Markets erase early losses; Nifty above 5,350 mark

Indian equity markets, which drifted lower in early trades this morning erased some losses but remained in negative territory in the late morning session on Tuesday. The 50-share NSE Nifty climbed above the 5,350 level with the mood remaining quite cautious amid a lack of triggers. In currency markets, Indian rupee depreciated against dollar on Tuesday on the back of increasing demand for the American currency. On sectoral front, metal stocks were mostly down with sharp losses. Automobile, bank and capital goods stocks were also trading weak, albeit with less pronounced losses and realty stocks were trading flat. Shares of state run oil marketing companies were attracting buyers amid hopes of a hike in fuel prices. Few stocks from healthcare and PSU sectors were also trading notably higher. In global markets, most Asian shares fell on Tuesday as investors repositioned before a German Constitutional Court ruling on the euro zone's bailout funds, which could remove one risk for Europe, and a US Federal Reserve meeting that may yield widely expected monetary easing. Back home, the market breadth favoring positive trend; there were 1,249 shares on the gaining side against 1,082 shares on the losing side while 123 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 17,763.33 down by 3.45 points or 0.02% after touching a high of 17,767.51 and low of 17677.38. There were 14 stocks advancing against 16 declines on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.21% and Small cap index was up by 0.35%.

The top gainers on the BSE sectoral space were, Oil & Gas up by 0.42%, CD up by 0.40%, HC up by 0.39%, FMCG up by 0.31% and PSU up by 0.21%. While, Metal down by 1.48%, Auto down by 0.30%, CG down by 0.27%, Bankex down by 0.24% and TECk down by 0.11% were the top losers on the sectoral space.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Gail India up by 1.28%, BHEL up by 1.14%, NTPC up by 1.05%, Sun Pharma up by 0.94% and HDFC up by 0.93%. On the flip side, Sterlite Industries down by 4.17%, Jindal Steel down by 2.87%, Hero Moto Corp down by 2.12%, Bharti Airtel down by 0.86% and Tata Steel down by 0.79% were the losers on the Sensex.  

Mean while, the telecom subscriber base has fallen for the first time in July on a month on month basis, as per the data of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the total subscriber base fell by 20.71 million to 944.81 million in July from 965.52 million a month ago. There has been decline in subscriber addition since February last year, before February 2011, the industry’s net subscriber addition was around 20 million a month and by June 2012 it came down to 5 million.

Apart from other reasons, one major reason for the decline was new operators stopping services in some of the circles owing to the uncertainty over their licences. Previously, operators could get more spectrum if they added more subscribers and hence the telcos concentrated on subscriber addition but now, with auction being the preferred allocation method, the companies are concentrating more on the revenue generation.

As per TRAI’s data, while the overall telephone subscriber showed de-growth of 2.14%, the share of urban subscribers declined by 63.83% from 64.40%, whereas share of rural subscribers increased to 36.17% in the month of July 2012. With this, the overall tele-density in India reached 77.79 at the end of July, 2012 from 79.58 of the previous month. Mobile Number Portability requests increased from 54.33 million subscribers at the end of June 2012 to 59.31 million at the end of July 2012. In the month of July 2012 alone, 4.98 million requests were made for MNP.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,358.70, down by 4.75 points or 0.09% after trading in a range of 5,360.10 and 5,332.10. There were 26 stocks advancing against 23 declines on the index, while one remain unchanged.

The top gainers of the Nifty were BPCL up by 2.26%, ACC up by 1.78%, GAIL up by 1.12%, BHEL up by 1.11% and Sun Pharma up by 1.02%. On the flip side, Sesa Goa down by 5.01%, Sterlite Industries down by 4.47%, Jindal Steel down by 2.85%, Hero MotoCorp down by 2.05% and Reliance Infra down by 1.61% were the losers on the index.

Most of the Asian indices were trading in red; Nikkei 225 down by 0.66%, KLSE Composite down by 1.10%, Kospi Composite Index down by 0.39%, Jakarta Composite down by 0.60%, Hang Seng index down by 0.58% and Shanghai Composite down by 1.20%, while Straits Times up by 0.03% and Taiwan Weighted up by 0.03%.