Markets trade jubilantly in early deals; Sensex scales over 19,600 mark

Key domestic bourses have made a gap up opening with S&P CNX Nifty hitting its highest level in more than 23 months while, the BSE Sensex has hit its highest level in more than 19 months. The gains were mainly led by buying in banking stocks on expectation of rate cut by the Reserve Bank in its monetary policy review next week. Global cues too remained supportive as the US markets made a positive start of the new week and all the major indices closed with modest gains as technology shares bounced back after recent weakness. Moreover, most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the green at this point of time on hopes that US Federal Reserve will take fresh economic stimulus measures this week to support growth in the world largest economy.

Back home, sustained buying in all the key heavyweights supported BSE’s -- Sensex -- and NSE’s -- Nifty -- to regain their crucial 19,600 and 5,950 mark respectively. Banking stocks remained on the buyers’ radar despite the opposition thwarting the Banking Laws (amendment) Bill 2012 in the Lok Sabha, raising doubts about its being passed in the coming days. Meanwhile, shares of hotels and tour operators like India Tourism Development Corporation, Taj Hotels Resorts, Asian Hotels (West), Country Club and Sterling Holiday Resorts were in demand after the Ministry of Tourism after last session’s trading hours, reported that foreign tourist arrivals in India rose 3 per cent to 6.9 lakh in November 2012 over November 2011.

All the sectoral indices opened in the green. The ones leading the gains were Health Care, Consumer Durables, Bankex, Realty, FMCG, Power, Oil & Gas, Capital Goods and PSU indices. The broader indices too were trading on a firm note and market breadth on the BSE was strong; there were 1168 shares on the gaining side against 527 shares on the losing side while 77 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 19466.29; about 57 points higher compared to its previous closing of 19409.69, and has touched a high and a low of 19604.79 and 19466.29 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 19604.99, up by 195.30 points or 1.01%. There were 29 stocks advancing against 1 decline on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a positive start with 65.91% stocks advancing against 29.74% declines. The broader indices were outperforming benchmarks; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices rose 0.49% and 0.68% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Healthcare up by 1.51%, CD up by 1.34%, Bankex up by 1.23%, Realty up by 0.97% and FMCG up by 0.86%.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Sun Pharma up by 3.66%, ICICI Bank up by 2.48%, Jindal Steel up by 2.37%, Hindustan Unilever up by 1.73% and HDFC up by 1.55%. On the flip side, Sterlite Industries was down by 0.18 was the sole loser on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, confident of achieving the disinvestment target of Rs 30,000 crore for the current financial year, Union Revenue Secretary, Sumit Bose said, the government was positive enough to meet its disinvestment target for the year 2012-13, against previous year’s Rs 40,000 crore. The government has so far identified 10 companies where it plans to offload its stake.

The government recently raised some Rs 807.02 crore by divesting a 5.58 per cent stake in Hindustan Copper through an offer for sale (OFS). The government’s shareholding in the company before the OFS was at a high 99 per cent. Further, the government disinvested 10 percent of NBCC out of its shareholding and realized an amount of Rs 124.97 crore.

The government had set a target of mopping up close to Rs 30,000 crore through equity stake sales in companies including Oil India, SAIL, Hindustan Aeronautics, Nalco, RINL, BHEL, MMTC and NMDC. So far, the government has managed to garner only around Rs 14,000 crore as against the disinvestment target of Rs 40,000 crore in 2011-12.

The S&P CNX Nifty opened at 5,923.80; about 18 points higher as compared to its previous closing of 5,905.40, and has touched a high and a low of 5,963.65 and 5,923.65 respectively.The index is currently trading at 5,962.05, up by 53.15 points or 0.90%. There were 46 stocks advancing against 4 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Sun Pharma up by 3.53%, Ambuja Cement up by 3.14%, ICICI Bank up by 2.34%, Jindal Steel up by 2.12% and ACC up by 2.06%.

On the flip side, Cairn down by 0.52%, TCS down by 0.14%, Hindalco by 0.12% and Asian Paint down by 0.02%, were the only losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the green; Hang Seng gained 43.28 points or 0.19% to 22,320.00, Jakarta Composite was higher by 19.01 points or 0.46% to 4,321.66, KLSE Composite was up by 6.33 points or 0.39% to 1,638.48, Straits Times was up by 15.00 points or 0.48% to 3,129.34 and Seoul Composite was up by 3.44 points or 0.20% to 1,961.25.

On the other hand, Shanghai Composite was down by 8.52 points or 0.41% to 2,075.25, Nikkei 225 lost 23.75 points or 0.25% to 9,509.45 and Taiwan Weighted was trading lower by 32.90 points or 0.43% to 7,578.00.