Benchmarks continue to trade in green

Indian equities continued to trade in fine fettle on back of strong buying in frontline counters in the late morning session. On the global front, Asian counters were trading mixed on growth concerns after the IMF cut its global growth forecast for this year to 3.3% from its July estimate of 3.5%. Back home, traders were seen piling up position in HC, CD and Metal sector while selling was witnessed in TECk sector. Sun Pharma, Dr. Reddy's Laboratories, Cipla, Lupin, Ranbaxy Laboratories and Glaxosmithkline Pharmaceuticals from HC pack were seen trading in green edging the markets higher. Tata Steel, Coal India ,Jindal Steel & Power, Sterlite Industries (India), JSW Steel and NMDC from Metal pack were seen trading firm in green.  TECk majors - Bharti Airtel, Wipro, Idea Cellular and Reliance Communications were capping the markets’ gains. In the scrip specific development, Jyoti Structures rose on bagging order worth Rs 254 crore. Sonata Software jumped on entering into partnership with hybris. Aban Offshore surged on bagging order worth Rs 800 crore for deployment of jack-up rig.  Educomp Solutions edged higher on getting nod to raise $250 million.  Eros International soared on collecting Rs 27 crore for ‘English Vinglish’ worldwide.

The NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were managing to hold their psychological 5,700 and 18800 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was positive, in the ratio of 1380:768.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 18827.31 up by 118.33 points or 0.63% after trading in a range of 18885.84 and 18796.25. There were 23 stocks advancing against 7 declines on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.64% and Small cap index was up by 0.60%.

On the BSE sectoral space, HC up by 1.28%, CD up by 1.12%, Metal up by 1.10%, Bankex up by 0.98% and CG up by 0.86% were the top gainers. While, TECk down by 0.14% was only the losers.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Cipla up by 1.82%, Jindal Steel up by 1.76%, Dr Reddys Lab up by 1.72%, ICICI Bank up by 1.44% and Sun Pharma up by 1.44%. On the other hand, Bajaj Auto down by 1.58%, Wipro down by 1.23%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.18%, BHEL down by 1.04% and TCS down by 0.21% was only the loser on the Sensex. 

Mean while, in a crucial meeting of the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on telecom, it was decided that all GSM operators will have to pay a one-time fee for the remaining period of their 20-year licence for spectrums beyond 4.4 Mhz, while CDMA operators will have to pay for all spectrum beyond 2.5 Mhz. The EGoM’s decision will now be sent to the Cabinet for final ratification and the cut-off date for calculating the fee will be the one on which the Cabinet clears the EGoM decision.

The Cabinet is expected to take a final decision by October 16, well before the last date for submission of bids by prospective operators for the 2G spectrum auction. However, the pricing will be based on the final bid price in the upcoming spectrum auction in November. The base price for this auction is set at Rs 14,000 crore for 5 Mhz of spectrum pan-India.

The EGoM’s decision was in contrast to the opinion of the Attorney General of India, who had said a one-time charge should be levied on spectrum beyond 6.2 MHz but retrospectively from July 2008. The group of ministers has also cleared a deferred payment schedule for spectrum, entailing 33 per cent upfront payment for GSM and 25 per cent for CDMA. However, there will be a moratorium of two years if the balance licence period is greater than 15 years, one year if it is between 10 and 15 years and none if the balance is less than 10 years.

Giving some relief to the operators whose licences got quashed recently by a Supreme Court order, the EGoM decided to refund the licence fee of Rs 1,658 crore paid by them in case they did not win in the 2G auction, while in case of them winning, the amount will be adjusted with what they pay for auctioned spectrum.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,710.85, up by 34.85 points or 0.61% after trading in a range of 5,728.65 and 5,702.00. There were 39 stocks advancing against 11 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Jindal Steel up by 1.98%, Cipla up by 1.74%, Lupin up by 1.74%, Tata Power up by 1.73% and Dr reddy was up by 1.64%. While, Bajaj-Auto down by 1.88%,  Bharti Airtel down by 1.22%, BHEL down by 1.08%, Wipro down by 1.00% and BPCL  down by 0.98% were the losers on the index

Asian equity indices were trading mixed; Straits Times was down by 0.13%, Kospi Composite was down by 0.05% Nikkei 225 was down by 0.92% and Taiwan Weighted was down by 0.30%. While Jakarta Composite up by 0.48%, Shanghai Composite was up by 2.04%, Hang Seng was up by 1.02%, KLSE Composite was up by 0.06%, were the gainers.