Post session - Quick review

Volatility witnessed in the second half of the trade, washed away significant gains of D-street, leading to lackadaisical close of Indian equity markets after getting promising start. After getting thrashed to four months low’s in previous session, barometer gauges despite witnessing some value buying activities, could accumulate slender gains of over 0.15%. Bourses witnessed stiff resistance above the 4900 (Nifty) and 16100 (Sensex), leading to their close below the respective psychological levels. Both barometer gauges settled around the low point of the day, after the annihilation of Capital Goods, Consumer Durable and Auto stocks.

Gloomy opening of European shares once again became the concern of Indian equity markets, as reignited worries over euro-zone stability, started eating into risk appetite of jittery investors. The anemic rupee, which continued to stagger near all time low level, also kept investor’s away from risky assets.

Meanwhile, the Asian shares after keeping their heads above water on reports that Japan, world’s third largest economy expanded at a faster than expected rate of 1% in the first quarter of 2012, indicating signs of exhaustion by the end of the trade as market-men found no reason to pile on risk amid deepening turmoil in Greece and fears of contagion to other stressed euro zone economies.

Back on the home turf, solace came after savaged sell off with Telecom stocks, like Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, and Reliance Communication rallying in the range of 2-5% each. Telecom stocks rang loud after the reports surfaced that Telecom regulator, TRAI, may reconsider its recommendations on spectrum auction if the government insists the former in doing so. TRAI under its latest recommendations on spectrum auction has proposed, a reserve price of Rs 3,622 crore for 1 MHz pan-India spectrum, which is more than 10 times higher than the price at which 2G licences were allocated in 2008. Even State run OMC’s gathered steam on reports that petrol and diesel prices will be hiked soon after Parliament's budget session ends on May 22. Additionally, sugar stocks continued to trade with traction after Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) relaxed exports norm for sugar. Even stocks from defensive, Fast Moving Consumer Goods along with rate sensitive’s Realty and Bankex counters, aided the bourses in sustaining their upwards trajectory. The market breadth on the BSE ended negative; advances and declining stocks were in a ratio of 1320: 1364 while 146 scrips remained unchanged. (Provisional)

The BSE Sensex gained 44.21 points or 0.28% and settled at 16,074.30. The index touched a high and a low of 16,240.18 and 16,007.9 respectively. 16 stocks advanced against 14 declining one’s on the index (Provisional)

The BSE Mid-cap index lost 0.02% while Small-cap index gained 0.13%. (Provisional)

On the BSE Sectoral front, FMCG up 1.93%, Realty up 0.99%, Metal up 0.55%, Oil& Gas up 0.34%, Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) up by 0.23%, however, Capital Goods down 1.95%, Consumer Durables down 1.02%, Auto down by 0.95%, Power down by 0.47% and Healthcare down 0.32% were the top losers. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Sensex were ITC up 2.83%, Jindal Steel up 2.75%, DLF up 2.01%, SBI up 1.68% and HDFC Bank up 1.47% while, Bajaj Auto down 3.39%, L&T down 3.16%, Mahindra & Mahindra down  3.16%, Cipla down 2.79% and BHEL down 1.49%  were the top losers. (Provisional)

Meanwhile, the net direct tax collections for the month of April increased to Rs 14,182 crore as compared to Rs 1,992 crore for the same period of last financial year. The surge was mainly on the back of lower refunds given by the Revenue Department in April, 2012.

On the other hand, gross direct tax collection for the month declined by over 7% to Rs 24,631 crore as compared to Rs 27,091 crore in April 2011. Further, the net personal income tax collection surged by a huge 70% to Rs 14,423 crore in comparison to Rs 8,472 crore recorded in the same month last financial year.

The net corporate taxes collection was Rs 383 crore in April, whereas it was Rs (-) 6,490 crore in the corresponding period of last fiscal. In addition, wealth tax collection was at Rs 6 crore, down from Rs 10 crore recorded in April 2011.

For the current financial year, the government has fixed a direct tax collection target of Rs 5.70 lakh. As per provisional estimates, during the 2011-12 fiscal, the government accumulated taxes of over Rs 4.93 lakh crore, against a budgeted target of Rs 5.32 lakh crore. On the refund front, the revenue department gave refunds worth Rs 97,158 crore in the last fiscal, a rise of 29.25% against 2010-11.

India VIX, a gauge for market’s short term expectation of volatility gained 0.50% at 23.59 from its previous close of 23.71 on Wednesday. (Provisional)

The S&P CNX Nifty gained 11.95 points or 0.25% to settle at 4,870.20. The index touched high and low of 4,922.25 and 4,850.20 respectively. 27 stocks advanced against 22 declining while 1 stock remained unchanged on the index. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Nifty were ITC up 3.01%, Ambuja Cement up 4.57%, SAIL up 4.02%, ITC up 3.56% and JP Associate up 2.97%, Jindal Steel up 2.71.(Provisional)

On the other hand, Reliance Infra down 3.56, L&T down 3.50%, Mahindra & Mahindra down 3.34%, Bajaj-Auto down 2.74% and Cipla down 2.55% were the top losers. (Provisional)

The European markets too were trading red zone, with France's CAC 40 down 0.89%, Germany's DAX down by 0.68% and Britain’s FTSE 100 down 1.12%.

After showing ruthless trade in past few sessions, Asian equities got some respite after Japan reported better-than-expected Gross Domestic Product (GDP) numbers, however, Greek crisis continued to weigh down the sentiments. Moreover, the gains remained capped on concern over Europe extended beyond Greece after Spain’s prime minister warned that the nation that it could be locked out of international markets due to problems in the EU, the Spain is trembling under a 24.4% unemployment rate.

Meanwhile, Japanese Nikkei surged over 0.85 percent in the trade after data showed that the economy grew a better-than-estimated 1.0 percent on-quarter in the January-March period, representing a slow recovery boosted by reconstruction from last year’s earthquake tsunami. Moreover, Chinese benchmark Shanghai Composite surged about one and a half percent with country’s consumption-related space broadly stronger in expectation of further policy support after Beijing provided subsidies of $4.2 billion for energy-saving home appliances late on Wednesday.