil marketing companies too edged higher after global crude oil prices declined. Additionally, shares of sugar companies edged higher after the government announced change in the policy of export of preferential quota sugar to European Union and USA under CSL and TRQ quota. On the other hand, the selling pressure on the IT counters continued unabated following a spate of weak numbers posted by behemoths such as Infosys, TCS and Wipro, which shed upto another 2% each. The FMCG majors such as ITC and HUL also shed between 1% and 2% each as the gloomy forecasts about the monsoons have raised fears of further decline in rural demand.

The NSE’s 50-share broadly followed index Nifty rose by over seventy points and ended above the psychological 8,250 support level, while Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensitive Index -- Sensex surged by around two hundred and twenty points to finish near the psychological 27,400 mark. Broader markets too traded with traction throughout the trade and ended the session with a gain of around one and a half percentage point. The market breadth remained in favor of advances, as there were 1,640 shares on the gaining side against 1,093 shares on the losing side while 89 shares remain unchanged.

Finally, the BSE Sensex surged by 219.39 points or 0.81% to 27396.38, while the CNX Nifty soared by 71.80 points or 0.87% to 8,285.60.

The BSE Sensex touched a high and a low of 27482.14 and 27073.25, respectively. The BSE Mid cap index was up by 1.49%, while Small cap index up by 1.37%.

The top gainers on the Sensex were ICICI Bank up by 8.02%, Maruti Suzuki up by 4.93%, BHEL up by 2.76%, Tata Motors up by 2.43% and Bharti Airtel up by 2.26%. On the flip side, ITC down by 1.92%, Coal India down by 1.32%, Infosys down by 1.24%, Reliance Industries down by 1.09% and Hindustan Unilever down by 0.89% were the top losers.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Bankex up by 2.41%, Auto up by 2.24%, Realty up by 1.60%, Power up by 1.40% and INFRA up by 1.21% while, FMCG down by 0.73%, IT down by 0.39%, Consumer Durables down by 0.07% and TECK down by 0.03% were the losing indices on BSE.

Meanwhile, Government has got a reason to cheer with foreign direct investment (FDI) in India surging about 63 percent to $3.28 billion in February, 2015, compared to FDI of $ 2.01 billion in same period last year. Government has already relaxed FDI norms in various sectors, including insurance, railways and medical devices, to boost FDI in the country, as it require around $ 1 trillion investment over five years to overhaul its infrastructure sector.

As per the data of Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), during the April-February period of 2014-15, the foreign fund inflows grew by 39 percent, year-on-year, to $ 28.81 billion, compared to inflows of 20.76 billion during the same period a year ago.

Sector wise, services received the maximum FDI of $ 2.88 billion in the 11-month period of 2014-15, followed by telecommunication worth $ 2.85 billion, automobiles $2.42 billion, computer software and hardware $2.04 billion and pharmaceuticals worth $1.30 billion.Region wise, India once again received the maximum FDI from Mauritius worth $8.44 billion, followed by Singapore $6.42 billion, the Netherlands $ 3.29 billion, Japan $ 1.72 billion and the US worth $1.69 billion.

The CNX Nifty touched a high and low of 8,308.00 and 8,185.15 respectively.

The top gainers on Nifty were ICICI Bank up by 7.72%, Idea Cellular up by 5.57%, Maruti Suzuki India up by 4.98%, BPCL up by 3.58% and Tech Mahindra up by 3.39%. On the flip side, ITC down by 2.71%, HCL Technologies down by 1.95%, Coal India down by 1.50%, Reliance Industries down by 1.42% and Infosys down by 1.40% were the top losers.

European Markets were trading in the red; Germany's DAX was down by 0.64%, France's CAC down by 0.99% and UK's FTSE 100 was down by 0.79%.

The Asian markets closed mostly in red on Tuesday, as investors were cautiously ahead of the US Federal Reserve’s two-day monetary policy meeting that starts later in the day. Japanese retail sales in March declined at their fastest annual pace in 17 years as consumer spending struggled to pick up a year after a sales-tax increase, keeping alive speculation the Bank of Japan will expand stimulus again later this year. Japan’s retail sales fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of -9.7%, from -1.7% in the preceding month whose figure was revised up from -1.8%. The markets will be focused on the BOJ’s meeting as well as a slew of other data this week - including industrial production, inflation and employment - for clues on the economy’s performance in the final month of the first quarter. The central bank is expected to hold off on expanding stimulus at Thursday’s policy review, but remains under pressure to do more to get the economy motoring again after last year’s April sales tax hike clobbered consumption. Signs of continued weakness in private consumption - which accounts for some 60 percent of gross domestic product - is a headache for the BOJ as the economic recovery remains fragile following a recession last year. Hong Kong Trade Balance fell to a seasonally adjusted -46.2B, from -35.9B in the preceding month.