Buoyed by firm global cues, Indian equity markets have made a positive start with Sensex re-conquering its crucial 19,700 level while Nifty is hovering near its psychological 6,000 mark. Overnight, the US market made some recovery after declining in last two sessions, encouraged by the start of better corporate earnings season following the release of quarterly results from Alcoa while, most of the Asian markets were trading with a positive bias at this point of time on the back of better-than-expected Chinese trade data. The nation’s exports rose 14.1% in December from a year earlier compared to a markets expectation of closer to 4% while imports gained 6% indicating stronger domestic demand.
Back home, some amount of support came in from PSU oil marketing companies as stocks of BPCL, HPCL and IOC edged higher on hopes of fuel price hike by the government to reduce mounting subsidy burden. The markets sentiment was also boosted by data showing that foreign funds remained buyers of Indian stocks on January 9, 2013. Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 848.95 crore on January 9. However, investors remained little cautious as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that the high international price of oil was putting a big strain on the economy and effort should be made for reducing the transport sector’s dependence on oil.
On the sectoral front, public sector undertaking witnessed the maximum gain in trade followed by oil and gas and auto while, capital goods and healthcare remained the only losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices too were going neck-to-neck with benchmarks while, the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 1,159 shares on the gaining side against 631 shares on the losing side while 96 shares remain unchanged.
The BSE Sensex opened at 19,728.02; about 61 points higher compared to its previous closing of 19,666.59, and has touched a high and a low of 19,783.75 and 19,712.87 respectively.
The index is currently trading at 19,730.41, up by 63.82 points or 0.32%. There were 19 stocks advancing against 11 declines on the index.
The overall market breadth has made a strong start with 61.45% stocks advancing against 33.46% declines. The broader indices were trading in-line with benchmarks; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices rose 0.31% and 0.38% respectively.
The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, PSU up by 1.16%, Oil & Gas up by 1.11%, Auto up by 0.91%, Realty up by 0.60% and Consumer Durables up by 0.49% while, Capital Goods down by 0.18% and Health Care down by 0.02% were the only losers on the index.
The top gainers on the Sensex were ONGC up by 2.64%, Tata Motors up by 2.23%, Coal India up by 1.59%, Gail India up by 1.53% and Wipro up by 1.37%.
On the flip side, Sun Pharma was down by 0.94%, Bharti Airtel was down by 0.92%, BHEL was down by 0.53%, L&T was down by 0.45% and ICICI Bank was down by 0.38% were the top losers on the Sensex.
Meanwhile, rail ticket is all set for a hike for the first time in 10 years with Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal announcing a hike in train fares ranging from 2 to 10 paise per kilometre, which will come into effect from midnight January 21 for all passenger classes including AC-1 and AC-2 tier. The government has hiked the fares mainly to generate revenue to fund railways' two ambitious projects - high speed bullet trains and dedicated freight corridor.
Following changes has been made to the fare charts -- 2nd class ordinary suburban - 2 paise per Km, 2 class ordinary non suburban - 3 paise per Km, 2nd class mail express train- 4 paise per Km, Sleeper class- 10 paise per Km, AC chair car- 10 paise per Km, AC 2 tier- 6 paise per km, AC first class- 3 paise per Km. Earlier, AC I and AC II fare was hiked by 10 to 15 paise in September 2012. However, the fare hike is higher than what was proposed in the Rail Budget 2012.
Justifying the hike, Bansal said the passenger segment losses are expected to touch around Rs 25,000 crore in the current fiscal and economic slowdown has furthered impacted the railway earnings. The recent fare hike will help raise additional Rs 1,200-1,300 crore in the remaining period of current fiscal, adding that the annual incremental increase in earnings including passenger growth is expected to be about Rs 6,600 crore.
Further, the railway minister said that extra revenue earned through this fare hike will be used to maintain cleanliness and safety. By adding further he said railway is making all efforts to meet safety requirements and also assured that fares will not be increased when the Railways Budget is presented.
Earlier, Trinamool Congress leader Dinesh Trivedi was forced to quit after he hiked fares in March 2012. In April 2012, AC I and AC II class fares were increased by 20 per cent.
The S&P CNX Nifty opened at 5,998.80; about 27 points higher as compared to its previous closing of 5,971.50, and has touched a high and a low of 6,005.15 and 5,984.85 respectively. The index is currently trading at 5,988.40, up by 16.90 points or 0.28%. There were 35 stocks advancing against 15 declines on the index.
The top gainers of the Nifty were ONGC up by 2.40%, Tata Motors up by 1.92%, Coal India up by 1.51%, Wipro up by 1.50% and Gail up by 1.43%.
On the flip side, Bharti Airtel down by 1.09%, Sun Pharma down by 1.08%, Lupin down by 1.00%, ACC down by 0.93% and Ambuja Cements down by 0.56%, were the major losers on the index.
Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the green; Shanghai Composite rose 10.48 points or 0.46% to 2,285.82, Hang Seng surged 200.99 points or 0.87% to 23,419.46, Nikkei 225 soared 98.87 points or 0.93% to 10,677.44, Straits Times increased 12.94 points or 0.40% to 3,233.35, KOSPI Composite added 12.31 points or 0.62% to 2,004.12 and Taiwan Weighted was up by 74.96 points or 0.97% to 7,813.60.
Jakarta Composite declined 7.64 points or 0.18% to 4,355.29 and KLSE Composite was down by 0.75 points or 0.04% to 1,689.18.
