Benchmarks trade in green tracking firm Asian cues

Indian equity indices have made a positive opening on Wednesday tracking support from Asian equity indices. Most of the Asian counters were trading in the green at this point of time on optimism of further monetary policy by Japanese central bank to support flagging growth in the world's third-biggest economy. However, the gains remain capped as traders adopted cautious approach as US fiscal impasse sapped investor’s appetite for riskier assets. Moreover, US markets ended lower in a short trading session on Monday amid ongoing worries over the looming fiscal cliff.

Back home, some support to the frontline gauges came in from Pharma stocks like Cipla, Glenmark Pharma, Sun Pharma and Aurobindo Pharma edged higher as the Planning Commission has set a target for the pharmaceutical industry to reach $100 billion by 2020 and account for five per cent share of the global drug industry in the next five years. However, traders remained on sidelines ahead of Futures and Options expiry for December series on Thursday. Cautiousness also crept in as India’s foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows into the services sector increased by a mere 5 per cent to $3.6 billion during the April-October period of this fiscal. Meanwhile, Credit Analysis and Research (CARE) made a terrific debut on the bourses today garnering over 25 percent of gains.

On the sectoral front, consumer durables witnessed the maximum gain in trade followed by realty and healthcare while, software and fast moving consumer goods remained the only losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices were trading slightly better than benchmarks while, the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 987 shares on the gaining side against 592 shares on the losing side while 93 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 19302.47; about 47 points higher compared to its previous closing of 19255.09, and has touched a high and a low of 19321.41 and 19274.07 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 19280.84, up by 25.75 points or 0.13%. There were 17 stocks advancing against 13 declines on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a positive start with 59.03% stocks advancing against 35.41% declines. The broader indices were outperforming benchmarks; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices rose 0.44% and 0.40% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Consumer Durables up by 1.06%, Realty up by 0.93%, Health Care up by 0.76%, Capital Goods up by 0.54% and Oil & Gas up by 0. 48%. While, IT down by 0.16% and FMCG down by 0.01% were the only losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Sun Pharma up by 1.28%, Sterlite Industries up by 1.09%, Cipla up by 0.84%, Bharti Airtel up by 0.79% and Jindal Steel up by 0.68%.

On the flip side, Hero Moto Corp was down by 1.00%, Wipro was down by 0.82%, Hindustan Unilever was down by 0.57%, HDFC was down by 0.41% and Tata Motors was down by 0.36% were the top losers on the Sensex.

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.

The S&P CNX Nifty opened at 5,864.95; about 9 points higher compared to its previous closing of 5,855.75, and has touched a high and a low of 5,870.55 and 5,859.55 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 5,861.00, up by 5.25 points or 0.09%. There were 35 stocks advancing against 15 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Sun Pharma up by 1.24%, Asian Paint up by 1.15%, Reliance Infra up by 0.98%, Power Grid up by 0.96% and Lupin up by 0.89%.

On the flip side, Hero Moto corp down by 0.77%, Wipro down by 0.73%, Hindustan Unilever down by 0.73%, HDFC down by 0.56% and Kotak Bank down by 0.54%, were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in green; Jakarta Composite rose 9.03 points or 0.21% to 4,259.24, KLSE Composite added 0.64 points or 0.04% to 1,670.04, Nikkei 225 strengthened 62.33 points or 0.62% to 10,142.45, Straits Times surged 10.31 points or 0.33% to 3,178.88, KOSPI Composite soared 13.76 points or 0.69% to 1,995.58 and Taiwan Weighted was up by 6.28 points or 0.08% to 7,642.85.

On the flip side, Shanghai Composite was down 5.50 points or 0.25% to 2,208.11.

Hang Seng remained closed for trade today on the account of Christmas Holiday.