Benchmarks hold early gains; Auto, Realty leads

Indian equities continued to trade in fine fettle on back of strong buying in frontline counters in the late morning session. On the global front, most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the green bouncing back from their previous fall, despite a decline on Wall Street at the start of the US corporate earnings season. Most of the regional peers were trading with some traction on hopes of policy easing by Bank of Japan to boost growth in world’s third-biggest economy. Back home, the traders were seen piling up position in Auto, Realty and Health Care while selling was seen in FMCG, and CD. In scrip specific development, Kingfisher Airlines was trading in red after the Mumbai Airport authorities gave away six out of 11 of its slots to Indigo. National Aluminum Company, Hindalco Industries and Sterlite Industries (India) edged higher on reporting that the US aluminum giant Alcoa Inc. swung to a fourth-quarter profit and stated that it expects global aluminum demand to grow 7% in 2013, compared with 6% in 2012. Coal India gained after the Ministry of Coal stated that it has invited Expression of Interest for providing consultancy for restructuring of the company. Bank of India was trading in green after its board approved raising Tier-I capital of bank through fresh issue of equity shares on preferential basis to the Government of India, or to other investors. The NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were managing to hold their psychological 6000 and 19700 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was positive, in the ratio of 1437:732.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 19786.26 up by 43.74 points or 0.22% after trading in a range of 19808.06 and 19765.66. There were 18 stocks advancing against 12 declines on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.61% and Small cap index was up by 0.45%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Auto up by 1.36%, Realty up by 1.07%, Health Care up by 0.69%, Oil & Gas up by 0.63% and CG up by 0.50% while, FMCG down by 0.27% and CD down by 0.03% were the only losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Motors up by 4.09%, Gail India up by 1.32%, Bharti Airtel up by 1.29%, Cipla up by 1.26% and Sun Pharma up by 1.06%.

On the flip side, HDFC was down by 0.82%, ITC was down by 0.82%, Tata Steel was down by 0.43%, TCS was down by 0.40%, Hindustan Unilever was down by 0.39%  were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, the shipping Ministry, in a move to fast-track port development, is in a process of awarding as many as 25 projects worth Rs 11,000 crore by the end of current fiscal. Construction of a mega container terminal in Chennai and a second dock at the Haldia port are among the projects that will be awarded.

The decision follows Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s instruction to the ministry a month ago that capacity expansion should be fast-tracked. “About 17 projects have already been awarded and rest will be awarded by March this year. Most of these projects are for capacity addition, deepening of channels and modernization,” said G.K.Vasan, Minister for Shipping. The 42 projects will increase cargo handling capacity by about 250 million tonnes a year (mtpa) at an investment of Rs 15,000 crore.

Recently, the government has delegated enhanced financial powers to the Ministry of Shipping for approval of public-private projects. Henceforth, only projects costing more than Rs 500 crore would require the approval of the Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure. According to the Maritime Agenda, proposed by the Shipping Ministry, it is planned that the capacity will be raised to 3,200 mtpa by 2020. 

Further, Vasan said his Ministry has approved establishment of two new ports, one on the Sagar island of West Bengal and another in Andhra Pradesh and has said that ministry has shelved the Port Regulatory Bill due to opposition from various state governments and minor Ports. Measures has also been taken to reduce the time taken for the projects and has streamlined security clearance procedures and is constantly monitoring various projects.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,009.60 up by 7.90 points or 0.13% after trading in a range of 6,015.55 and 6,005.20. There were 28 stocks advancing against 22 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Tata Motors up by 4.30%, Bharti Airtel up by 1.32%, GAIL up by 1.23%, BPCL up by 1.10%, and Cipla up by 1.08%.

On the flip side, ITC down by 1.07%, Ultra Tech Cement down by 0.96%, HDFC down by 0.95%, Axis Bank down by 0.55%, and Hero MotoCorp down by 0.49%, were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the green; Shanghai Composite rose 1.64 points or 0.07% to 2,277.71, Hang Seng increased 77.84 points or 0.34% to 23,189.03, KLSE Composite jumped 2.74 points or 0.16% to 1,691.65, Nikkei 225 surged 73.27 points or 0.69% to 10,581.33, Straits Times soared 11.32 points or 0.35% to 3,216.70 and Taiwan Weighted was up by 19.65 points or 0.25% to 7,741.51.

On the flip side, Jakarta Composite slipped 6.67 points or 0.15% to 4,390.88 and KOSPI Composite was down by 4.57 points or 0.23% to 1,993.71.