Barometer gauges retreat from high point of the day

Barometer gauges have cooled off a bit from the high point of the day due to sell-off in defensive Fast moving consumer goods space along with Consumer Durable and Public Sector Undertaking counters. Barometer gauges after halting five day long losing streak are currently consolidating their gains. However, the 30 scrip sensitive index, after recovering from 17 months low level touched in the early session of trade piercing through the 16300 crucial fortresses, currently trading off the bastion. Meanwhile, the widely followed, Nifty, on NSE, after appearing increasingly close to 5000 psychological level, is oscillating sub 4900 mark. The broader indices, too trading listless, were exhibiting mixed trend.

Encouraging leads from European markets also buoyed the sentiment at D-street. Lifted by surprisingly strong German economic data, European equities bounced from 2 012 lows on Tuesday. The German GDP figures came as the silver lining as it indicated that Europe largest economy grew much more than expected in the first quarter, rising 0.5% q-o-q and 1.2% from the corresponding period last year.

However, lack of support from regional counterparts kept bulls in check.  Majority of Asian indices fell as investors sought refuge from the political turmoil fuelling fears of Greece's exit from the euro and threatening to undo progress made so far to solve Europe's debt crisis.

Sentiment back home fortified with the surge of Reliance Communication and Sun TV stocks after the 2G Trial Court granted bail to former telecom minister A Raja. This is the first time that the Minister has sought bail in the 15 months that he's been in jail since his arrest in February, 2011. Right after the break out of this news, DB Realty shot up 7% amid heavy volumes while SpiceJet shot up 6%. Sesa Goa too topped the buying list among Nifty 50, rising over 6%. The overall market breadth on BSE was supporting declines which piped advances in the ratio of 1379:1173, while 140 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 16,281.89 up by 66.05 points or 0.41% after trading in a range of 16,370.12 and 16,123.04 respectively. There were 17 stocks advancing against 13 declines on the index.

The broader indices were showing a mixed trend; the BSE Mid cap was up by 0.10% while the Small cap index was down by 0.14%.

On the BSE sectoral space, Capital Goods up 2.54%, Metal up by 1.19%, IT up by 1.13%, TECk up by 0.65% and Bankex up by 0.56% were the major gainers, while FMCG down by 0.70%, CD down by 0.70%, PSU down by 0.34%, Power down by 0.22% and Auto down by 0.19% were the major laggards in the space.

L&T up 4.66%, Hero MotoCorp up by 3.04%, Jindal Steel up by 3.01%, Infosys up by 2.67% and DLF up by 2.17% were the major gainers on the Sensex, while NTPC down by 2.98%, Maruti Suzuki down by 2.56%, bharti Airtel down by 1.77%, ITC down by 0.83% and Coal India down by 0.81% were the major losers in the index.

Meanwhile, the government has notified the decision to remove the limit on sugar exports, issuing the notification more than a week after an inter-ministerial meeting, Chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, it was decided to eliminate ceiling on sugar exports by putting it under the Open General Licence (OGL). The move is likely to help industry export its surplus sugar and clear cane payment arrears to farmers that have mounted to over Rs 10,000 crore.

According to the notification, effective from 11th May, there would be no quantitative restrictions on sugar exports and producers are not required to obtain export release order from the Food Ministry under OGL in the 2011-12 marketing year (October-September) till further orders.

The notification further stated that a trader who has imported raw sugar under the Advance Authorisation Scheme (AAS), under which mills are obligated to export the sweetener after processing, on 'grain-to-grain' basis are also not required to obtain export release order. However, export release order is required for mills exporting sugar under AAS on tonne-to-tonne basis.

As per the notification, exporters are asked to upload details about quantity of sugar shipments through online facility to the Food Ministry within three working days. They are also asked to give details of physical exports. Till April, physical shipments of 1.6 million tonnes of sugar were undertaken. During the 2010-11 marketing year, physical exports had stood at 3.1 million tonnes.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 4,932.30, up by 24.50 points or 0.50% after trading in a range of 4,955.20 and 4,868.55 respectively. There were 32 stocks advancing against 18 declines on the index.

The top gainers on the Nifty were L&T up 4.66%, Sesa Goa up by 4.36%, BPCL up 3.19%, Hero MotoCorp up by 3.14% and Cairn was up by 3.12%

Maruti Suzuki down by 2.80%, NTPC down by 2.78%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.87%, ITC down by 1.41% and IDFC down by 1.27% were the major losers on the index.

In the Asian space, Shanghai Composite declined 0.25%, Jakarta Composite lost 0.18%, KLSE Composite fell 0.89%, KOSPI Composite lost 0.77% and Nikkei 225 slumped by 0.81%

On the other hand only Hang Seng surged by 0.81%, Straits Times Index gained 0.62% and Taiwan Weighted was up by 0.25%.

The European markets are trading mixed as France’s CAC 40 gained 0.80%, Germany’s DAX declined 0.17% and UK’s FTSE was marginally up by 0.09%.