Indian equities prune some losses; recover from day’s lows in noon trades

Profit booking seems to have stopped in the Thursday afternoon trades as the frontline indices which appeared to be drifting below important psychological levels have recovered from day’s lows and are trading around the crucial 5,500 and 18,100 levels. The benchmarks are trading with around half a percent loss as sentiments remain bleak across the Asian region after reports indicated that the second bailout package to Greece will be delayed until after the country holds elections in April 2012, reigniting worries that Europe will struggle to avert its debt debacle. Hefty profit booking in index heavyweights Coal India and Reliance Industries along with high beta metal stocks like Hindalco and Sterlite has put pressure on the frontline indices. Coal India bore the maximum brunt of selling pressure as it slumped  over five percent on concerns of falling margins over assured coal supply to power producers while Reliance got pounded amid reports of falling gas output from its KG-D6 well. However, stocks from the Power Counter kept racing ahead a day after India’s Prime Minister cleared coal supply to private sector power producers. Meanwhile, airline stocks like Kingfisher, Jet Airways and Spice Jet rallied higher after state-owned oil companies have cut jet fuel prices by a marginal Rs 350 per kiloliter, the second reduction in this month. Meanwhile, an empowered group of ministers has approved the auction route for selling 5 percent stake in state-run oil major ONGC before the end of the current fiscal. The proposed disinvestment of government stake in BHEL has, however, been postponed to the next fiscal. On the global front, Asian markets are trading on a gloomy note while European stock futures too are indicating a lower opening for the markets there.

Moreover, the broader markets though showed some resilience and traded on a positive note with moderate gains, outperforming their larger peers. The bourses declined on good volumes of over Rs 0.50 lakh crore while market breadth on BSE was in favor of declines in the ratio of 1371:1286 while 119 scrips remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 18,055.71 down by 146.70 points or 0.81% after trading as high as 18,180.42 and as low as 18,043.32. There were 14 stocks advancing against 16 declines on the index.

The broader indices were trading on a positive note; the BSE Mid cap index gained 0.20% and Small cap gained 0.40%.

On the BSE sectoral space, Power up 1.15%, Realty up 0.73%, Capital Goods up 0.51%, Healthcare up 0.13% and FMCG up 0.11% were the only gainers while Metal down 1.77%, Oil & Gas down 1.65%, Consumer Durables down 1.19%, Bankex down 1.10% were the major losers in the space.

Jindal Steel up 3.57%, BHEL up 2.46%, Cipla up 2.07%, Tata Power up 1.90% and Maruti Suzuki up 1.40% were the major gainers on the Sensex, while Coal India down 5.08% and Hindalco down 4.65%, Sterlite down 4.16%, Tata Motors down 3.37% and RIL down 3.15% were the major losers in the index.

Meanwhile, oil companies have cut jet fuel prices by a marginal Rs 350 per kilolitre. This is the second reduction this month after the cut of 3% on February 1.

Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has stated that the price of aviation turbine fuel (ATF), or jet fuel in Delhi was cut by Rs 350.7 per kilolitre (kl), or 0.5%. The revised prices of ATF would now be Rs 62557.12 per kilolitre in Delhi, Rs 70816.98 in Kolkata (against the current price of Rs 71155.22), Rs 63499 in Mumbai (Rs 63864.31) and Rs 67339 in Chennai (Rs 67702.21).

Jet fuel constitutes about 40% of an airlines' operating cost and the reduction in prices will slightly ease the burden on cash-strapped airlines.

The three public sector OMCs  - Indian Oil, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum - revise ATF prices on the 1st and 16th of every month on the basis of the average international price in the preceding fortnight.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,487.00, lower by 44.95 points or 0.81% after trading as high as 5,522.75 and as low as 5,483.75. There were 21 stocks advancing against 29 declines on the index.

The top gainers on the Nifty were Jindal Steel up 3.14%, Cairn up 2.86%, Cipla up 2.34%, BHEL up 2.06% and Tata Power up 1.90%.

Coal India down 5.06%, Hindalco down 4.77%, Sterlite down 4.23%, Tata Motors down 3.84% and Reliance down 3.30% were the major losers on the index.

In the Asian space, Shanghai Composite slipped 0.40%, Hang Seng declined 0.60%, Jakarta Composite fell 0.68%, KLSE Composite dropped 0.71%, Nikkei 225 shed 0.24%, Straits Times receded 0.61%, Seoul Composite plummeted 1.38% and Taiwan Weighted plunged 1.69%.