Sensex, Nifty rebounds in positive territory; IT stocks in demand

Indian equity markets rebound in positive territory and currently trading near high point of the day, due to further upside in TCS, and a bit of recovery in Reliance Industries and Infosys. BSE benchmark rose 89 points and the NSE benchmark went up by 18 points. India's top software services exporter Tata Consultancy Services jumped 12% as it reported better than expected numbers for the fourth quarter, while Wipro gained 2% ahead of its fourth quarter numbers that schedule to be announced tomorrow morning. On sectoral front, information technology stocks were mostly trading higher with TCS leading the way up north. Consumer durables, power and metal stocks too were up in positive territory. Capital goods, automobile, and oil stocks were trading weak. On the global front, Asian stocks continued trading lower. Back home, the market breadth favoring the negative trend; there were 1,040 shares on the gaining side against 1,142 shares on the losing side while 122 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 17,186.25, up by 89.57 points or 0.52%. The index has touched a high and low of 17,194.95 and 17,046.72 respectively. There were 19 stocks advancing against 11 declines on the index.

The broader indices continued to gyrate into red terrain; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices lost 0.06% and 0.04% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Information Technology up by 3.92%, TECk up by 2.41%, CD up by 0.99%, Power up by 0.83% and Metal up by 0.82%. While, Oil & Gas down by 0.41%, CG down by 0.32% and Auto down by 0.16% were the top losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were TCS up by 12.40%, Wipro up by 2.95%, Hindalco up by 2.19%, Tata Power up by 1.71% and Coal India up by 1.66%.

On the flip side, Bharti Airtel was down by 3.26%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 2.27%, L&T down by 1.02%, RIL down by 0.96% and Bajaj Auto down by 0.79% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, the Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherjee has stated that India has substantially reduced its oil imports from Iran. FM also stated that the country is facing immense problems due to the rise in the prices of crude oil.

A day after meeting his Iranian counterpart, Mukherjee has pointed out that India's import of oil from the sanction-hit country has reduced substantially, in the backdrop of US's objections that India had failed to reduce its purchases from Tehran.

The FM has clarified that India is currently importing about 14 million tonnes of crude from Iran which in percentage terms is much lesser than earlier. When India imported 100 million tones, Iran would contribute 20-21 million tones. Now the crude oil imports have shot up to 160-170 million tonnes out of which only 14 million are sourced from Iran.

Mukherjee also observed that the country is going through significant hardship due to rising prices of oil. Noting that while presenting the budget last year the government subsidies had been worked out on the assumption that the average oil price would be $90-95 per barrel. But actually average price of has turned out to be $100-115 per barrel, increasing the quantum of subsidy substantially.

The demand for crude oil has been considerably rising in the developing countries, especially India and China. India's oil imports are expected to be more than triple from 2005 levels by 2020, rising to 5 million barrels per day. However supply is getting affected due to American sanctions on Iran. India has so far maintained that Iranian oil is important for its economy and hence it would not stop importing from war torn country. In fact India has used the opportunity to increase bilateral trade between the two countries. However, with the recent statement by the FM it seems that some of the US pressure is weighing on India.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,219.50, up by 18.90 points or 0.36%. The index has touched a high and low of 5,222.55 and 5,180.35 respectively. There were 21 stocks advancing against 18 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were TCS up by 12.00%, HCL Tech up by 4.53%, Wipro up by 2.86%, Hindalco up by 2.36% and Tata Power up by 2.21%.

On the flip side, Bharti Airtel down by 3.14%, Ambuja Cement down by 2.76%, M&M down by 2.00%, ACC down by 1.78% and Kotak Bank down by 1.74%, were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the red; Shanghai Composite crumbled by 0.77%, Jakarta Composite slipped 0.08%, KLSE Composite dipped 0.20%, Nikkei 225 tumbled 0.78% and Seoul Composite contracted 0.47%.

On the flip side, Hang Seng up by 0.20%, Straits Times was up by 0.37% and Taiwan Weighted was up by 0.24%.