Sensex, Nifty continue to trade in green

Indian benchmarks- Sensex, Nifty were trading over 0.18% higher in the late morning session. On the global front, most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the red at this point of time as investors opted for a cautious approach ahead of the Chinese GDP numbers announcement tomorrow. The traders were seen piling up position in IT, TECk and Realty while selling was seen in Metal, Capital Goods and Health Care sectors. In scrip specific development, Indian Oil Corporation, BPCL and HPCL edged higher on reporting that the Union Cabinet is set to consider the petroleum ministry’s proposals to increase diesel, cooking gas and kerosene prices in its meeting stipulated for today. Persistent Systems soared entering into a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held NovaQuest, a product lifecycle management and search based technology Solutions Company. HCL Technologies zoomed after its October-December earnings beat estimates. The NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were managing to hold their psychological 6,000 and 19800 levels respectively.

The market breadth on BSE was positive; advances: declines in the ratio of 1054:1018.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 19856.02 up by 38.39 points or 0.19% after trading in a range of 19889.98 and 19783.41. There were 15 stocks advancing against 15 declines on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.13% and Small cap index was up by 0.18%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, IT up by 1.41%, TECk up by 1.22%, Realty up by 0.97%, Auto up by 0.93% and Oil & Gas up by 0.50%. While, Metal down by 0.71%, Capital Goods down by 0.66%, Health Care down by 0.32%, Power down by 0.20% and Bankex down by 0.03%  were the top  losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Wipro up by 3.51%, Tata Motors up by 2.53%, Maruti Suzuki up by 1.17%, Infosys up by 0.92% and TCS up by 0.81%.

On the flip side, Hindalco Industries was down by 1.82%, Hero Moto Corp was down by 1.36%, Sterlite Inds was down by 1.34%, BHEL was down by 1.04% and Jindal Steel was down by 1.01% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, the Coal Minister Sriprakash has said that Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram headed ministerial panel is likely to meet on January 21 to discuss the draft Coal Regulator Bill. The Bill envisages setting up of a regulatory authority for the coal sector.

The ministerial panel was asked to make recommendations on its powers and functions. Earlier at the inaugural session of the 7th International Exhibition & Conference on Power Sector being jointly organised by the Ministry of Power and FICCI, Jaiswal, said that in order to fast track development of coal blocks in the country, the Government has proposed to develop some of the Coal India blocks through mine developer and operator (MDO) and further added that efforts are being made to enhance exploration for enlarging resource base for coal.

Regarding import of coal and price pooling, the Minister said that a proposal to import coal with pooling of prices is suggested to bind over the current shortage situation, however required an in-depth study for a considered view as a number of state governments have expressed their reservation on the proposal.

Moreover, with a view to infusing competition in the coal sector and to review the existing institutional mechanism, it has been proposed to take up the exercise of restructuring of CIL for which expression of interest has been floated by the Ministry for identifying suitable consultants.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,012.55 up by 10.70 points or 0.18% after trading in a range of 6,023.70 and 5,988.10. There were 25 stocks advancing against 25 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were HCL Tech up by 5.82%, Wipro up by 3.89%, Tata Motors up by 2.61% DLF up by 1.83%, and BPCL up by 1.66%.

On the flip side, Hindalco Industries down by 2.11%, ACC down by 2.04%, Reliance Infrastructure down by 1.58%, Hero Moto Co down by 1.56%, Sesa Goa down by 1.31% and were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in red; Shanghai Composite declined 25.55 points or 1.11% to 2,283.95, Hang Seng dropped 89.20 points or 0.38% to 23,267.79, Nikkei 225 tumbled 121.74 points or 1.16% to 10,457.46, Straits Times contracted 14.13 points or 0.46% to 3,193.64, KOSPI Composite decreased 8.78 points or 0.43% to 1,969.05 and Taiwan Weighted was down by 90.03 points or 0.17% to 7,607.63.

On the flip side, Jakarta Composite was up by 2.56 points or 0.06% to 4,413.52and KLSE Composite up 0.33 points or 0.02% to 1,683.28.