Domestic bourses retreat from intraday lows; Sensex reclaims 18,500 level

In a flip-flop session of trade, Indian equity benchmarks have now soared to intraday high level thanks to higher European counters. Breaking-out from their intraday low levels, frontline gauges recovered gently with BSE Sensex recapturing its crucial 18,500 mark as investors continued piling up positions in banking stocks on hopes that the winter session of parliament will pass bills to liberalise the insurance, pension and banking sector. However, so far in the parliament session, the speaker rejected Trinamool Congress's no-confidence motion against the decision to allow FDI in retail.

Global cues too supported the domestic bourses as European shares advanced for a fourth straight session to touch a one-week high on Thursday on hopes a deal on Greece’s bailout will be agreed. Meanwhile, Asian markets were trading mostly in the green at this point of time as Chinese manufacturing data indicated that the economy continues to pick up. Moreover, Japanese shares rose to six-month high as the yen weakened further against the dollar and euro on expectations that the country's central bank will unveil fresh monetary easing measures.

Back home, pharma stocks continued to support sentiments during the trade after the Group of Ministers (GoM) on the proposed National Pharmaceutical Pricing Policy has decided to make some key changes in its earlier recommendations to soften the prices of essential medicines. On the sectoral front, capital goods witnessed the maximum gain in trade followed by software and banking while, consumer durables, oil and gas and power remained the top losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices were going neck-to-neck with benchmarks while, the overall market breadth were trading positively; there were 1,344 shares on the gaining side against 1,282 shares on the losing side while 145 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 18,538.70, up by 78.32 points or 0.42% and has touched a high and a low of 18,556.73 and 18,456.20 respectively.

There were 15 stocks advancing against 15 declines on the index. The overall market breadth on BSE was in the favour of advances which have outnumbered declines in the ratio of 1344:1282, while 145 shares remain unchanged.

The broader indices too lured traction; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices rose 0.36% and 0.47% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, CG up by 1.01%, IT up by 0.85%, Bankex up by 0.82%, PSU up by 0.76% and Tech up by 0.72% while, CD down by 0.56%, OIL and gas down by 0.32%, Power down by 0.12% and Auto down by 0.07% were only losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were SBI up by 2.29%, L&T up by 1.65%, Infosys up by 1.64%, Wipro up by 1.25% and HDFC Bank up by 1.00%.

On the flip side, Tata Motors was down by 1.41%, BHEL was down by 0.72% , RIL was down by 0.35%, Cipla was down by 0.32%, and Bharti Airtel was down by 0.20% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, with the European Union and the US markets struggling with fiscal crisis, in a move to help the exporters, the Commerce Ministry is planning to introduce a method of providing incentives to exporters in order to achieve the $320 billion exports target for the current financial year. As per the Commerce and Industry Additional Secretary Rajeev Kher, special efforts were needed that could be in nature of incentives, additional markets and making more efforts on market promotions.

Further, with the recent FICCI survey highlighting that the export target of $320 billion for FY13 is unlikely to be met due to the global demand slowdown. Moreover, rising cost of raw materials and weak demand from overseas are primary factors that are bothering members of the export community. As a result, primary focus will now be for providing tax incentive or market promotion scheme with an ultimate aim of making the export more profitable.

At present, Europe and the US have been the primary export markets and as per Kher, new export strategy should be developed targeting other countries like Africa and the Middle East to take the next leap forward.

However, trade deficit with China has also risen to $40 billion and thus arises the need to export more to that country. Further, optimistic about the pharma sector, Kher said the sector will be able to achieve the export target of $25 billion by 2014. Moreover, increasing imports and widening trade deficit will definitely impact the country's CAD which will put pressure on rupee.

S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,633.45, up by 18.65 points or 0.33% and has touched a high and a low of 5,639.10 and 5,608.00 respectively. There were 26 stocks advancing against 24 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were SBI up by 2.23%, Axis Bank up by 2.20%, HCL Tech up by 1.69%, Infosys up by 1.57% and L&T were up by 1.46%.

On the flip side, Ultratech Cement down by 1.66%, Tata Motors down by 1.56%, IDFC down by 1.33%, BPCL down by 0.93% and BHEL down by 0.83%, were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the green; Hang Seng gained 1.02%, Jakarta Composite was up by 0.39%, Nikkei 225 surged by 1.56%, Straits Times gained 0.90%, Seoul Composite was up by 0.82% and Taiwan Weighted was higher by 0.24%. On the other hand, Shanghai Composite down by 0.72% and KLSE Composite down by 0.27%, were the only losers amongst Asian pack.

The European markets were trading in Green with, France’s CAC 40 up by 0.45%, Germany’s DAX up by 0.66% and the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 up by 0.38%