Benchmarks continue to trade in green; rate sensitives lead

Indian benchmarks- Sensex, Nifty were trading over 0.15% in the late morning session. Sentiment turned slightly better on selective buying by funds and retail investors, taking positive cues from Asian markets, following overnight gains in the US market on the back of an improvement of the weekly jobless claims data. Rate sensitive stocks - banks, auto and realty - moved up on hopes that the Reserve Bank will reward the government next week for its efforts to reform the economy and bring its finances under control by announcing its first cut in interest rates in nine months. On the global front, Asian equity indices were exhibiting mixed trend on Friday’s late morning deals with Japanese Nikkei surging over two percent on the back of a weaker yen. Sentiments also got boost after Japan’s core consumer prices slipped for a second straight month in the year to December, signaling the economy was still in deflation and piling more pressure on the central bank to adopt further stimulus steps to achieve its new inflation target. Back home, the traders were seen piling up position in Auto, Consumer Durables and TECk while selling was seen in Metal and Oil & Gas sectors. In scrip specific development, Maruti Suzuki soared ahead of reporting third quarter earnings later today. Debt-laden Suzlon Energy, world's fifth largest wind turbine supplier, gained after the empowered group of Corporate Debt Restructuring (CDR) Cell has given formal approval to its proposal to restructure domestic debt. Ashok Leyland dropped on reporting third quarter results much below street expectations. Ultra Tech Cement tumbled after an investment banker downgraded the stock to ‘underweight’. The NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were managing to hold their psychological 6,000 and 19900 levels respectively.

The market breadth on BSE was negative; advances: declines in the ratio of 947:1107.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 19978.85 up by 55.07 points or 0.28% after trading in a range of 20003.57 and 19928.11. 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 0.31% and Small cap index was up by 0.06%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Auto up by 0.76%, Consumer Durables up by 0.65%, TECk up by 0.50%, Capital Goods up by 0.46% and Health Care up by 0.45%. While, Metal down by 0.13% and Oil & Gas down by 0.13% were the losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Motors up by 2.44%, Bharti Airtel up by 1.73%, Dr Reddys Lab up by 1.69%, Cipla up by 1.42% and Maruti Suzuki up by 1.03%.

On the flip side, Tata Power was down by 1.30%, Coal India was down by 0.87%, Tata Steel was down by 0.69%, RIL was down by 0.65% and  Sun Pharma was down by 0.42% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, as per the Planning Commission, the plan expenditure or gross budgetary support (GBS) for development programmes would be less than the proposed 15 percent for 2013-14 over the budget estimates of the current financial year. 

As per the approach paper to the 12th Five Year Plan, the Planning Commission has pegged a plan expenditure of Rs 5.83 lakh crore for 2013-14, which is around 12 percent more than the budgeted plan expenditure for the current fiscal. The 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17) has projected total GBS of Rs 35.68 lakh crore during the five year policy period as compared to Rs 15.89 lakh crore realised in the 11th Plan (2007-12) at current prices.

The issue of GBS is discussed in a meeting called by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The meeting to discuss the issues related to overall GBS and allocation of Plan expenditure of individual ministries was attended by the Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Finance Minister P Chidambaram.

Generally, the revised estimates of the Plan expenditure is less than the budgeted estimates as the ministries and departments often fail to exhaust the entire funds provided to them. The government had approved Rs 5.21 lakh crore GBS for the current fiscal which was 18 percent higher than the budget estimate of Rs 4.41 crore for 2011-12. However, the jump in the Plan expenditure for 2012-13 was 22.13 percent when compared with the revised estimates of the same for 2011-12 at Rs 4.26 lakh crore.

The plan expenditure or GBS is the government spending on social sector schemes such as Bharat Nirman, Rural Employment Guarantee and National Rural Health Mission. Besides, it includes Centre's assistance to various states and Union Territories Plans.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,030.55 up by 11.20 points or 0.19% after trading in a range of 6,036.35 and 6,014.45. There were 26 stocks advancing against 24 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Bank of Baroda up by 2.57%, Tata Motors up by 2.47%, JP Associate up by 1.87%, BPCL up by 1.84% and Dr Reddy up by 1.53%

On the flip side, Ranbaxy down by 2.06%, UltraTech Cement down by 1.60%, ACC down by 1.55%, Tata Power down by 1.53% and DLF down by 1.43%were the major losers on the index.

Asian equity indices were trading mixed; Shanghai Composite declined 6.72 points or 0.29% to 2,295.88, Hang Seng dipped 80.37 points or 0.34% to 23,518.53, KOSPI Composite tumbled 23.79 points or 1.23% to 1,940.25 and Taiwan Weighted dropped 35.50 points or 0.46% to 7,660.79.

On the flip side, Jakarta Composite rose 4.94 points or 0.11% to 4,423.67, KLSE Composite added 0.29 points or 0.02% to 1,635.54, Nikkei 225 surged 226.88 points or 2.23% to 10,857.75 and Straits Times was up by 10.46 points or 0.32% to 3,258.08.