Benchmarks continue firm trade in late afternoon session

Indian equities pared gains but continued its firm trade in the late afternoon session on account of buying in frontline counters and taking cues from European counterparts. The mood on the street was on sanguine note after wholesale price index (WPI), India's main inflation gauge, unexpectedly cooled down to 7.24% (Provisional) for the month of November, 2012 as compared to 7.45% for the October and 9.46% during the corresponding month of the previous year giving hopes that RBI could go for rate cut in its upcoming monetary policy review on December 18. Traders were seen piling some position in Metal, Realty and Bankex sectors, while selling was witnessed in Consumer Durables, Power and Health Care sectors. Fertilizer company’s shares were mostly trading firm after the Union Cabinet approved the long-pending urea investment policy. Capital goods stocks were buzzing after cabinet approved the creation of a special panel yesterday to speed up the implementation of big-ticket infrastructure projects. In the scrip specific development, Wheels India was trading in green after surging to 52-week high after Titan Europe, which already holds 35.91% stake in Wheels India, made an open offer to acquire 14.38% share from public shareholders. APW President Systems was trading weak on lower delisting price as the company is not willing to pay more than Rs 195 per share for delisting.

On the global front, most of the Asian markets were trading in red while the European markets were trading on optimistic note. The European Union leaders approved a long sought banking union that will streamline and standardize procedures in the euro zone across banking system and prevent future national debt crisis that affects the common currency. At least 150 large and multinational banks will be placed under a single supervisory authority controlled by the European Central Bank and if needed the new authority will be empowered to monitor all 6,000 banks in the region. UK and Sweden will not be part of the union. Besides, the Euro group formally approved the second disbursement for Greece after reviewing the outcome of the debt buy back operation conducted by the government. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading below their psychological 5,900 and 19,300 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was positive in the ratio of 1424:1314 while 131 scrips remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 19,298.38 up by 69.12 points or 0.36% after trading in a range of 19,348.85 and 19,193.11. There were 15 stocks advancing against 15 declines on the index.

The broader indices too added with traction; the BSE Mid-Cap and Small-Cap indices were trading higher by 0.57% and 0.16% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Metal up by 1.73%, Realty up by 1.51%, Bankex up by 0.94%, Oil & Gas up by 0.67% and IT up by 0.57%. On the other hand, Consumer Durables down by 0.99%, Power down by 0.28%, Health Care down by 0.17% and Capital Goods down by 0.06% were the only losers on the Sensex.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Hindalco Industries up by 3.19%, Sterlite Industries up by 2.93%, SBI up by 1.91%, Tata Motors up by 1.60% and TCS up by 1.60%. On the flip side, Bharti Airtel down by 1.40%, BHEL down by 1.34%, Maruti Suzuki down by 0.72%, ONGC down by 0.60% and HDFC Bank was down by 0.49% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, the Union Cabinet cleared the controversial land acquisitions bill which will be introduced in the winter session of parliament. With the new land acquisitions law, the government hopes to make easy land acquisition and also remove bureaucratic hurdles that hold up highway projects that have become a roadblock for the economic growth.

According to the provisions of the bill, permission of 80% of landowners would be required to acquire land for private industrial projects and in case of Public-Private Partnership projects permission of 70 percent of the landowners would be mandatory. However, no permission would be required in case of projects acquired for government purpose. The bill also has provisions to return the unutilized land to the land losers.

Cabinet Committee also cleared a proposal allowing the road ministry to decide the mode of execution of highway projects where the traffic volume is between 5,000 and 10,000 passenger car units, however the road ministry will have to go to the cabinet to get approval for each and every project, resulting in delays.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,872.20 up by 20.70 points or 0.35% after trading in a range of 5,886.10 and 5,839.15. There were 27 stocks advancing against 23 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were, Hindalco Industries up by 3.37%, Bank of Baroda up by 3.17%, Sesa Goa up by 2.71%, SBI up 2.03% and TCS up by 1.74%.

On the flip side, Bharti Airtel down by 1.70%, Power Grid down by 1.65%, BHEL down by 1.38%, Lupin down by 1.27% and Ambuja Cement down by 0.97% were the top losers on the index.

Most of Asian markets were trading negative; with exception being, Shanghai Composite up by 34.32%, Hang Seng up by 0.71% and Straits Times was up by 0.27%. While, Jakarta Composite was down by 0.55%, KLSE Composite was down by 0.14%, Nikkei 225 was down by 0.05%, Seoul Composite was down by 0.39% and Taiwan Weighted down by 0.75%.

The European markets were trading in green with, France’s CAC 40 added 0.07%, Germany’s DAX ascended 0.43% while the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 gained 0.22%.