Post session - Quick review

After dilly-dallying for the entire trading session, barometer gauges finally settled in the green as market men scooped up some cheap bargain after last session’s annihilation. Volatility occupied the centre stage for the entire trading session, as the benchmark indices crissed-crossed above and below the neutral line. The gains at Dalal Street came on the back of optimistic global indices, which depicted heart- throbbing moves post Ben Bernanke said ultra-loose monetary policy was still needed to reduce unemployment even though the US economy has shown signs of improvement, raising hopes of another round of quantitative easing. This besides, cheering regional counterparts also triggered an optimistic start of the European shares. Meanwhile, the US future indices too continued to indicate an optimistic start of Wall Street.

Back home, buying remained broad based; however, prominent gainers on the BSE sectoral space were stocks from Consumer Durable, Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) and Realty.  Meanwhile, Mumbai based realty stocks bounced back after their last session’s beating, as the state government on Monday deferred plans to hike stamp duty for leave-and-licence agreements for residential and commercial properties, the major beneficiaries were India bulls Real Estate, Oberoi Realty and Housing Development & Infrastructure (HDIL). However, even sugar companies rallied on the bourses after the government decided to allow the export of another 1 MT of sugar export under the Open general license (OGL) in view of surplus production. Stocks like Shree Renuka Sugars, Bajaj Hindusthan, Dhampur Sugar Mills and Balrampur Chini Mills, all rallied in the range of 2-4%.

However, bulls got extra vigor on P-Notes clarification with a report that under the new GAAR regulations, the Government will not target Participatory Notes in its newly proposed rules targeting tax avoidance.  On the flip side, issuance of new fair practice guidelines hit gold loan NBFCs. Share prices of top lenders of gold loan-Muthoot Finance and Manappuram Finance-dropped sharply after Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced fresh rules for MFIs and gold loan NBFCs to prevent injustices to customers. According to new rules, these companies will have to ensure that adequate due diligence is carried out on customers.

Thus, the volatile day of trade saw BSE’s Sensex accumulating over 200 points ending above the 17200 psychological levels. Similarly, the widely followed 50 share index of National Stock Exchange -Nifty- garnering over 50 points ended above the 5250 psychological level. However, bucking the trend, broader indices went home slender loss.

The market breadth on the BSE ended negative; advances and declining stocks were in a ratio of 1192:1702 while 123 scrips remained unchanged. (Provisional)

The BSE Sensex gained 227.28 points or 1.33% and settled at 17,280.06. The index touched a high and a low of 17,366.84 and 17,061.16 respectively. 26 stocks advanced against 4 declining ones on the index (Provisional)

The BSE Mid-cap index lost 0.01% while Small-cap index was down 0.07%. (Provisional)

On the BSE Sectoral front, Consumer Durables up 2.10%, FMCG up 1.85%, Realty up 1.82%, TECk up 1.35% and Metal up 1.29% were the top gainers while there were no losers.

There top gainers on the Sensex were DLF up 4.57%, HUL up 3.47%, Cipla up 3.46%, Sterlite Industries up 3.42% and Bharti Airtel up 3.00% while, Maruti Suzuki down 1.93%, BHEL down 0.93%, Coal India down 0.21% and Sun Pharma down 0.19% were the only losers in the index. (Provisional)

Meanwhile, India’s steel production has increased by 6.8% to 63.894 million tonnes in the period April-January of this fiscal, as compared to the same period last year. Further, steel production during the entire 2010-11 fiscal was 66.013 million tonnes, up 8.8% over 60.624 million tonnes in 2009-10, as per the country's steel minister, Beni Prasad Verma.

India has been a net importer of steel during the last three years and the trend has continued so far in the current fiscal as well. During the April-January period of the current fiscal, India imported 5.59 million tonnes finished steel against 3.45 million tonnes over the corresponding period last year. In 2010-11, steel exports stood at 3.46 million tonnes compared to 6.79 million tonnes of imports.

The government has taken various steps to maintain steady supply position in the domestic market and also to boost steel production in the country. It has increased export duty on iron ore exports to 30% and brought import duty on raw materials such as coking coal and steel melting scrap to zero.

Steel prices in the country are deregulated and hence it is decided by the individual producers based on various market conditions such as demand-supply scenario, movement in international steel prices, cost of raw materials and other input costs. India VIX, a gauge for market’s short term expectation of volatility lost 6.32% at 25.05 from its previous close of 26.74 on Monday. (Provisional)

The S&P CNX Nifty gain 66.65 points or 1.29% to settle at 5,250.90. The index touched high and low of 5,277.95 and 5,184.65 respectively. 37 stocks advanced against 13 declining ones on the index. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Nifty were DLF up 4.76%, Cipla up 3.77%, Sesa Goa up 3.76%, Sterlite Industries up 3.56% and HUL up 3.09%.On the other hand, Maruti Suzuki down 1.76%, HCL Tech down 1.33%, Grasim down 1.13%, BHEL down 1.05% and JP Associates down 0.67% were the top losers. (Provisional)

The European markets were trading in green, with France's CAC 40 up 0.37%, Germany's DAX up 0.65% and Britain’s FTSE 100 up 0.29%.