D-Street continue to remain choppy in noon deals

Indian equity benchmarks continue to trade in a narrow range with Sensex and Nifty swinging between negative and positive terrain, as investors opted a cautious approach ahead of key macro data of CPI inflation and Industrial production. Though, markets were trading with modest gains as some support came with Paris-based think tank OECD’s latest report that Indian economy saw the 'strongest growth' in the first quarter of 2015 among large economies, including China, the US, Germany and Canada. Meanwhile, Finance Minister Jaitley is scheduled to meet the heads of public sector banks to review the banks’ annual performance and bad loan situation as also to persuade them to pass on RBI’s rate cut benefit to borrowers for propping growth.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in green on Friday and the dollar held firm in the wake of reassuringly upbeat US retail data, though the mood was cautious as Greek debt talks took yet another confusing turn. However, European markets have made a negative start with CAC, DAX and FTSE all trading with a cut of around half a percent.

Back home, Reliance Industries is trading higher over 1% after the company’s chairman Mukesh Ambani at its 41st AGM said, Reliance Jio, the wireless telephony and data services subsidiary of the company will launch its commercial services by December this year. On the sectoral front, oil and gas, fast moving consumer goods and banking witnessed the maximum gain in trade, while metal, consumer durables and realty remained the top losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices were trading mixed at this point of time, while the market breadth on the BSE was negative; there were 971 shares on the gaining side against 1,307 shares on the losing side while 99 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 26444.03, up by 73.05 points or 0.28% after trading in a range of 26307.56 and 26489.58. There were 19 stocks advancing against 11 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading mixed; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.11%, while Small cap index down by 0.33%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Oil & Gas up by 0.69%, FMCG up by 0.57%, Bankex up by 0.44%, IT up by 0.14% and TECK up by 0.11%, while Metal down by 1.30%, Consumer Durables down by 1.13%, Realty down by 0.98%, Infrastructure down by 0.57% and Capital Goods down by 0.35% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bajaj Auto up by 3.92%, Tata Power up by 2.64%, HDFC up by 2.02%, Cipla up by 1.44% and Reliance Industries up by 1.27%. On the flip side, Tata Motors down by 1.92%, Hindalco down by 1.89%, Vedanta down by 1.86%, Coal India down by 0.77% and Tata Steel down by 0.74% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, in a move that could raise consolidation moves among telecom companies, the telecom department has given its final clearance to long-awaited rules on sharing and trading of airwaves at a meeting of the Telecom Commission, the highest decision making body of the telecom department. Though, the rules still need Cabinet's approval to become operative.

For the operators, trading allows to sell airwaves that they aren't utilising, offering an exit route for struggling ones, while through sharing, operators can pool in their spectrum resources to create a larger bank and each partner can use the airwaves from the pool as per its needs.

On the same time, the move will be helpful for the consumers in lower call drops and will result in better quality of voice services and faster data speeds, as sharing could reduce traffic congestion on the network. Also, as sharing of spectrum could allow operators to cut down on capital expenditure, they could pass on the benefit to subscribers through lower tariffs.

The Trai had earlier recommended telcos will be able to share spectrum acquired through trading. It had also suggested allowing two telcos to share any category - 2G, 3G or 4G - of similar spectrum in a circle, including airwaves allotted through government-set prices before the current auction process started. However, it didn't recommend sharing by internet service providers. It had though stated that in case of trading there would be a 1% transfer fee on the transactional amount or prescribed market price, whichever is higher, and payable by the seller to the government.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 7973.65, up by 8.30 points or 0.10% after trading in a range of 7940.85 and 7995.60. There were 27 stocks advancing against 22 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Bajaj Auto up by 3.65%, Tata Power up by 2.93%, HDFC up by 1.95%, Cipla up by 1.33% and Reliance Industries up by 1.30%. On the flip side, NMDC down by 2.75%, Vedanta down by 2.18%, Power Grid down by 2.16%, Ambuja Cement down by 2.07% and Hindalco down by 1.97% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in the green; FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI rose 0.6 points or 0.03% to 1,735.36, Straits Times gained 4.26 points or 0.13% to 3,351.93, Jakarta Composite increased 10.08 points or 0.2% to 4,938.89, Nikkei 225 advanced 24.11 points or 0.12% to 20,407.08, Shanghai Composite added 36.48 points or 0.71% to 5,158.07, Hang Seng was up by 134.34 points or 0.5% to 27,042.19. On the flip side, KOSPI Index decreased 4.44 points or 0.22% to 2,052.17 and Taiwan Weighted was down by 0.56 points or 0.01% to 9,301.93.

European Markets were trading in the red; Germany’s DAX dropped 0.54%, UK’s FTSE declined 0.45% and France’s CAC was down by 0.32%.