Indian equities exhibit mixed trend in late afternoon session

Indian equities added gains but continued its mixed trade with the key indices BSE - Sensex trading in green while NSE - Nifty still hovering below neutral line in the late afternoon session taking cues from subdued European counterparts. However, aftermath of flattish IIP data seems to be weighing on the sentiment to some extent. India's annual industrial output growth measured by index of industrial production (IIP), contracted by just 0.1% at 167.3 for the month of November 2012, although way below the robust of 8.2% growth figure in the previous month. Traders were seen piling some position in IT, TECk and Consumer Durables sectors while selling was witnessed in FMCG, Oil & Gas and PSU sectors. Infosys surged registering its highest percentage gain since May 18, 2009 after the IT major surprised the street and analysts by increasing its FY13 guidance, mainly spurted optimism across Information Technology (IT) space. Capital goods stocks ABB, BHEL, BEML, L&T and Siemens were trading under pressure after the latest data showed that capital goods production declined 7.7% in November 2012.  In the scrip specific movement, Kingfisher Airlines' is trading in red after aviation regulatory reported that the proposed investment of 6.5 billion rupees as part of a plan to return the airline to the skies is not enough to restart operations of the troubled carrier. Suzlon Energy, the world’s fifth largest wind turbine supplier, was trading under pressure on reports that lenders had asked company to raise equity or sell REPower.

On the global front, most of the Asian markets were trading in red barring Nikkei 225 and Taiwan Weighted while the European markets were trading on a mixed note. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading below their psychological 6,000 and 19,800 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was negative in the ratio of 996:1775 while 136 scrips remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 19,719.28, up by 55.73 points or 0.28% after trading in a range of 19,839.80 and 19,681.63. There were 5 stocks advancing against 25 declines on the index.

The broader indices too witnessed additional selling pressure; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices were trading lower by 0.81% and 0.83% respectively.

The only gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were IT up by 9.20%, TECk up by 6.64% and Consumer Durables up by 1.09%, while, FMCG down by 2.05%, Oil & Gas down by 1.33%, PSU down by 1.24%, Power down by 1.14% and Health Care down by 0.97% were the top losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Infosys up by 16.31%, Wipro up by 5.15%, TCS up by 4.25%, Sterlite Industries up by 1.34% and Maruti Suzuki up by 0.30%.

On the flip side, ONGC was down by 2.95%, Hindustan Unilever was down by 2.63%, ITC was down by 2.46%, Sun Pharma was down by 1.89% and Hindalco Industries was down by 1.69% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, as per the Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, too much focus on spectrum auction has overshadowed the achievements of the government in the telecom sector, which the government has done by establishing a telecom policy that is transparent, widely accepted and provided a boost to growth in telecom.

Ahluwalia’s statement comes in response to a question on low realization from the recent spectrum auction. The government had set a target to garner Rs 40,000 crore for spectrum during 2012-13 to bring down fiscal deficit but it has been only able to realize Rs 9,407.64 crore from the auctions that were conducted in November 2012.

By adding further he said, ‘focus on how much the auction will achieve is not important. What is key is that the government... switched to what is visibly a totally, transparent method of allocation. What is important is that telecom sector is poised to move forward.’

On fixing the reserve price for auction Ahluwalia said, there is no rule to fix reserve price. It is actually going to be fixed by the auction and if we choose a reserve price that lead to the failure of the auction, we would have made a mistake.

Meanwhile, TRAI had recommended around 10 times high spectrum price at around Rs 18,200 crore for 5 Mhz of pan-India spectrum as compared to Rs 1,658 crore that companies last paid in 2008 for pan-India business.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,967.60, down by 1.05 points or 0.02% after trading in a range of 6,018.85 and 5,960.55. There were 8 stocks advancing against 42 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Infosys up by 16.20%, Wipro up by 5.32%, TCS up by 4.29%, Sesa Goa up by 1.01% and Cairn India up by 0.77%.

On the flip side, IDFC down by 2.95%, ONGC down by 2.78%, Ambuja Cement down by 2.71%, Reliance Infra down by 2.69% and HUL down by 2.65% were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the red; Shanghai Composite declined 1.78%, Hang Seng slipped 0.39%, KLSE Composite decreased 0.37%, Straits Times dipped 0.45%, KOSPI Composite tumbled 0.50% and Jakarta Composite was down by 0.13%. On the flip side Nikkei 225 was up by 1.40% and Taiwan Weighted was up by 0.10%.

The European markets were trading on a mixed note with, France’s CAC 40 lost 0.05%, Germany’s DAX ascended 0.13% while the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 edged higher 0.09%.