Benchmarks escalate to intra-day high; Nifty sails past 5,600 bastion

Accumulating gains, benchmark equity indices have escalated to intra-day high, thanks to aggressive buying in select blue chip stocks, namely, ICICI bank, Reliance Industries and Infosys. After getting a positive start, barometer gauges gradually gaining strength are currently sailing past 18,400 (Sensex) and 5,600 (Nifty) bastions respectively. Meanwhile, broader indices too have amassed gains of over 3/10 percent. Immense supports is being lent by stocks belonging to Realty, Consumer Durable and Bankex, that emerging as investor’s darlings, toppled the BSE sectoral front. Additionally, depreciation of Indian currency to two week’s low is working well for Information Technology. Software firms derive lion share of their revenue in foreign currency. Meanwhile, Indian rupee has weakened to over two-month low against the US dollar after falling for the fourth consecutive session on fears of a weak Q2 GDP number and fiscal slippage. Further, banking stocks too enticed traction after Central Bank’s governor said that ‘the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will step in to provide more liquidity into the market if the need arises.’

Importantly, benchmark equity indices are staging a commendable resilience in light of subdued global set-up. Asian shares were set for mixed close as investors refocused on the risk of a US fiscal crisis following Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's remarks that the budget impasse was already damaging growth. However, sentiment in Asian-pacific region were also affected as Japan on Wednesday posted its worst October trade figure in over 30 years, underscoring persistent weakness in the world's third-largest economy amid the global slowdown and a spat with China. Further, even, European shares lost steam in early deals on fresh worries over Greece after international lenders failed to reach a deal for the payment of a new tranche of aid to the debt-stricken country.

Closer home, sentiment in Indian equity markets were also buttressed by the sparkling gains in Pharmaceuticals stocks, viz. Aurobindo Pharma, Cipla, Ranbaxy Lab and Sun Pharmaceuticals, which mustered gains ahead of GoM meet on Nov 21 to resolve deadlock on Pharma pricing. The meet assumes importance with the expected attendance of the finance minister, where hopes are high that the pricing policy, which has been mired since 2003, will be revamped. On the flip side, Power counter emerged as sole losers. Trade of over 1.34 lakh crore was done in terms of volume turnover.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 18,436.27, up by 106.95 points or 0.58%. There were 21 stocks advancing against 9 declines on the index. The overall market breadth on BSE is in the favor of advances, which have piped declines in the ratio of 1390:1297, while 120 shares remain unchanged.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap index were up by 0.34% and 0.41% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Realty up by 2.33%, CD up by 1.69%, Bankex up by 1.01%, Metal and IT up by 0.94% each. While, Power down by 0.32%, was the only losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Jindal Steel up by 2.85%, Sun Pharma up by 2.38%, Tata Power up by 2.13%, Cipla up by 1.94% and ICICI Bank up by 1.57%.

On the flip side, BHEL was down by 1.75%, NTPC was down by 1.55%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.26%, Hero MotoCorp down by 1.04%, and Maruti Suzuki was down by 0.84% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, after slipping for last five months, domestic airline passenger traffic, gained some momentum in October as it grew by 13.36 per cent and stood at 45.50 lakh from 40.18 lakh in September 2012, according to data released on Tuesday by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). The respite came after the passenger traffic fell 8.03 per cent for the fifth consecutive month in September and stood at 40.18 lakh from 43.69 lakh in August.

However, airline passenger traffic in India, dipping by 15.7% in October compared with a year ago turns out to be the sharpest fall in traffic this year, importantly in redeeming month for Indian carriers. The October-December quarter, is peak season for domestic airlines.

The civil aviation ministry data, however, showed that the total passengers carried by all domestic airlines in the January-October period fell by 2.47 percent at 483.94 lakh passengers from 496.19 lakh during the corresponding month of 2011. The total passengers carried by all the domestic airlines in the January-September period had grown marginally by 0.90 per cent at 438.39 lakh passengers from 442.18 lakh during the corresponding period of 2011.

Further, in terms of market share, Indigo maintained its top position with 27.8 per cent followed by Air India with 20.8 percent, Spicejet at third position with 19.1 percent and at fourth position Jet Airways-Jetlite (Jet Konnect) combine with 24.7 per cent. However, it is Air India whose share is on the rise for six successive months.

S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,607.95, up by 36.40 points or 0.65%, after touching a high and a low of 5,610.30 and 5,561.40 respectively. There were 34 stocks advancing against 16 declining on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Sun Pharma up by 2.47%, Jindal Steel up by 2.38%, Tata Power up by 2.34%, Cipla and JP associate were up by 2.33%.

On the flip side, NTPC down by 1.93%, BHEL down by 1.53%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.25%, Cairn down by 1.15% and Hero Motocorp down by 0.97% were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading mixed; Jakarta Composite was down by 0.12%, KLSE Composite was down by 0.08%, Seoul Composite was down by 0.32% and Taiwan Weighted was down by 0.80%. On the flip side, Hang Seng up by 1.39%, Shanghai Composite was up by 1.07%, Straits Times was up by 0.08% and Nikkei 225 up by 0.87% were the gainers amongst Asian pack.

The European markets were trading in red with, France’s CAC 40 lost 0.21%, Germany’s DAX slipped 0.27% and the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 descended 0.22%