Sensex, Nifty continue to trade in green despite sluggish Asian Markets

Indian benchmarks- Sensex, Nifty were trading over 0.14% in the late morning session. On the global front, most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the red led by Japanese benchmark Nikkei average which tumbled by over a percent as the yen jumped following the Bank of Japan’s (BOJ) decision to further ease policy. The BOJ doubled its inflation target to 2 percent and adopted an open-ended commitment to buy assets starting 2014. Back home, the traders were seen piling up position in TECk, Realty and Capital Goods while selling was seen in Auto, PSU and Oil & Gas sectors. In scrip specific development, Amtek Auto surged after the company stated that it has sold 5% stake in its subsidiary Amtek Crankshafts (India) to a foreign investor at Rs 300 per share aggregating Rs 22.38 crore. Bharti Airtel jumped on hiking call rates by almost 100%. Mahindra & Mahindra gained on launching of the Executive edition of its Verito passenger car model. Jet Airways surged on reports of a possible deal with Etihad being as early as this Friday. While, Jaypee Infratech was trading under pressure after its promoter Jaiprakash Associates stated it will sell 2.78 crore shares of the company through offer for sale route on January 24, 2013. Kingfisher was trading in red after the civil aviation minister stated that the airline cannot fly without settling its dues. The NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were managing to hold their psychological 6,000 and 20,000 levels respectively.

The market breadth on BSE was negative; advances: declines in the ratio of 1037:1097.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 20023.51 up by 41.94 points or 0.21% after trading in a range of 20055.07 and 19991.88. There were 20 stocks advancing against 10 declines on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.05% and Small cap index was up by 0.03%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were TECk up by 0.58%, Realty up by 0.54%, Capital Goods up by 0.45%, Consumer Durables up by 0.42%, and Bankex up by 0.36%. While, Auto down by 0.47%, PSU down by 0.47%, Oil & Gas down by 0.33%, FMCG down by 0.21%, Power down by 0.11% were the top losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bharti Airtel up by 3.38%, HDFC Bank up by 1.29%, Cipla up by 1.17%, L&T up by 0.98%, and HDFC up by 0.95%.

On the flip side, Hindustan Unilever was down by 5.02%, Tata Motors was down by 1.74%, ONGC was down by 1.54%, Bajaj Auto was down by 0.83% and  NTPC was down by 0.76% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, to look into the textile industry's problems like high customs duty on synthetic fabric and labour issues, an Inter-Ministerial Group (IMG) on textiles sector will be set up soon, Cabinet Secretary Ajit Kumar Seth said. He said 'we will have a continuous dialogue with the textiles industry and would like to have an inter-ministerial group on this (textiles) which will be set up soon'.

Inaugurating the three-day long India International Garment Fair (IIGF), which is showcasing apparel, accessories, home furnishings, jute, woolen items and handicraft, Ajit Kumar Seth said that IMG would take a holistic look at difficulties, which have been expressed by the industry and would recommend suggestions to address these issues.

Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) chief A Sakthivel said the Cabinet Secretary chaired a consultative meeting with the exporters and listened to the demands related to higher import duty on synthetic fabrics, other taxes and labour issues. Further, the Cabinet Secretary is expected to head the group and the officials from concerned ministries like commerce, finance, labour, customs representatives and related export promotion councils would also be members of the IMG. While, the IMG group, which is likely to be set up after the Union Budget next month, would meet every three months to review the sector's issues and progress.

Besides, the exporters are pressing for import of synthetic/blended fabrics at a lower duty of 5 percent. At present, the import duty on synthetic fabrics is about 21 percent. Further, most of the synthetic fabric is not available in India so mostly cotton garment is manufactured, which cater for summer. So, industry demanded fabric which is mostly synthetic for doing round the year business. Besides, the industry has also asked for allowing workers to do duty beyond 60 hours a week for which they would be given overtime payment.

During April-December of current fiscal, apparel exports declined about 8 percent to $9 billion compared to the same period last year due to lower demand from western markets like the US and Europe. In the last fiscal (FY12), the US and EU accounted for about 70 percent of the country's $14 billion garment exports.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,057.25 up by 8.75 points or 0.14% after trading in a range of 6,069.80 and 6,050.65. There were 28 stocks advancing against 20 declines while 2 stocks remains unchanged on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Bharti Airtel up by 2.52%, UltraTech Cement up by 1.36%, HDFC Bank up by 1.25%, HDFC up by 1.05% and DLF up by 1.03%.

On the flip side, Hindustan Unilever down by 4.75%, BPCL down by 1.79%, Tata Motors down by 1.74%, IDFC down by 1.73% and ONGC down by 1.70%, were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the red; Shanghai Composite declined 10.04 points or 0.43% to 2,305.10, Hang Seng slipped 111.23 points or 0.47% to 23,547.76, Jakarta Composite dipped by 3.59 points or 0.08% to 4,412.95, Nikkei 225 tumbled 165.52points or 1.54% to 10,546.00, KOSPI Composite dropped 5.23 points or 0.26% to 1,991.29 and Taiwan Weighted was down by 26.56 points or 0.34% to 7,732.4.

On the flip side, KLSE Composite rose 5.44 points or 0.33% to 1,634.10 and Straits Times was up by 8.54 points or 0.27% to 3,228.40.