Benchmarks spurt near intra-day high level; positive European counterparts bolster sentiment

Sustained buying by funds and retail investors tracing a firm opening in the European region amidst sanguine Asian pacific shares, have mainly drove benchmark equity indices near their intra-day high level.  While, Q2 Earnings’ of two blue chips stocks, namely, country’s third largest private sector lender Axis Bank combined with market bellwether Reliance Industries, also has kept the sentiment upbeat at Dalal Street. In the steady session of trade, 30 share index--Sensex--accumulating over 50 points, is trading above the psychological 18700 level, while 50 share index, Nifty, on NSE, adding over 3/10 percent is currently sailing past 5700 level. Moreover, some additional buying too has been lured by broader space.

On the global front, Asian pacific market appeared on the way of positive close buoyed by strong U.S. retail sales data. Further, European shares also lured some traction as investors shopped for equities onto hopes that Spain will ask for a bailout in coming weeks to activate the European Central Bank's bond buying scheme, and Greece would eventually bridge the gap on its austerity measures with its lenders, to ease fears that Athens will leave the euro zone.

Closer home, although buying was broad based, but stocks belonging to Information Technology, Consumer Durable and Bankex counters mainly emerged as the pillar of strength. Additionally, Aviation stocks, namely, Spicejet, Kingfisher Airlines and Jet Airways, were flying high after oil marketing companies have reduced the price of Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF) by 3 per cent. From Monday, every litre of ATF would cost Rs 68.40 in Delhi against Rs 70.51 earlier. The previous reduction was on October 1 when prices came down 4.33 per cent.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 18782.81 up by 69.26 points or 0.37% after trading in a range of 18,801.10 and 18,729.60. There were 22 stocks advancing against 8 declines on the index.

The broader indices enticed additional traction; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices was up by 0.53% and 0.69% respectively.

There were no losers on BSE sectoral chart, however, top gainers on the BSE sectoral space were, TECk up by 1.12%, IT up by 0.92%, CD up by 0.85%, Bankex up by 0.60% and Realty up by 0.53%

The major gainers on the Sensex were, Bharti Airtel up by 2.13%, Maruti Suzuki up by 1.93%, HDFC up by 1.35%, TCS up by 1.09% and Infosys up by 0.90%. On the other hand, Tata Motors down by 1.61%, Hindustan Unilever down by 1.45%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 0.50%, Gail India down by 0.28% and Dr Reddy’s Lab down by 0.24% were major losers on the Sensex.  

Meanwhile, in continuation with the reform measures taken by the government to boost the economic growth of the nation, Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council Chairman C Rangarajan affirmed that the government is prepared to take aggressive policy actions, despite these actions are treated as apolitical and unpopular. He pointed out that recent decisions to raise diesel prices and allow FDI in multi-brand retail have helped to reverse the adverse investment sentiment and has also acted as a stimulant for further accelerating the economic activity.

The government had raised the diesel price by a steep Rs 5 per litre and capped the number of subsidized cooking gas cylinder to six per household a year. He also remarked that the decisions to expand FDI in insurance and pension sectors will take time to fructify. Rangarajan remained confident to achieve financial growth in the range of 6 to 6.5 percent, for the current fiscal year.

Though, International Monetary Fund has recently forecasted India's GDP growth to 4.9% in 2012. He also urged focus on those sectors which are in the public domain and for which public expenditure have already been allocated in budget, so as to trigger the economy. India’s inflation rate has surged to 7.81% in September from previous month’s 7.55%. The Reserve Bank is likely to come out with its policy by October 30.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,708.00, up by 20.75 points or 0.36% after trading in a range of 5,714.00 and 5,693.05. There were 35 stocks advancing against 15 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Axis Bank up by 4.28%, Maruti Suzuki up by 1.97%, Bharti Airtel up by 1.89%, Cairn up by 1.65% and HDFC up by 1.36%. While, Tata Motors down by 1.63%, ACC down by 1.48%, HUL down by 0.43%, BPCL down by 1.20% and Ambuja Cement down by 1.07% were top losers on the index.

Some amount of weakness crept into Asian market; as one hand, Kospi Composite added 0.83%, Taiwan Weighted gained 0.70% Hang Seng rose 0.18%, KLSE Composite stayed higher by 0.02%, Nikkei 225 surged by 1.44% and Straits Times inched higher by 0.10%, while on the other, Shanghai Composite declined by 0.06% and Jakarta Composite slid by 0.011%, were the losers amongst the Asian pack.

European markets too were trading on sanguine note; with CAC 40 adding 0.71%, DAX soaring by 0.78% and FTSE 100 advancing by 0.52%.