Bourses retreat from intra-day’s high; RIL gains momentum as chairman addresses the AGM

Extending previous session’s euphoria, frontline indices continue to steal the show, with 30 scrip sensitive index, trading around the 16500 fortress and widely followed 50 share index, Nifty, oscillating around the 5000 bastion. However, the retreat of Consumer Durable from the green terrain along with Rupee’s increasing resistance from $55 psychological level, has dragged the indices off from the high point of the day. Similar is the trajectory imitated by the broader indices, which too have cooled from intra-day’s high, to trade with gains of over half a percentage points.

Host of fresh positive triggers from the global front are encouraging the upbeat mood of the Indian equity markets. Expectations the United States will introduce measures to revive the sagging growth of its economy and European policymakers may rescue ailing Spanish banks, acted as power booster for Asian pacific shares. Meanwhile, the US future indices, continued to show an uptick in the screen trade.

Closer home, Metal, Oil & Gas and rate sensitive counters, scrolled up with notable gains.  Much of strength came from the up move of the market bellwether, Reliance Industries, which were on gaining spree as chairman Mukesh Ambani addresses the annual shareholder meeting. The overall market breadth on BSE remains in the favour of advances which thumped declines in the ratio of 1195:716, while 100 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex after soaring by 124.30 points or 0.76% is currently trading at 16,578.60. The index, so far has touched a high and low of 16,621.32 and 16,533.21 respectively.  There were 23 stocks advancing against just 6 declines on the index, while a stock remained unchanged.

The broader indices too came off from day’s high; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices were trading up by 0.54% and 0.46% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Metal up by 1.35%, Oil and Gas up by 1.05%, Bankex up by 0.92%, Realty up by 0.66% and TECk up by 0.57%. However, Consumer Durable, turning flat is currently trading with negative bias at this point of time.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Sterlite Industries up by 3.10%, Hero MotoCorp up by 2.22%, Reliance Industries up by 2.13%, Infosys up by 1.90% and HDFC Bank up by 1.78%. On the flip side, TCS down by 1.46%, M&M down by 1.07%, ONGC down by 0.48%, ITC down by 0.09% and L&T down by 0.09% remained the only losers.

Meanwhile, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, despite expressing his concern about the low GDP, higher current account and fiscal deficit number, has reiterated that restricting fiscal deficit to 2% of the GDP is achievable and pinned his hopes that with moderation in inflation the economy will once again be back to its high growth path.

The finance minister has stressed that the fundamentals of the country’s economy are strong and there is no need of panic even if there is slowdown in the GDP. After registering 8.4 per cent growth in last year, India's GDP expansion slowed to nine-year low of 6.5 per cent in the last financial year and it was meager 5.3 percent in the fourth quarter of last fiscal. He expressed his faith in the resilience of the Indian economy that it will recover despite continued global uncertainty.

Emphasizing the importance of Debt Recovery Appellate Tribunals (DRTs) in financial crisis he pointed that there can be no lending unless there is recovery. Finance Minister has also expressed his concern on the issue of non-performing assets (NPAs) and said that it needs to be addressed on priority basis. The NPAs of public sector banks increased to about 3.3 per cent of the assets in 2011-12 as against 2.3 per cent a year ago.  

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,025.95, higher by 28.85 points or 0.58%.  The index has touched a high and low of 5,042.60 and 5,013.05 respectively. There were 30 stocks advancing against 20 declining one’s on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Sterlite Industries up by 2.94%, Sesa Goa up by 2.32%, Reliance Industries up by 1.97%, Hero MotoCorp up by 1.91% and HDFC Bank up by 1.75%.

On the flip side, M&M down by 0.53%, Punjab National Bank down by 1.04%, Reliance Infra down by 1.02%, Ambuja Cement down and Bank of Baroda by 0.92% were the few losers on the index.

All the Asian equity indices were trading in the green; Shanghai Composite gained 0.17%, Hang Seng Index surged 1.29%, Jakarta Composite climbed 0.17%, KLSE Composite advanced 0.45%, Nikkei 225 soared 1.28%, Straits Times Index rose 0.13%, KOSPI Composite Index jumped 2.44%.

On the flip side, Taiwan Weighted down by 0.11 points was the sole loser amongst the Asian pack.