Post session - Quick review

Indian equity markets steadied in quiet pre-holiday trade after a slump late last week, as market-participants turned more jittery about the risk of the United States failing to avert a fiscal crisis, which led to risk off sentiment. However, even caution was witnessed ahead of the settlement of derivative contracts on Thursday, with markets remaining closed for trade tomorrow, i.e., December 25 on account of ‘Christmas’. Traders in absence of any positive domestic trigger preferred to undertake a cautious approach, however the prevailing festive mood did some good to bourses, which made somewhat positive start to the F&O expiry week. Further, even buying in Realty, Technology, Health Care and Information Technology counters brought some gains to benchmark equity indices. Nevertheless, the bourses’ gains remained capped after Plan panel warned of persistent policy logjam pulling down the annual average economic growth rate in the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17) to 5-5.5 per cent, from 7.9 per cent recorded in the 11th Plan.

On the global front, Asian pacific shares edged higher in thin holiday-week on Monday, with gold miners and resource sector stocks turning to be the outperformers as most major markets prepared to go on break. The gains in Asia came despite losses on Friday for U.S. and European bourses, with top Republican fiscal-cliff negotiator House Speaker John Boehner saying he was ready to return to talks with the White House. Meanwhile, European shares were broadly steady on Monday, consolidating sharp gains made in the past five weeks, with volumes set to be thin for the traditionally quiet half session ahead of the Christmas break. A number of European markets such as the French, Dutch, Spanish and UK ones will only trade for half the session on Monday, while trading in Germany, Italy, Austria, Greece, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland is closed.

Back on the home turf, stocks from Metal, Oil & Gas and Consumer Durable counters sulking in the red terrain, mainly kept the bulls in check. Further, even selling in PSU and Bankex Index added to cautious undertone.  On the flip side, IT stocks viz. Infosys, Tech Mahindra, Wipro, HCL Technologies, TCS, Oracle Financial Services Software and Mahindra Satyam lured traction on the back of weak rupee since major portion of software companies’ revenues come from exports to the US. Additionally, most metal stocks rose as LMEX, a gauge of six metals traded on the London Metal Exchange, gained 0.57% on Friday, December 21, 2012. Further, FMCG stocks edged higher after the Centre said that as per reports received from different states, sowing of rabi or winter crops is progressing well in different parts of the country. Trade of over 1.91 lakh crore was done in terms of volume turnover. The market breadth on the BSE ended positive; advances and declining stocks were in a ratio of 1447:1421while 167 scrips remained unchanged. (Provisional)

The BSE Sensex gained 13.09 points or 0.07% and settled at 19255.09. The index touched a high and a low of 19347.64 and 19237.26 respectively. 12 stocks were seen advancing while 18 stocks were declining on the index (Provisional)

The BSE Mid-cap index was up by 0.36% and Small-cap index was up by 0.32%. (Provisional)

On the BSE Sectoral front, TECk was up by 0.95%, Realty up by 0.91%, IT up by 0.87%, Health Care up by 0.81% and Auto up 0.46% were the top gainers, while Metal down by 0.53%, Oil & Gas down by 0.43%, Consumer Durables down by 0.16%, PSU down by 0.14% and Capital Goods down by 0.07% were the losers in the space.

The top gainers on BSE were Tata Motors up by 2.51%, Sun Pharma up by 1.66%, Wipro up by 1.58%, Infosys up by 1.27% and NTPC up by 1.18 while, Jindal Steel down by 2.26%, Maruti Suzuki down by 1.98%, ONGC down by 1.97%, Sterlite Industries down by 1.37% and Hero Moto Corp down by 1.04% were the top losers in the index. (Provisional)

Meanwhile, the Plan panel has warned that the constant policy logjam could pull down the annual average economic growth rate in the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17) to 5-5.5 percent, from 7.9 percent recorded in the 11th Plan. The 12th Plan draft document which will be placed before the National Development Council (NDC), the country's apex body to approve the five year plan later in the week, states that if government pursues well designed strategy, the annual average growth rate in the 5-year policy period could move up to 8.2 percent.

The plan document suggested three economic scenarios, in which one of scenario states that the 8.2 percent average growth rate in 12th Plan can meet the aspirations of the people of this country, 'insufficient action' on the part of government would restrict the annual average growth rate in 12th Plan to 6-6.5 per cent, while in the policy logjam scenario, 'the growth rate can drift down to 5-5.5 percent'.

The strategy for the full plan would aim at raising agriculture output to 4 percent and manufacturing sector growth to 10 percent. It also wants that all the states should set up higher target of growth than what was achieved in the 11th Five Year Plan (2007-12). The document has pegged the aggregate Plan resources at 37.16 lakh crore during the five year period.

The document intends to bring down poverty by 10 percentage points by the end of the 12th Plan and generate five crore new jobs in non-farm sector and has emphasized that that efforts should be made to increase investment in insurance sector to 9 percent of the GDP by the end of the Plan period.

Other targets of the 12th plan document include the increase of green cover by one million hectare every year and adding 30,000 MW of renewable energy generation capacity in the Plan period and reducing emission intensity of the GDP in line with the target of 20-25 reduction by 2020 over 2005 levels.

India VIX, a gauge for markets short term expectation of volatility lost 0.95% at 14.49 from its previous close of 14.63 on Tuesday. (Provisional)

The S&P CNX Nifty gain 8.85 points or 0.15% to settle at 5,856.55. The index touched high and low of 5,871.90 and 5,844.70 respectively. 31 stocks advanced against 19 declining on the index. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Nifty were Tata Motors was up 2.71%, Sun Pharma was up 1.82%, DLF was up 1.80%, Lupin was up 1.75% and Wipro was up 1.65%.

On the other hand, Jindal Steel down 2.44%, UltraTech Cement down by 2.24%, ONGC down by 1.97%, Maruti Suzuki down by 1.88% and Grasim down by 1.47% were the top losers. (Provisional)

European equity indices were trading in Mixed, France’s CAC 40 down by 0.16%, On the other hand the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 up by 0.22%.Germany’s DAX close for the day.

Asian markets ended mostly up with thin volume in a pre-holiday trade on Monday as sentiments were quite cautious amid the risk of the US failing to avert a fiscal crisis. Hang Seng market closed higher, with Hong Kong financial markets closing at midday for the Christmas holiday, while shanghai market went home with green mark on expectation for more public fund allocations.

Japanese and Indonesian markets remain closed on Monday for public holidays.