Markets regain significant portion of lost ground

Indian equity markets pared early losses and regained a significant portion of lost ground amid some strong buying across the board. Sensex trading down by 76 points while Nifty at 5,093 level. On sectoral front FMCG, PSU and realty stocks were witnessing strong buying. Select stocks from metal, healthcare and banking sectors too have come off their lows. Worries about earnings hit Indian software services exporters, which weighed on the main index. Capital goods, power and oil stocks too were mostly seen struggling to wriggle out of trouble. On the global front, most of Asian markets were trading in green. Back home, the market breadth favoring negative trend; there were 684 shares on the gaining side against 1,674 shares on the losing side while 90 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 16,885.33, down by 27.38 points or 0.16%.  The index has touched a high and low of 16,918.31 and 16,742.07 respectively. There were 17 stocks advancing against 13 declines on the index.

The broader indices continued to trade in fine fettle; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices were trading up by 0.58% and 0.47% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were FMCG up by 1.44%, PSU up by 1.44%, Realty up by 1.02%, Metal up by 0.54% and Consumer durables (CD) up by 0.33%. While, IT down by 2.54%, TECk down by 1.87%, Power down by 0.18%, Auto down by 0.13% and Oil & Gas down by 0.12% were the top losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were GAIL India up by 3.67%, Coal India up by 2.94%, DLF up by 2.27%, ITC up by 2.01% and Sun Pharma up by 1.44%.

On the flip side, TCS down by 3.82%, Infosys down by 2.21%, BHEL down by 1.80%, Wipro down by 1.43%, and Tata Motors down by 1.39% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, with payment mechanism issues being resolved, sanction hit Iran is keen to enhance trade with India especially with import of agricultural commodities like wheat, rice, tea and sugar, as per the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO). Pharmaceutical is the other area which is under consideration. India and Iran are looking at increasing the bilateral trade to $25 billion in the next four years from the current level of $15 billion.

A 56-member Iranian trade delegation is currently in India to discuss ways and means to increase trade with the country. It is also expected that exports to Iran will help reduce the trade deficit of the country which currently stands at an all time high of $185 billion.

The exporters body is also keen that the government helps it to increase trade with countries like China and Africa which it believes are still untapped markets. It is of the opinion that prices of manufacturing as well as wages are increasing in China which is making their commodities expensive. Indian commodities are now in a position to effectively compete with them in the global market.

FIEO is also of the view that the Reserve Bank should also be asked to intervene to provide more affordable credit to exporters. It has further observed that efforts to diversify markets and reduce dependence on US and Europe are yielding results. Asia and ASEAN region which accounted for about 35% of India's exports are now accounting for about 50% of the share.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,105.85, down by 8.30 points or 0.16%. The index has touched a high and low of 5,119.95 and 5,062.75 respectively. There were 27 stocks advancing against 22 declines on the index and one remained unchanged.

The top gainers of the Nifty were GAIL up by 3.61%, PNB up by 2.84%, Coal India up by 2.82%, DLF up by 2.21% and ITC up by 2.16%.

On the flip side, TCS down by 3.79%, HCL Tech down by 2.49%, Infosys down by 2.49%, BHEL down by 1.94% and Wipro down by 1.72%, were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the green; Jakarta Composite added 0.19%, KLSE Composite gained 0.17%, Nikkei 225 soared 0.69%, Straits Times accumulated 0.31%, KOSPI Composite spiked up by 0.54% and Taiwan Weighted was up by 0.10%.

On the flip side, Shanghai Composite down by 0.13% was the lone loser amongst Asian pack.