Bourses recover from intra-day’s low; CG stocks bounce back

Recovering from intra-day’s lows, barometer gauges have trimmed substantial losses as cheap bargains available at lower levels, enticed investor’s attention. Recovery that was seen in Capital Goods, Healthcare and Fast Moving consumer goods (FMCG) counters, mainly aided bourses in cutting short the losses. However, the support that emerged at bottoms also provided some solace to the bourses. BSE’s Sensex after increasing its proximity to 17100 psychological levels, found some support at 17150 levels. Meanwhile, the widely followed 50 share index of National Stock Exchange (NSE) - Nifty- too after being a sniffing distance of breaching the 5200 mark, found some prop up there off.

A negative global set up amidst absence of any positive trigger in the home market mainly prompted a dismal start of the bourses, which in the previous session’s rallied over a percentage points. Asian stock markets consolidated the previous session's rally that was underpinned by market-friendly remarks from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Largely in-line U.S consumer-confidence and home-price data deprived investors of fresh catalysts, with trading still characterized by a dose of caution amid recent signs of slowing growth in China. Meanwhile, the US future indices were showing an uptick in the screen trade.

Back home, depicting underlying weakness were the stocks from Consumer Durable, Realty and metal counters, which declining in the range of 2.50%, also provided silage to the bears, which taking a breather in the previous session, resumed  trade with vigor. The broader indices too registered fall of over 0.15%. The overall market breadth on BSE is in the favour of declines which thumped advances in the ratio of 1329:968, while 112 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 17,186.38, down by 70.98 points or 0.41%. The index has touched a high and a low of 17,234.48 and 17,135.76 respectively.   There were 11 stocks advancing against 18 declines while one stock remained unchanged on the index.

The broader indices too were trading in the red; the BSE Mid cap and small cap indices declined 0.19% and 0.20% respectively.

The only gaining sectoral index on the BSE were CG up by 0.70%, HC up by 0.55%, FMCG up by 0.36% and Power up by 0.13%. While, CD down by 2.23%, Realty down by 1.12%, Metal down by 0.87%, Information Technology down by 0.76% and Bankex 0.75% were the top losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Power up by 1.30%, BHEL and L&T were up by 0.92%, Gail India up by 0.90% and ITC up by 0.35%.

On the flip side, Sterlite Industries down by 2.50%, Hindalco Industries down by 1.78%, Bajaj Auto down by 1.46%, ONGC down by 1.23% and ONGC down by 1.23% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, the government is planning to borrow 65% of its budgeted borrowings by the first half of the next fiscal. This would amount to Rs 3.79 lakh crore. The government has planned out the inflow as well as the expenditure pattern, as per the Department of Economic Affairs Secretary, R Gopalan.

The government has budgeted for a fiscal deficit of Rs 5.13 lakh crore, 5.1% of GDP, for the next fiscal. Out of this almost Rs 3.79 lakh crore will be borrowed in the first half, which means borrowing of Rs 14,500 crore every week. It also means that more than Rs 2,000 crore will be borrowed every day.

The government is also hopeful that small savings collections will improve given that their rates have been hiked. Also there could be a larger flow of finances if the RBI cuts the repo rates, given the downward trend of inflation. If this happens, then the government may need to borrow lesser, explained Gopalan. 

During 2011-12, the government borrowed over Rs 5.1 lakh crore from the market. The borrowing had exceeded the budgeted borrowing target by over Rs 92,000 crore due to high subsidy expenditure.  Hence the government estimated its fiscal deficit at 5.9% for 2011-2012. For the coming fiscal it hopes to cap it at 5.1% level.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,219.50, lower by 23.65 points or 0.45%. The index has touched a high and a low of 5,232.10 and 5,201.70 respectively.  There were 16 stocks advancing against 34 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Tata Power up by 1.56%, Dr Reddy up by 1.34%, L&T up by 1.24%, Gail India up by 1.18% and BHEL up by 0.98%.

On the flip side, Sesa Goa down by 2.17%, Sterlite Industries down by 2.15%, Cairn down by 2.04%, Hindalco down by 1.90% and  Bajaj Auto down by 1.87% were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the red; Shanghai Composite declined 1.55%, Hang Seng slid 0.98%, Jakarta Composite shed 0.09%, KLSE Composite surrendered 0.11%, Nikkei 225 plunged 0.80%, Straits Times was down by 0.47% and Seoul Composite edged lower by 0.43%. On the flip side, Taiwan Weighted up by 0.10% was the lone gainer amongst the Asian pack.