Markets recover previous session's losses in early trade on Friday

After falling over half a per cent in last session, Indian equity markets made a flat start and are showing upmove in morning deals on Friday.  Sustained buying in all the key heavyweights along with broader indices supported BSE’s -- Sensex -- and NSE’s -- Nifty -- to regain their crucial 24,750 and 7,500 marks respectively.  Buying in real estate aided sentiments. Zandu Realty surged by over 10%, while Ajmera Realty & Infra India and Kolte-Patil Developers have rallied over 9% each after the Rajya Sabha on Thursday passed by voice vote a real estate regulation Bill, aiming to protect homebuyers from erring developers besides bringing transparency in the sector. Further, traders were getting encouragement with IMF's financial counselor Jose Vinals statement that India needs to address the stress emanating from leveraged corporate balance sheets and asset quality woes of state-run banks to sustain the recovery process, even as the country is best placed among emerging markets. Meanwhile, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 1063.11 crore yesterday, as per provisional data released by the stock exchanges.

On the global front, the US markets ended flat on Thursday, after the European Central Bank reduced interest rates but ECB chief Mario Draghi disappointed investors that expected multiple rate cuts by saying more were unlikely.  Asian markets were trading mixed following the lackluster cues overnight from Wall Street and as European Central Bank President Mario Draghi signaled an end to further interest rate cuts.

Back home, all the sectoral indices on the BSE, barring Consumer Durables, were trading in file fettle led by Realty, Oil & Gas, Capital Goods, PSU and Auto.  The market breadth on BSE was positive in the ratio of 953: 439, while 67 scrips remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 24764.65, up by 141.31 points or 0.57% after trading in a range of 24590.28 and 24775.00. There were 27 stocks advancing against 3 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index and Small cap index both were up by 0.48%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 3.01%, Oil & Gas up by 1.07%, Capital Goods up by 0.86%, PSU up by 0.67% and Auto up by 0.67%, while Consumer Durables down by 0.22% was the lone losing indicex on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Adani Ports & SEZ up by 1.83%, Reliance Industries up by 1.33%, Maruti Suzuki up by 1.19%, Larsen & Toubro up by 1.18% and Coal India up by 1.02%. On the flip side, Sun Pharma Inds. down by 1.53%, Tata Steel down by 0.37%, Bharti Airtel down by 0.19% and GAIL India down by 0.07% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the government taking up the long-pending issues in the oil and gas space, approved a new policy for their exploration and also defined the norms for pricing of existing and new discoveries made in difficult areas. The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), while approving the Hydrocarbon Exploration Licensing Policy (HELP) said that the new oil and gas exploration policy will be based on a revenue-sharing model, as opposed to cost-and-output-based norms earlier.

HELP will require companies to acquire just one licence to manage all kinds of hydrocarbon reserves such as oil, gas, shale and coal bed methane and companies will be able to freely price gas, carve out blocks of their choice for exploration, share revenue, not profit with the government, and won't need a Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) audit of their oil and gas fields. Explorers will also be free to bid for an area of their choice instead of waiting for the government to carve out blocks and auction them. The difficult areas for which the new pricing norms have now been formulated are defined as those from deep-water, ultra deep-water and high pressure-high temperature areas. Such areas were not considered when prices were fixed for normal gas discoveries in 2014.

The petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan while describing the new policies as 'global models', said that resources worth more than Rs 261,000 crore will be brought into production as the result of the decisions and the decisions will also go a long way in generating employment, enhance transparency and reduce administrative discretion. The biggest boost to the industry will come from the marketing and pricing freedom for gas from deepwater, ultra-deepwater and high pressure, high temperature blocks.

The Cabinet also approved extending licences of 28 small-and medium-sized oil and gas fields. Production sharing contracts (PSCs) have been extended till economic life of the asset. PSCs for as many as 28 fields, including western offshore Panna/Mukta and Tapti oil and gas fields operated by BG Group of UK, were due for extension. The ministry, based on recommendation of a committee headed by the then additional secretary and financial adviser S C Khuntia, had drawn up a draft extension policy that stipulated an increase in royalty as well as the government's profit share from the fields. This apart, the cabinet cancelled the award of the Ratna and R-Series field in 1996 to a consortium of Essar Oil and Oil Pacific UK.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 7532.95, up by 46.80 points or 0.63% after trading in a range of 7475.85 and 7533.10. There were 45 stocks advancing against 5 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were BPCL up by 1.91%, Adani Ports & SEZ up by 1.74%, Reliance Industries up by 1.38%, Maruti Suzuki up by 1.18% and Larsen & Toubro up by 1.08%. On the flip side, Sun Pharma Inds. down by 1.58%, Tata Steel down by 0.64%, Bharti Airtel down by 0.39%, Power Grid Corpn. down by 0.25% and GAIL India down by 0.20% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mixed, KOSPI Index increased 2.46 points or 0.12% to 1,971.79, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI increased 3 points or 0.18% to 1,693.91, Taiwan Weighted increased 15.6 points or 0.18% to 8,676.30 and Hang Seng increased 148.7 points or 0.74% to 20,133.12, while,  Nikkei 225 decreased 146.8 points or 0.87% to 16,705.55, Jakarta Composite decreased 10.75 points or 0.22% to 4,782.45 and Shanghai Composite decreased 6.89 points or 0.25% to 2,797.84.