Bourses recuperate from intra-day’s low; Nifty for a while entered into green

Recuperating from intra-day’s low level, Indian equity markets have pruned losses tracing an uptick of European futures, which rose before U.S. reports that may point over house building holding near a four-year high. Also aiding the market’s recovery, were the stocks belonging from Auto, Capital Goods and Realty counters. With this recovery, 30 share index, of BSE, Sensex, trading a tad below the neural line, i.e., above 17,700 mark, seems on the verge of breaking out in green, while the 50 share index, Nifty, gaining some traction already entered into the green zone for a while and is currently trading above the 5350 level. Meanwhile, broader indices too have magnified their gains. Piping other 12 sectoral indices, Auto pivotal has toppled the BSE sectoral chart, on hopes that the central bank will find more space to ease monetary policy after inflation based on the wholesale price index eased unexpectedly at 6.87% for the month of July. On the flip side, stocks belonging from the Fast Moving Consumer Goods, Metal and Consumer Durable counters remain the weak spell of the trade. However, the weakness of Indian rupee is seen limiting the gains of Indian equity markets. Indian currency after recuperating from the psychological 56 against dollar mark, scaled in early trade, is again appearing strikingly close to the very level. Meanwhile, gains of Asian counterparts too are propping up the sentiment at Dalal Street. Regional counterparts have edged higher as investors waited for more clues over the timing and extent of any further stimulus to tackle the onerous euro zone's debt crisis.

Closer home, the BSE Sensex is currently trading at 17,721.97, down by 6.23 points or 0.04% has touched a high and a low of 17,763.59 and 17,670.40 respectively. There were 15 stocks advancing against 15 declines on the index.

The broader indices gained additional traction; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices up by 0.44% and 0.34% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Auto up by 1.20%, CG up by 0. 82%, Realty up by 0.70%, HC up by 0.66% and Oil & Gas up by 0.40%. While, FMCG down by 1.71%, Metal down by 1.08%, CD down by 0.46%, IT down by 0.36% and TECk down by 0.18% were the top losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Cipla up by 3.08%, Hero MotoCorp up by 3.02%, HDFC up by 1.84%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.83% and Tata Motors up by 1.64%.

On the flip side, ITC down by 2.95%, Wipro down by 1.90% Sterlite Industries down by 1.87%, Hindalco Industries down by 1.62% and Gail India down by 1.43% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, amid growing non-performing assets’ (NPA) concerns, newly appointed Finance Minister P Chidambaram will take up the task of conducting quarterly review of Public Sector Banks (PSB’s) on August 18. The meeting, which is expected to take on board, issues such as NPAs, agriculture loans, credit to the infrastructure sector and matters related to human resource, comes in the backdrop of the slowing economy growth, higher inflation and policy paralysis. Heads of public sector financial institutions like NABARD, SIDBI, NHB, IIFCL and Exim Bank are reportedly expected to attend the meeting with the finance minister.

Back on macro’s, hit by higher interest rates and global down turn, India’s economy grew to at a near-decade low of 5.3% in the January-March quarter. Meanwhile, industrial growth, as measured by IIP, contracted 1.8% for the month of June, against the growth figure of 2.5% in May. However, in a bit of relief, the wholesale price index (WPI), India's main inflation gauge, unexpectedly slipped to 6.87% for the month of July, its lowest since January 2010, as compared to 7.25% (Provisional) for the previous month. Nevertheless, central bank has upwardly revised the baseline projection for WPI inflation for March 2013 from its April projection of 6.5% to 7%.

In a separate development, Finance Minister has called upon a meeting of top tax officers later this month to address the concerns relating to sluggish imports impacting revenues, particularly on customs duty front in the first four months of 2012-13. Finance Minister would be meeting chief commissioners and director generals of income tax, central excise, customs and service tax.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,380.85, up by 0.50 points or 0.01% and has touched a high and a low of 5,390.65 and 5,364.35 respectively. There were 24 stocks advancing against 25 declines on the index, while 1 share remained unchanged.

The top gainers of the Nifty were IDFC up by 4.10%, Hero MotoCorp up by 3.00%, Cipla up by 2.98%, HDFC up by 1.80% and M&M up by 1.79%.

On the flip side, ITC down by 3.10%, Sterlite Industries down by 2.13%, Wipro down by 2.07%, Hindalco Industries down by 1.79% and Asian Paints down by 1.71%, were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian markets were trading in green; Kospi Composite added 0.05%, Nikkei surged by 1.88% Jakarta Composite rose 0.34%, Straits Times up by 0.20% and Taiwan Weighted gained 0.30%. On the flip side, KLSE Composite slid 0.23%, Shanghai Composite lost 0.30%, Hang Seng shed 0.08%, were losers amongst Asian pack.

European markets have got off to a cautious start; CAC 40 declined by 0.22%, DAX down by 0.03% and FTSE 100 rose 0.05%.