Post session - Quick review

Traders, who resumed trade after a day’s break with vigor, promoted sharp rally at D-street, in sync with regional counterparts which went home with gigantic gains. Giving the glimpse of prevailing festive mood, 30 share index, Sensex and 50 share index, Nifty, concluded above the crucial 19400 and 5900 respective levels.

Increased buying by major players, thanks to positive global leads, and covering-up of short positions by speculators ahead of tomorrow’s monthly expiry in the derivatives segment mainly got the bulls going. Further, even cherry picking of few blue chip stocks, Reliance Industries (RIL), BHEL and L&T spurted gains in Indian equity markets. Market bellwether, Reliance Industries, galloped gains of over a percent on reports that a panel appointed by the government to look into oil and gas exploration contracts had recommended a pricing formula that could sharply raise the prices of natural gas. Meanwhile, other heavyweights such Bharat Heavy Electricals and Larsen & Toubro (L&T) too added over a percent after the government extended interest rate subsidy for some exporters.

On the global front, Asian shares closed higher on Wednesday in thin holiday trade despite a lack of fresh triggers, with Japanese shares hitting a 9-month high thanks to a weak yen and after Japan’s parliament confirmed Shinzo Abe as the nation’s seventh prime minister in six years, returning him to the office he left in 2007 after his party regained power in a landslide election victory last week. Meanwhile, European shares remained closed for trade.

Closer home, although buying was broad based, stocks from Information Technology counter declined to participate with enthusiasm. On the flip side, strong buying in rate sensitive’s Realty and Bankex counter combined with high beta Power stocks, fortified the sentiment at D-street.  Banking shares traded higher on hopes of easing liquidity as the Reserve Bank of India continues with cash injection measures and rate cut hopes in January. The RBI announced on Monday it would conduct open market operations (purchase of government securities) for an aggregate amount of Rs 8,000 crore on December 28. Since December 4, the RBI has added liquidity worth Rs. 31,160 crore through three rounds of OMOs. Meanwhile, traders easily overlooked reports which stated 12th Plan growth target getting revised. The Planning Commission is likely to suggest lowering the target for average annual GDP growth rate over the 12th Five-Year Plan (2012-13 to 2016-17) to eight per cent from the earlier pegged 8.2 per cent, in the meeting of the National Development Council scheduled on Thursday. Meanwhile, trade of over Rs 1.8 lac crore was done in terms of market turnover on the penultimate session of F&O expiry. Nevertheless, the market breadth on the BSE ended positive; advances and declining stocks were in a ratio of 1514:1416 while 136 scrips remained unchanged. (Provisional).

The BSE Sensex gained 165.95 points or 0.86% and settled at 19421.04. The index touched a high and a low of 19468.40 and 19274.07 respectively. 22 stocks were seen advancing while 8 stocks were declining on the index (Provisional)

The BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap index were up by 0.71% and 0.39%. (Provisional)

On the BSE Sectoral front, CG was up by 1.84%, Bankex up by 1.31%, Realty up by 1.14%, Power up by 1.08% and Oil&Gas up by 0.82% were the top gainers, while IT down by 0.23% was the only loser in the space.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bharti Airtel up by 2.96%, L&T up by 2.51%, ICICI Bank up by 2.32%, SBI up by 1.94% and Jindal Steel up by 1.93%, while, Hindustan Unilever down by 1.39%, Hero Moto Corp down by 0.81%, TCS down by 0.41%, Infosys down by 0.39% and Tata Motors down by 0.38% were the top losers in the index. (Provisional)

Meanwhile, the Finance Ministry is going to take help from the Financial Intelligence Unit-India (FIU-India) in tracking the evasion of central excise duty and service tax. In situations, where the tax defaulters are not traceable, the financial data of the FIU-India would be helpful to track the financial transactions or assets of defaulters of Central excise duty and service tax.

According to the finance ministry, once the data receive this will be used with the help of the concerned zonal chief commissioner, for realizing amount overdue of defaulters. It has been reported that the entire exercise is being closely monitored at the ‘highest level’ in the Ministry and any information shared with or received from FIU will be kept confidential and will not be used for evidential purposes.

FIU-India established in 2004 is the central, national agency responsible for receiving, processing, analyzing and disseminating information relating to suspect financial transactions to enforcement agencies and foreign FIUs.

The government is facing extreme pressure on the revenue collection, as tax collection is much lower than the budgeted target. During April-November period of the current fiscal total indirect tax collection stood at Rs 2.92 lakh crore, growing by 16.8 per cent against the budgeted target of 27 per cent.

India VIX, a gauge for markets short term expectation of volatility declined 2.69% at 14.10 from its previous close of 13.71 on Friday. (Provisional)

The S&P CNX Nifty gained 49.85 points or 0.85% to settle at 5,905.60. The index touched high and low of 5,917.30 and 5,859.55 respectively. 40 stocks advanced against 10 declining ones on the index. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Nifty were Bharti Airtel up 2.72%, JP Associate up 2.66%, ICICI Bank up 2.47%, L&T up 2.35% and Jindal Steel up 2.17%. On the other hand, Hindustan Unilever down 1.64%, Hero Moto Corp down by 0.45%, Grasim down by 0.28%, Infosys down by 0.27% and HCL Tech down by 0.23% were the top losers. (Provisional) The European markets were closed for the day.

Asian markets extended gains on Wednesday, with most major markets ending higher with investors centering on the hopes of US negotiations to avert a budget crunch looming at the end of the year. Meanwhile, Japanese market went home with green mark as the yen touched its lowest levels against the dollar and euro since 2011, after minutes from the Bank of Japan's November meeting reflected a pacifist tilt and some determination to drive the yen lower. However, Taiwan's market lagged the region ending lower; while bourses in Hong Kong remained closed for holiday.