Indian equities add gains to continue trade in green

Indian equities added gains to continue firm trade in green in the late afternoon session on back of buying in frontline counters and taking cues from the European counterparts. Investors have started eyeing the second quarter September 2012 earnings season, which will begin around mid-October 2012 thereby providing further direction to the market. Traders were seen piling up position in IT, TECk and Auto sector while selling was witnessed in Realty, Oil & Gas and Bankex sector. In the scrip specific development, Kingfisher Airlines is locked at the lower circuit limit on reports that the airline company is cancelling several flights due to employee unrest. Steel Authority of India (SAIL) was seen trading firm in green as the foreign research firm JP Morgan has upgraded the stock to overweight. Pantaloon Retail was trading in red after the foreign research firm CLSA downgraded the stock to sell from underperformer. The stock market will remain close tomorrow i.e. October 02, 2012, on account of Mahatma Gandhi Jayanti.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading on a mixed note while the European markets were trading on optimistic note. Moody's Investors Service is expected to deliver its decision on Spain's credit rating, which is likely to be a cut to junk status, a move which could lead to the country asking for a full bailout from European partners. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above their psychological 5,700 and 18,800 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was positive in the ratio of 1654:1101 while 122 scrips remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 18810.49, up by 47.75 points or 0.25% after trading in a range of 18831.70 and 18745.28. There were 17 stocks advancing against 13 declines on the index.

The broader indices continued to gain momentum; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices were trading higher by 0.78% and 1.23% respectively.

On the BSE sectoral space, IT up by 1.28%, TECk up by 1.10%, Auto up by 0.78%, Power up by 0.49% and Metal up by 0.43% were the top gainers. While, Realty down by 0.25%, Oil & Gas down by 0.17% and Bankex down by 0.15% were the only losers.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Motors up by 2.62%, Jindal Steel up by 2.35%, Infosys up by 2.13%, Hindalco Industries up by 1.99% and NTPC up by 1.58%. On the other hand, Tata Power down by 1.08%, ONGC down by 0.86%, HDFC Bank down by 0.75%, Bajaj Auto down by 0.65% and Coal India down by 0.61% were top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, amid most of the countries round the globe affected by slow down and struggling to come out of it, Reserve Bank Deputy Governor Anand Sinha throws a respite by pointing out that, India is little affected by the global financial crisis and can come out of it faster than China as it is a domestic consumption driven economy, so it is less affected by export sector performance.

He also urged for necessary united actions in containing inflation rate to ensure growth, thereby to get out of the slow down effects. Albeit, RBI assured that it has focused policy measures to control inflation rate, retail inflation in India stood up at 10.03%. He noted that financial crisis has affected trade channel, though India is not export dependent but exports has suffered due to this.

He cautioned that the pessimistic sentiments of financial market also trimmed growth in equity trade and foreign exchange rate. He stated increasing food prices due to supply constraint and hike in oil prices as reason for rising inflation rate.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,714.40, up by 11.10 points or 0.19% after trading in a range of 5,720.40 and 5,694.00. There were 27 stocks advancing against 22 declines while 1 stock remains unchanged on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were JP Associates up by 4.38%, Ambuja Cement up by 2.92%, Tata Motors up by 2.60%, Jindal Steel up by 2.47% and Infosys up by 2.17%. While, DLF down by 1.56%, Bank of Baroda down by 1.45%, ONGC down by 1.19%, ACC down by 1.16% and Tata Power down by 1.08% were top losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the red; Jakarta Composite declined 0.81%, Nikkei 225 descended 0.83%, Straits Times lost 0.14% and Taiwan Weighted edged lower by 0.51 %. On the flip side, KLSE Composite was up by 0.34% was the sole gainer amongst Asian pack.

Meanwhile, markets in China, Hong Kong and South Korea are closed today for holidays.

The European markets were trading in green with, France’s CAC 40 jumped up by 1.30%, Germany’s DAX added 1.07% and the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 gained 0.87%.