Markets hold their gains going down to series expiry

Indian equity markets strengthening further are trading near their one-year high on Thursday. The mood of the market remains firm on the F&O expiry day and the series which was expected to have a flat ending might get a lift up if the momentum continues till last. A sort of enthusiasm returned to the markets after the investment banker Goldman Sachs upgraded India to overweight from market-weight, saying that it expects the country's economic growth to be ‘relatively strong’ over the next year.  The report boosted the Indian currency and overall market sentiments. Also, the ending of impasse in the Parliament after the Speaker fixed the date for a debate and vote on the issue which will take place on December 4 and December 5 has given a sense of respite among the investors. Back on street, the rally is led by the strong bouts of short coverings in rate-sensitive realty, auto and banking. Realty for the second day in a row is up by over 3%, though the strength in the rupee is weighing down the IT and technology stocks.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 19,092.44, up by 250.36 or 1.33%. There were 26 stocks advancing against 4 declines on the index.

Broader indices too were trading with good gains; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices rose 1.11% and 0.59% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Realty up by 3.30%, Auto up by 1.94%, Bankex up by 1.64%, CG up by 1.47% and Metal was up by 1.35%. On the other hand, IT down by 0.36% and TECk down by 0.05% were the only losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Motors up by 4.52%, Sterlite Inds up by 4.36%, Bajaj Auto up by 4.06%, ICICI Bank up by 3.25% and Cipla was up by 3.23%.

On the flip side, Infosys down by 0.92%, Hero MotoCorp down by 0.26%, BHEL down by 0.09% and Maruti Suzuki down by 0.07% were the 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 is currently trading at 5,800.55, up by 73.10 points or 1.28% and has touched a high and a low of 5,805.50 and 5,736.10 respectively. There were 43 stocks advancing against 7 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Tata Motors up by 4.50%, Asian Paints up by 4.03%, Bajaj Auto up by 3.97%, Sesa Goa up by 3.36% and Cipla up by 3.30%.

On the flip side, Powergrid down by 1.05%, Infosys down by 0.94%, Siemens down by 0.37%, Hero Motocorp down by 0.29% and Maruti Suzuki down by 0.27% were the major losers on the index.

Most of Asian markets have made a green closing; Hang Seng surged by 0.99%, Jakarta Composite gained 0.33%, KLSE Composite was up by 0.05%, Nikkei 225 gained 0.99%, Straits Times was up by 0.99%, Seoul Composite was up by 1.15% and Taiwan Weighted was higher by 0.92%. While, Shanghai Composite was lone loser, down by 0.51%.

The European markets have made an all green start and are trading with good gains, France’s CAC 40 gained 1.05%, Germany’s DAX was up by 0.83% and the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 was higher by 0.80%.