Domestic bourses trade in green in early deal; December inflation eyed

Indian benchmarks have made a muted start on Monday’s morning as market participants adopted cautious approach ahead of the Inflation numbers for the month of December; street is expecting the numbers to be more or less same as last time. However, the frontline gauges extended their initial gains led by buying in software and technology stocks after better-than-expected results by Infosys on Friday. Moreover, Tata Consultancy Services results scheduled later today is keeping the markets on toes. Meanwhile, banking counters too witnessed a surge of about half a percent ahead of key Inflation data scheduled later today which will help in deciding the Reserve Bank of India’s monetary policy stance on January 29. Some support also came in with top secretaries of the finance ministry asserting that the fiscal deficit will be contained at 5.3% of the GDP, which is the revised Budget estimate for 2012-13.

On the global front, the US markets came in consolidation mood on Friday, traders were cautious with the ongoing result season and the unexpected widening of the trade deficit. While, most of the Asian equity indices were trading higher on Monday, but the gains remained capped as investors remained on sidelines awaiting Chinese growth data due later in the week. Back home, software sector witnessed the maximum gains in trade followed by technology and consumer durables while, auto, power and metal remained the top losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices were trading flat while, the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 908 shares on the gaining side against 836 shares on the losing side while 79 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 19689.09; about 25 points higher compared to its previous closing of 19663.64, and has touched a high and a low of 19764.35 and 19689.09 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 19749.89, up by 86.25 points or 0.44%. There were 13 stocks advancing against 17 declines on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a strong start with 49.81% stocks advancing against 45.86% declines. The broader indices were trading flat; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices decline 0.11% and 0.01% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, IT up by 2.70%, TECk up by 2.06%, Consumer Durables up by 0.49%, Oil & Gas up by 0.43% and FMCG up by 0.19% while, Auto down by 0.53%, Power down by 0.48%, Metal down by 0.37%, Realty down by 0.29% and Health Care down by 0.18% were the only losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Infosys up by 4.03%, TCS up by 2.35%, ONGC up by 1.10%, Dr Reddys Lab up by 0.85% and ITC up by 0.66%.

On the flip side, Maruti Suzuki was down by 1.71%, Cipla was down by 1.21%, Hindustan Unilever was down by 1.05%, Bajaj Auto was down by 0.89% and Mahindra & Mahindra was down by 0.88% 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 opened at 5,967.20; about 15 points higher as compared to its previous closing of 5,951.30, and has touched a high and a low of 5,977.95 and 5,962.15 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 5,969.75, higher by 18.45 points or 0.31%. There were 19 stocks advancing against 31 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Infosys up by 4.06%, TCS up by 2.37%, ONGC up by 1.08%, HCL Tech up by 0.80% and ITC up by 0.66%.

On the flip side, Reliance Infrastructure down by 2.06%, Maruti Suzuki down by 1.64%, Ultra Tech Cement down by 1.53%, ACC down by 1.20% and CIPLA down by 1.17%, were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the green; Shanghai Composite soared 46.24 points or 2.06% to 2,289.23, Hang Seng rose 157.18 points or 0.68% to 23,421.25, Jakarta Composite surged 43.36 points or 1.01% to 4,349.27, KLSE Composite increased 1.60 points or 0.10% to 1,684.30 and KOSPI Composite was up by 6.10 points or 0.31% to 2,002.77.

Straits Times dropped 14.94 points or 0.46% to 3,201.56 and Taiwan Weighted was down by 43.64 points or 0.56% to 7,775.51.

Japanese Nikkei remained shut for trade today on account of Coming of Age (Adults') Day.