Indian equities continue firm trade in late afternoon session

Indian equities continued its firm trade in the late afternoon session on back of buying in frontline counters and taking cues from European counterparts. The sentiments in the market were on optimistic note after Barack Obama won second term in the White House overcoming a stiff initial challenge from his Republican challenger Mitt Romney. The wining of Obama for the second term lifted hopes of further quantitative easing making the benchmark indices CNX Nifty hitting over four and half week high while the BSE Sensex touched over four week high. Traders were seen piling some position in Realty, Bankex and Auto sector while selling was witnessed in Oil & Gas sector. In the scrip specific development, Bharti Airtel is trading under pressure after the company reported its eleventh consecutive quarter of profit decline with margins pressured by intense competition.

On the global front, most of Asian markets were trading in green while the European markets were too trading on optimistic note. The European Union’s top economic commissioner stated that euro leaders need to lock down an agreement on tackling Greece’s debt by next week. Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras faces a test of his fragile coalition government as he seeks parliamentary approval of austerity measures to unlock bailout funds amid the third general strike in six weeks. Approval of the legislation is the first of the parliamentary votes required by November 12 to unlock a 31 billion-euro ($40 billion) portion of international aid. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above their psychological 5,750 and 18,900 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was positive in the ratio of 1638:1086 while 124 scrips remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 18,929.36, up by 111.98 points or 0.60% after trading in a range of 18,973.43 and 18,786.14. There were 24 stocks advancing against 5 declines while 1 stock remains unchanged on the index.

The broader indices were too trading in green; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices were trading up by 0.92% and 0.76% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Realty up by 2.61%, Bankex up by 1.18%, Auto up by 1.17%, Consumer Durables up by 0.80% and IT up by 0.80% while, Oil & Gas down by 0.18% was the sole loser on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were SBI up by 2.08%, HDFC up by 1.82%, Tata Motors up by 1.76%, BHEL up by 1.72% and Jindal Steel up by 1.60%.

On the flip side, Tata Power down by 1.41%, Bharti Airtel down by 0.91%, Coal India down by 0.41%, ONGC down by 0.28% and Reliance Industries was down by 0.27% were the only losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, not happy with the proposed fuel supply agreements, the Association of Power Producers accused Coal India for its discriminatory treatment to private power producers. The APP blamed that the draft is giving undue benefits to State-owned companies and possess many of the provisions which the industry had opposed.

It also pointed that the option for arbitration regarding FSAs is only allowed to public sector companies, The clauses where Coal India has made separate rules for private and state owned companies include right to terminate FSA, security deposit, suspension of coal supplies and settlement of disputes. While, the centre affirmed that the differentiation in norms are made in order to mitigate risks born by Coal India.

APP also noted that before 2009, FSA for public and private sector generating stations were the same. While the Coal Ministry countered that during 2009, there were hardly one or two power players and all electricity selling power producers were government owned.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,763.00, up by 38.60 points or 0.67% after trading in a range of 5,777.30 and 5,711.40. There were 39 stocks advancing against 9 declines while 2 stocks remained unchanged on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were JP Associates up by 5.19%, Bank of Baroda up by 3.39%, IDFC up by 3.38%, PNB up by 2.67% and DLF up by 2.40%.

On the flip side, Tata Power down by 1.50%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.10%, Siemens down by 0.72%, Coal India down by 0.57% and ONGC down by 0.47% were the major losers on the index.

Asian markets were trading mostly in the green; Kospi Composite advanced 0.49%, Taiwan Weighted soared 0.70%, Jakarta Composite gained 0.65%, Straits Times gained 0.77%, and Hang Seng was up by 0.71%. While, KLSE Composite edged down by 0.08%, Shanghai Composite down by 0.01% and Nikkei 225 down by 0.03% were only losers amongst Asian pack.

The European markets were trading in green with, France’s CAC 40 gained 0.62%, Germany’s DAX added 0.45% and the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 ascended 0.10%.