Domestic bourses make positive start following cabinet reshuffle

Indian equity benchmarks have made a decent start with a gain of over half a percent on Monday following the reshuffle of cabinet ministers on Oct 28. In the biggest reshuffle of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance Cabinet, Manmohan Singh inducted 17 new faces and a total of 22 ministers giving several new and young faces a chance to prove their mettle. Veerappa Moily received petroleum ministry while Ministry of State (MoS) (Independent) for Power was given to Jyotiraditya Scindia. However, global cues remained unsupportive as the US markets weighed down by some weak earnings announcements, ended flat despite good GDP numbers on Oct 26. While, most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the red at this point of time due to corporate earnings concerns.

Back home, both the frontline indices were trading graciously with Sensex recapturing crucial 18,700 level while, Nifty trading tad below its crucial 5,700 mark ahead of RBI’s policy review tomorrow as there is general expectation that the apex bank will ease policy rates with a cut in cash reserve ratio (CRR) in its forthcoming monetary policy on October 30 and won’t go for a repo rate cut. Meanwhile, Oil and gas sector remained the top gainer, garnering about a percent gain on hopes for improved relationship with the government after the appointment of Veerappa Moily as the new Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister on Oct 28.

On the sectoral front, oil and gas witnessed the maximum gain in trade followed by auto and healthcare while, software and technology remained the only losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices were going neck-to-neck with benchmarks while, the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 986 shares on the gaining side against 547 shares on the losing side while 63 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 18,656.00; about 31 points higher compared to its previous closing of 18,625.34, and has touched a high and a low of 18,743.41 and 18,651.35 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 18,722.81, up by 97.47 points or 0.52%. There were 23 stocks advancing against 7 declines on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a positive start with 61.78% stocks advancing against 34.27% declines. The broader indices too were trading in-line with benchmarks; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices rose 0.41% and 0.60% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Oil and Gas up by 0.87%, Auto up by 0.80%, HC up by 0.57%, FMCG up by 0.53% and Metal up by 0.52%. While, IT down by 0.21% and TECk down by 0.04% were the few losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were M&M up by 1.75%, RIL up by 1.38%, Hindalco up by 1.15%, Wipro up by 1.15% and ITC up by 1.08%.

On the flip side, Sterlite Industries was down by 0.84%, Infosys was down by 0.64%, BHEL was down by 0.39%, Sun Pharma was down by 0.23% and TCS was down by 0.13% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, India’s natural gas production declined by about 15% in September at 3.36 billion cubic meters (bcm) in September, which was lower than 3.95 bcm achieved a year ago according to the latest data released by the Ministry of Petroleum. Output from Reliance Industries’ eastern offshore KG-D6 field continued to decline at 1.15 bcm lower by 34.3% - one of the major reasons for the downfall.

India’s crude oil production declined 1.7% to 3.06 million tonnes in September with ONGC reporting a 7.8% decline in Mumbai High output at 1.24 million tonnes. Mumbai High output was lower because of less than projected oil gain from development wells in addition to less than expected oil gain from Vasai East field.

During April-September, natural gas production was down 12.5% at 21.35 bcm while crude oil output was marginally lower at 19.08 million tonnes as compared to 19.22 million tonnes a year ago. However, India’s 20 refineries production were up 11.4% at 14.13 million tonnes from 12.68 million tonnes production in September a year ago. RIL and Essar refineries operated at 109.1% and 108% of their installed capacities. During April-September, refinery output was up 5.4% at 88.17 million tonnes.

The S&P CNX Nifty opened at 5,665.20; about 1 point higher compared to its previous closing of 5,664.30, and has touched a high and a low of 5,698.30 and 5,663.65 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 5,697.25, up by 32.95 points or 0.58%. There were 42 stocks advancing against 8 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were M&M up by 1.58%, JP Associates up by 1.43%, RIL up by 1.41%, ITC up by 1.35% and Ambuja Cement up by 1.20%.

On the flip side, Bank of Baroda down by 0.85%, BPCL down by 0.46%, Infosys down by 0.40%, BHEL down by 0.27% and HUL down by 0.18%, were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in red; Shanghai Composite was down by 2.49 points or 0.12% to 2,063.72, Hang Seng lost 59.45 points or 0.28% to 21,486.12, Jakarta Composite was marginally down by 6.15 points or 0.14% to 4,333.10, Straits Times declined by 9.31 points or 0.30% to 3,048.20, Nikkei 225 declined 1.23 points or 0.01% to 8,931.83 and Taiwan Weighted was down by 2.52 points or 0.04% to 7,131.94.

On the other hand, KLSE Composite was up by 3.12 points or 0.19% to 1,675.45 and Kospi Composite was up by 4.43 points or 0.24% to 1,912.76.