Domestic bourses make quite start on Wednesday

After witnessing butchery of over a percent in previous session, Indian benchmarks have made a muted start due to lack of positive trigger. The undertone remained slightly cautious as Asian markets were trading mixed though some indices gathered gains of over half a percent supported by some good economic news from the region and as the BOJ increased its monetary stimulus for a second month running. However, the US markets remain closed on Tuesday, unable to give any cues to the other global markets.

Back home, both the gauges were trading near their pre-close level in the absence of any domestic as well as global trigger. The bourses got some support after traders hoping more measures from the government front, as the Finance Minister P Chidambaram after RBI’s status quo stance has vowed to walk alone to face the challenge of growth. However, the gains remain capped in the early trade as banking stocks extended their downfall after RBI in second quarter review of monetary policy 2012-13, left its key policy rates, viz. repo and reverse repo, unchanged at 8 percent and 7 percent respectively. Moreover, the markets also remain cautious as foreign direct investment (FDI) in India declined by about 20 percent to $2.26 billion in August compared to same month in the previous year.

On the sectoral front, healthcare witnessed the maximum gain in trade followed by auto and consumer durables while, capital goods, realty and banking remained the top losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices too were trading flat at this point of time while, the market breadth on the BSE was evenly divided; there were 802 shares on the gaining side against 803 shares on the losing side while 87 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 18,436.79; about 6 points higher compared to its previous closing of 18,430.85, and has touched a high and a low of 18,474.09 and 18,409.20 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 18,443.39, up by 12.54 points or 0.07%. There were 18 stocks advancing against 12 declines on the index.

The overall market breadth has been evenly divided with 47.40% stocks advancing against 47.46% declines. The broader indices too were flat; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices rose 0.06% and 0.01% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, HC up by 1.05%, Auto up by 0.84%, CD up by 0.62%, TECk up by 0.50% and IT up by 0.42%. While, CG down by 0.72%, Realty down by 0.54%, Bankex down by 0.37%, Power down by 0.19% and Oil and Gas down by 0.08% were the top losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Dr Reddy up by 2.15%, Tata Motors up by 1.90%, Maruti Suzuki up by 1.33%, Wipro up by 1.05% and Bharti Airtel up by 0.89%.

On the flip side, Jindal Steel was down by 1.08%, HUL was down by 1.04%, BHEL was down by 1.01%, L&T was down by 0.94% and HDFC was down by 0.65% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, with the increasing oil prices amid rising dependence on imported oil, the newly appointed Petroleum and Natural gas Minister, Veerappa Moily has confirmed that the ministry will emphasize on quick decision making and innovation and affirmed that his priority would be to intensify domestic oil and gas exploration.

He promised that his ministry’s decision would be taken by keeping the national interest in mind and would not be to benefit one or two individuals or companies. He pointed that he wants to create a conducive environment for domestic and foreign companies in oil and gas exploration so as to reduce India's import dependence, which is at an alarming level of 80% at present.

He noted the importance of triggering investor’s confidence to make the nation as an investment destination and affirmed to pare down the bottlenecks. He pointed that over $13 billion have been committed in the nine rounds of the new exploration licensing policy, which have resulted in nearly 254 exploration licenses.

He also noted that the average consumption of petroleum products in developed countries is 14 barrels per person per year and in developing nations, it is 3 barrels, while India has approximately 1.2 barrel per person per year. He affirmed that the target set to achieve would be to the level of six barrels per person per year.

The S&P CNX Nifty opened at 5,596.75; about 1 point lower compared to its previous closing of 5,597.90, and has touched a high and a low of 5,607.00 and 5,585.20 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 5,590.85, down by 7.05 points or 0.13%. There were 26 stocks advancing against 24 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Dr Reddy up by 2.07%, Tata Motors up by 1.78%, Maruti Suzuki up by 1.70%, IDFC up by 1.06% and Wipro up by 1.05%.

On the flip side, RInfra down by 1.53%, DLF down by 1.51%, BHEL down by 1.49%, Jindal Steel down by 1.22% and L&T down by 1.19%, were the major losers on the index.

Asian equity indices were trading mixed; Shanghai Composite was down by 6.27 points or 0.30% to 2,056.07, Jakarta Composite lost 22.10 points or 0.52% to 4,342.45, KLSE Composite declined by 2.39 points or 0.14% to 1,672.54, Straits Times was down by 6.59 points or 0.22% to 3,032.14 and Taiwan Weighted declined by 35.19 points or 0.49% to 7,148.03.

On the other hand, Hang Seng was up by 78.41 points or 0.37% to 21,506.99, Nikkei 225 gained 84.46 points or 0.96% to 8,926.44 and Kospi Composite was up by 12.55 points or 0.63% to 1,912.07.