Firm trade continues across the board in late afternoon session

Indian equities continued its firm trade in narrow range in the late afternoon session on back of sustained buying across the board. The sentiment was buoyant on account of good domestic macro data announced yesterday, in the form of better than expected IIP numbers for the month of January. Traders were seen piling up positions in Metal, Oil & Gas and Realty sector. Investors have started eyeing on inflation data, the government will release data on inflation based on the wholesale price index (WPI) for February 2012, tomorrow i.e. on March 14, 2012. Sterlite, SAIL, Jindal Steel, Sesa Goa, Hindalco and Tata Steel from Metal pack were seen trading firm in green pulling the markets higher. Industry heavyweight RIL was trading with gain of around more than two and half percent giving the much needed support. Also, Gail India, ONGC and Cairn India from Oil & Gas sector was seen trading in green pushing the markets higher. DLF from Realty stable was seen trading in green helping the markets inch higher. On the global front, Asian markets were trading in green barring Shanghai Composite and KLSE Composite while the European markets were also trading in green on optimistic note. Investors are focused on the euro area finance ministers’ meeting in Brussels that is set to approve the second bailout package for Greece. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above their psychological 5,400 and 17,800 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was in favor of advances in the ratio of 1636:1152 while 130 scrips remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 17,803.75 up by 216.08 points or 1.23% 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 1.07% while Small cap index gained 0.89%.

On the BSE sectoral space, Metal up by 3.14%, Oil & Gas up by 2.34%, Realty up by 1.71%, Power up by 1.51% and Capital Goods up by 1.47% were the top gainers while there were no losers in the space.

Sterlite Industries up by 5.72%, Jindal Steel up by 4.43%, Gail India up by 3.58%, Hindalco Industries up by 2.73% and ONGC up by 2.64% were the major gainers on the Sensex, while Wipro down by 1.27%, M&M down by 0.93%, Bajaj Auto down by 0.40%, Bharti Airtel down by 0.28% and Tata Motors down by 0.07% were the only losers in the index.

Meanwhile, major automobile manufacturers have decided to hold investments in new facilities until the Budget is announced on March 16. This has led to a stalling of investments of more than Rs 3,000 crore, according to industry body Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM).

Major companies like Maruti Suzuki India, Hyundai Motor India, Ford India, General Motors India and Tata Motors are of the opinion that given the confusion about how diesel vehicles will be taxed and the pricing of diesel, it will be difficult to put money on diesel technology.

It has been proposed that an additional excise duty should be levied on diesel passenger cars to discourage the use of the subsidized fuel by the affluent. Diesel cars have seen a surge in their demand after petrol prices were deregulated by the government. Policy makers are also of the opinion that diesel prices themselves should be deregulated to reduce the subsidy burden of the government.

However, Director General of SIAM, Vishnu Mathur is of the opinion that such a notion is misplaced as less than 2% of the total diesel consumed in India is used by personal passenger vehicles. In fact as per them, such a move will 'stigmatise the diesel technology' which has proven to be superior in terms of fuel economy and is also eco-friendly.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,424.90, up by 65.35 points or 1.22% 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 Industries up by 5.18%, JP Associates up by 5.14%, SAIL up by 4.82%, Jindal Steel up by 4.68% and Sesa Goa up by 4.45%.

M&M down by 1.18%, Wipro down by 1.18%, HCL Technologies down by 1.08%, Bharti Airtel down by 0.44% and Tata Motors down by 0.39% were the major losers on the index.

Majority of the Asian indices were trading in green at this point of time, Hang Seng surged by 0.97%, Jakarta Composite was up by 0.32%, Nikkei 225 was marginally up by 0.09%, Straits Times inched up 0.84%, Seoul Composite surged by 1.13% and Taiwan Weighted zoomed by 1.31%. On the flip side, Shanghai Composite dropped by 0.19% and KLSE Composite shed 0.04%.

The European markets were trading in green with, France’s CAC 40 ascended 0.67%, Germany’s DAX jumped 0.93% while Britain’s FTSE 100 added 0.56%.