Markets pare some gains; still trades higher over 1.5%

Markets gain have slightly moderated in the afternoon trade, though the major indices are still maintaining the lead of over one and half a percent with all the sectoral indices trading in green. The metal gauge continues to take the lead with good global cues from Europe and China. While, the rate sensitive sectors too have surged ahead of the RBI’s monetary policy review on March 14th. There was some short covering too in the markets after the fall of over 500 points on Sensex in last couple of days. Traders were going long expecting some recovery in global economic outlook. Some of the major IT companies like Infosys and Wipro were suffering some profit booking while, the Capital Goods heavy weight Larsen and Toubro was trading higher on change of guards; the company has appointed K Venkataramanan as Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director with effect from April 1, 2012. A M Naik, will continue as Executive Chairman of the Group.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 17,433.69, up by 288.17 points or 1.68%. The index has touched a high and a low of 17,508.45 and 17,325.82 respectively. There were 27 stocks advancing against just 3 declines on the index.

The broader indices too were performing well, neck-in-neck to their larger peers; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 1.59% and Small cap index was up by 1.45%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Metal up by 3.19%, Capital Goods up by 3.10%, Bankex up by 2.65%, Realty up by 2.62% and Consumer durables up by 2.31%.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Jindal Steel up by 4.95%, L&T up by 4.43%, ICICI Bank up by 4.34%, Tata Steel up by 4.05% and Tata Motors up by 3.38%.

On the flip side, M&M down by 1.30%, HUL down by 0.64% and Wipro down by 0.30% were the only losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, as per a new paper published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) there is considerable room for improving the business environment in India. The paper observes that cost of doing business in India is high given the terms of financial access and the state of infrastructure. Attempts towards improving these could boost the business environment of the country.

The paper has noted that corporate investments have slumped to 10% of the national economy from 14% prior, due to the global financial crisis. Though this can be largely explained by the global economic scenario, it does not fully account for the recent weak performance of the corporate sector. Hence an improvement in the domestic environment by way of controlling inflation, improving financial access by reforming regulation and bettering institutions along with developing infrastructure can stimulate business investment.

Last year, India was placed at the 132nd position among 183 countries in terms of ease of doing business. Even though the ranking was better than in 2010 (139th spot), it reflected relatively high costs of doing business as per Kiichi Tokuoka, the author of the paper.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,313.55, up by 93.10 points or 1.78%. The index has touched a high and a low of 5,332.35 and 5,291.60 respectively. There were 43 stocks advancing against 7 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Jindal Steel up by 4.88%, IDFC up by 4.83%, Cairn up by 4.73%, ICICI Bank up by 4.46% and L&T up by 4.38%.

On the other hand, RPower down by 2.11%, M&M down by 1.10%, HUL down by 0.71%, Reliance Infra down by 0.44% and Wipro down by 0.38% were the major losers on the index.

All the Asian counters were trading in green; Shanghai Composite was up by 0.63%, Hang Seng gained 0.95%, Jakarta Composite was up by 0.62%, KLSE Composite was marginally up by 0.05%, Nikkei 225 surged by 1.65%, Straits Times edged up by 0.18%, Seoul Composite gained 0.88% and Taiwan Weighted was up by 0.39%.