Markets remain firm; metal provides the maximum impetus

The Indian markets continue to hold their gains in the noon trade with benchmark indices trading higher by over a percent. The good going in the regional markets have equally supported the markets coupled with the good domestic macro data announced yesterday, in the form of better than expected IIP numbers for the month of January. All the sectoral gauges are trading in green on the BSE, while the commodity and rate sensitive realty has taken the lead, the defensive sector too are moving higher by about half a percent. There are scrip specific actions that are keeping the steady going markets buzzing. Wipro has slumped after the company said that a trust controlled by its billionaire founder Azim Premji plans to sell up to 1530 crore in shares on the stock market via a new auction process. At the same time pharma major Biocon too has suffered a sharp cut after the company scrapped a deal with Pfizer to sell insulin products made by it.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 17,793.27 up by 205.60 points or 1.17% after trading in a range of 17,833.81 and 17,680.23. There were 25 stocks advancing against just 5 declines on the index.

The broader indices were trading on a positive note, though marginally underperforming their larger peers; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 1.08% and Small cap index gained 0.86%.

On the BSE sectoral space, Metal up by 2.96%, Realty up by 1.99%, Oil & Gas up by 1.95%, Power up by 1.68% and Capital Goods (CG) up by 1.59% were the top gainers.

Sterlite Inds up by 4.93%, Jindal Steel up by 4.16%, Gail India up by 3.50%, Hindalco Inds up by 2.84% and BHEL up by 2.56% were the major gainers on the Sensex, while Wipro down by 1.29%, M&M down by 1.14%, Bajaj Auto down by 0.56%, Bharti Airtel down by 0.44% and Tata Motors down by 0.21% were the major losers in the index.

Meanwhile, the government is working on a new policy to propel Indian aviation sector among top five markets in the world by providing access to safe and affordable air services with a strong regulatory framework and world-class infrastructure facilities, as per civil aviation minister Ajit Singh. The ministry will also consider the proposal to work out a separate air cargo policy as it is expected that 200 freighter aircraft will be required in the next 20 years to meet the industry’s demand.

The aviation industry is also keen that civil aviation be granted ‘infrastructure status’ and aviation turbine fuel be notified as declared goods (of special importance) with uniform central sales tax of only 4% across the country. Further, significant investments should be made in terms of construction of new airports, expansion and modernisation of existing ones, improvement in connecting infrastructure (road, metro and sea link) and better airspace management to help the aviation industry grow as airlines are expected to add 370 aircraft worth Rs 1.5 lakh crore by 2016-17.

As per the industry body ASSOCHAM, attracting domestic investments and easing norms on foreign direct investments are essential so that the sector can grow annually by 8% and also raise freight traffic from 23.5 lakh tonnes now to 70 lakh tonnes in the next ten years. It is also keen that land be demarcated for air cargo villages at airports or nearby regions to help raise freight traffic. Further cargo facilities at tier II and III cities as alternate growth centres should be developed.

ASSOCHAM has recently submitted an action plan to bail out the civil aviation sector from current financial crisis. Indian carriers catered to 5.4 crore domestic and 1.3 crore international passengers in 2010-11. But in spite of enormous growth and increasing trend towards moving to the low cost model, airlines suffered a loss of over Rs 20,000 crore in the past three years.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,421.75, up by 62.20 points or 1.16% after trading in a range of 5,435.95 and 5,390.80. There were 44 stocks advancing against 6 declines on the index.

The top gainers on the Nifty were Sterlite Inds up by 4.75%, SAIL up by 4.67%, Sesa Goa up by 4.33%, Jindal Steel up by 4.14% and Ambuja Cements up by 3.54%.

HCL Technology down by 1.97%, Wipro down by 1.40%, M&M down by 1.20%, Bajaj Auto down by 0.71% and Bharti Airtel down by 0.47% were the major losers on the index.

All the Asian indices were trading in green at this point of time, Shanghai Composite was up by 0.86%, Hang Seng surged by 1.09%, Jakarta Composite was up by 0.33%, KLSE Composite gained by 0.15%, Nikkei 225 was marginally up by 0.09%, Straits Times inched up 0.88%, Seoul Composite surged by 1.13% and Taiwan Weighted zoomed by 1.31%.