Markets make a strong start of F&O expiry day

Indian markets have extended their jubilation after a day of break and the major indices have surged after a positive start, though being the expiry of November F&O series, some volatility too is expected in the late trade but the early session is showing sign of firmness in the markets tailing gains overnight in the US market and an all positive start of the Asian markets. There is sense of some relief for the markets from the political front as the Parliament is likely to resumes today after a day's break and some work might take place with the government looking all set to agree on a discussion and vote on FDI in retail as it has garnered numbers. Investment banker Goldman Sachs too has added enthusiasm to the markets after it raised India to ‘overweight’ from ‘market-weight’, citing growth recovery and inflation moderation ahead. Back on street, the broader indices too were performing well in sync with the benchmarks. On sectoral front, realty has once again taken the lead and was up by over 2%, closely followed by Auto and CD, while the strength in rupee was slightly weighing on the IT and technology stocks.

The market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 1,222 shares on the gaining side against 531 shares on the losing side while 67 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 18,873.63; about 31.55 points higher compared to its previous closing of 18,842.08, and has touched a high and a low of 19,038.93 and 18,873.63 respectively. The index is currently trading at 19,038.73, up by 196.65 or 1.04%. There were 27 stocks advancing against just 3 declines on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a positive start with 67.14% stocks advancing against 29.18% declines. The broader indices too were trading higher; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices rose 0.83% and 0.77% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Realty up by 2.47%, Auto up by 1.60%, FMCG up by 1.33%, Metal up by 1.01% and Bankex up by 0.98% while, IT down by 0.24% and Teck down by 0.04% were only losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Motors up by 3.83%, HDFC up by 2.71%, Cipla up by 2.61%, Dr Reddy’s Lab up by 2.28% and Coal India up by 2.18%.

On the flip side, Infosys was down by 1.34%, Maruti Suzuki was down by 0.56% and BHEL was down by 0.42% were the only losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on telecom, headed by Finance Minister P Chidambaram, will be meeting today after the lukewarm response to recently concluded 2G spectrum auction as the government garnered only Rs 9,407 crore out of Rs 28,000 crore which was minimum value of the airwaves put for auction and the reason was said to be the high reserve price fixed by government.

Government had fixed around 8 times high reserve price for GSM spectrum and 11 times high price for CDMA spectrum compared to the amount on which companies were allocated pan-India permits till 2008. While, the CDMA auction completely flopped with no bidders, the most striking part of the auction in GSM was that auction did not see any takers for spectrum in lucrative Delhi, Mumbai, Rajasthan and Karnataka region.

Though, the government has not disclosed the issues that will be discussed at EGoM but it is the first meeting on spectrum issues after auction of spectrum and as per earlier stated, issue like option to look at price of spectrum for which there has been no bid and CDMA spectrum may be discussed in the meet as government has plans to auction unsold spectrum by March next year.

The S&P CNX Nifty opened at 5,736.70; about 9.25 points higher as compared to its previous closing of 5,727.45, and has touched a high and a low of 5,779.65 and 5,736.10 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 5,779.50, up by 52.05 points or 0.91%. There were 46 stocks advancing against 3 declines and 1 remains unchanged on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Tata Motors up by 3.17%, CIpla up by 2.52%, HDFC up by 2.44%, Ultratech Cement up by 2.13% and Dr Reddy’s up by 2.10%.

On the flip side, Infosys was down by 1.48%, Maruti Suzuki was down by 0.84% and BHEL was down by 0.45% were the only losers on the Nifty.

All Asian markets were trading in green except Jakarta Composite down by 16.47 points or 0.34% to 4,292.76; Shanghai Composite was up by 2.02 points or 0.10% to 1,975.54, KLSE Composite up by 4.69 points or 0.29% to 1,611.21, Taiwan Weighted was up by 79.69 points or 1.06% to 7,513.06, Seoul Composite gained 18.97 points or 1.07% to 1,931.93, Nikkei 225 gained 68.92 points or 0.74% to 9,377.49, Straits Times gained 25.65 points or 0.86% to 3,037.42, and Hang Seng was up by 233.94 points or 1.08% to 21,942.92.