Markets enter the jubilation mood with the start of Christmas week

A session after displaying a distressing performance, Indian benchmark indices managed to pull through a scintillating performance by vivaciously rallying about a percentage point on the first day of Christmas week, thanks to the hefty short covering in the beaten down Metal and Banking counters. Sentiments remained buoyant on hopes of government getting three critical bills passed through the parliament including bankruptcy code, legislations on setting up of commercial courts and amendments to the Arbitration and Conciliation Act. Some support also came with the government plans to award Rs 28,000 crore worth of highways development projects in the current fiscal under the newly conceived hybrid annuity model amid renewed interest among private firms. This will be the largest chunk of investment under public private partnership or PPP in the sector in any single year since 2010. Besides, Appreciation in Indian rupee too aided sentiments. Rising for the fifth straight session, the rupee gained 9 paise at 66.31 against the dollar in early trade on increased selling of the US currency by exporters.

On the global front, Asian markets ended mostly in green on Monday as Chinese shares climbed to the highest level in almost four weeks and oil companies rallied. Shanghai Composite has rebounded 24 percent from an August low after the government took unprecedented measures to prop up equities and speculation grew policy makers will take more steps to bolster the economy.  European shares too edged higher in early trade, buoyed by gains in carmaker Volkswagen and telecoms equipment manufacturer Ericsson, although an inconclusive result in Spain's election hit the country's stocks. Furthermore, there was no respite for oil prices as a glut of supply left both Brent and US crude down around 35 per cent for the year so far.

Back home, the benchmark got off to a soft start as the indices showed signs of consolidation in early trade, with investors remaining worried on uncertainty over the GST Bill following the standoff between the government and the Congress. But the frontline indices slowly but steadily started gathering steam and surged by over half a percent by late morning trades. The bourses further capitalized on the momentum and spurted in afternoon trades on the back of broad based buying in undervalued stocks. The northbound journey only concluded with the close of the session helping the key gauges in recovering the ground lost in last trading session. Eventually the NSE’s 50-share broadly followed index Nifty, got buttressed by close to a percent to settle above the crucial 7,800 support level, while Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensitive Index-Sensex accumulated over two hundred points and closed above the psychological 25,700 mark. Buying was seen across the board, with six of every 10 BSE stocks ending in the green for the day. Meanwhile, strong buying was witnessed in Telecom Services companies after the industry body COAI report that the GSM mobile subscribers base in the country increased by 9.69 million in November to reach 749.1 million. Shares of Airline companies too remained in limelight on the report that domestic air traffic grew by nearly 25 per cent in November to 7.32 million passengers as compared to 5.82 million passengers in the same period last year.

Besides, a total of 13 stocks including Jet Airways, Essar Oil, Marico, Trent, SJVN and TV Today hit their 52-week highs for the day.

The market breadth remained in favor of Advances, as there were 1792 shares on the gaining side against 909 shares on the losing side, while 208 shares remained unchanged.

Finally, the BSE Sensex surged by 216.68 points or 0.85% to 25735.90, while the CNX Nifty gained 72.50 points or 0.93% to 7,834.45.

The BSE Sensex touched a high and a low 25757.84 and 25413.54, respectively. The broader indices ended in green, with the BSE Mid cap index ending up by 0.57%, while Small cap index ending higher by 0.26%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Metal up by 1.47%, Bankex up by 1.43%, Realty up by 1.38%, PSU up by 1.34% and FMCG up by 1.26%, while Consumer Durables down by 0.64% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were ICICI Bank up by 3.24%, ONGC up by 3.16%, ITC up by 2.68%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 2.64% and Hero MotoCorp up by 2.36%. On the flip side, Sun Pharma down by 4.55%, GAIL India down by 0.97%, Hindustan Unilever down by 0.81% and Asian Paints down by 0.66% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley highlighting that India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, has said that in terms of low levels of inflation, fiscal deficit and current account deficit, Indian economy has witnessed significant improvement in the macroeconomic stability.

Jaitley further said that at current point of time, the macroeconomic outcome in India is one of the consolidation of the economic recovery evidenced in recent years, adding that the outcome is creditable considering that the global economic situation continues to be uncertain transmitting negative spill-over’s, because of which emerging markets and developing economies have in general, become more vulnerable and fragile. He also said that the current macroeconomic outcome is far superior to that in early 2013-14 when the situation was worrisome in terms of high current account and fiscal deficits with high inflation, high interest rates and low growth.

He said that the Government continues to adhere to the path of fiscal consolidation, despite the pressing need for enhanced public investment to boost the economic growth and tough commitments on account of requirements of federal structure. Signalling that India is firmly on the path of economic revival, in the fiscal year 2014-15, India clocked 7.3 per cent growth rate in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), higher than 6.9 per cent growth achieved in 2013-14 and 5.1 per cent in 2012-13, showing that India is firmly on the path of economic revival.

Regarding Goods and Service Tax (GST) bill, Jaitley said that it was been delayed for “collateral reasons” , hinting that GST Bill may not go through in the current session of Parliament. He further added that the government will push for other reform bills including amendment to the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, a legislation to set up commercial courts and bankruptcy code, in the Rajya Sabha in the remaining days of the Winter Session.

The CNX Nifty touched a high and low 7,840.75 and 7,733.45 respectively.  

The top gainers on Nifty were ONGC up by 3.49%, ICICI Bank up by 2.98%, Power Grid up by 2.95%, IDEA up by 2.89% and M&M up by 2.79%. On the flip side, Sun Pharma down by 4.30%, GAIL India down by 0.99%, Hindustan Unilever down by 0.75%, Asian Paints down by 0.73% and UltraTech Cement down by 0.54% were the top losers.

European Markets were trading in green; France’s CAC was up by 0.17%, Germany’s DAX was up by 0.36% and UK’s FTSE was up by 0.08%.

Asian equity markets ended mostly in green on Monday as Chinese shares climbed to the highest level in almost four weeks after the government took unprecedented measures to prop up equities and speculation grew policy makers will take more steps to bolster the economy. Hong Kong stocks were also firm, bolstered by Chinese companies, as strength in the Chinese equity market helped investors shrug off the gloom in US and European stocks in the wake of last week's post-Fed rate hike rally. However, Japanese stocks edged down in thin trading after the yen gained against the dollar, putting pressure on exporters after the Bank of Japan disappointed markets with minor adjustments to its massive stimulus program.