Indian equity markets added gains to continue its firm trade hovering near the highest point of the day in the late afternoon session on account of buying in frontline counters. The sentiments on the street were on optimistic note as traders are anticipating that RBI will reward the government next week by announcing its first cut in interest rates in nine months. RBI has been growing confidence that the government is finally doing its bit to lift the economy that has slumped to its slowest pace of growth in a decade. Traders were seen piling some position in Realty, Auto and Consumer Durables sectors. In the scrip specific movement, SKS Microfinance, India's only listed micro lender, was trading firm after the company reported first quarterly profit in two years. Housing Development and Infrastructure (HDIL) was seen trading in green after sharp fall in previous four sessions as the research firm Macquarie has put an outperform rating on the stock. Suzlon Energy is trading firm after the empowered group of Corporate Debt Restructuring (CDR) Cell has given formal approval to its proposal to restructure domestic debt. Reliance Communications was trading in green on reports that the company is in talks to sell stake in its mobile tower unit to Reliance Industries.
On the global front, Asian markets were trading mixed while the European markets were too trading on a mixed note. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above their psychological 6,050 and 20,000 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was positive in the ratio of 1485:1219 while 122 scrips remain unchanged.
The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 20,079.31, up by 155.53 points or 0.78% after trading in a range of 20,093.27 and 19,928.11. There were 26 stocks advancing against 4 declines on the index.
The broader indices too added some ground; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices were trading higher by 1.47% and 0.70% respectively.
The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 2.68%, Auto up by 1.75%, Consumer Durables up by 1.57%, Capital Goods up by 1.18% and Health Care up by 1.14%. While, there were no loser on the index.
The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Motors up by 2.86%, Maruti Suzuki up by 2.83%, M&M up by 2.62%, Gail India up by 2.02% and Bajaj Auto up by 2.01%.
On the flip side, Tata Power was down by 0.84%, HDFC down by 0.69%, Coal India down by 0.48% and Reliance Industries down by 0.17% were the top losers on the Sensex.
Meanwhile, the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on telecom in its meeting on January 24, failed to take a decision on how many blocks an operator should be allowed to bid for in the auction that starts on March 11. In the previous auction, as per the government condition, telecom operators had to bid for minimum 4 blocks of 1.25 MHz each for the 1800 MHz band and for CDMA band, operators had to bid for at least two blocks.
For the upcoming spectrum auction, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has decided to auction 34 blocks of 1.25 MHz each in the 900 MHz band, 40 blocks of 1.25 MHz each in the 1,800 MHz band, and 64 blocks of 1.25 MHz each in the 800 MHz CDMA band.
Earlier, to ensure aggressive bidding, the DoT had also proposed that there should not be any restriction on the number of slots that a company should be allowed to bid in the upcoming auction for both CDMA and GSM spectrum. However, in the previous auction, the DoT’s proposal received tepid response with no bidder for the 800 MHz band of CDMA spectrum.
The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,065.25, up by 45.90 points or 0.76% after trading in a range of 6,067.10 and 6,014.45. There were 41 stocks advancing against 9 declines on the index.
The top gainers of the Nifty were Bank of Baroda up by 4.54%, JP Associate up by 4.53%, Reliance Infrastructure up by 2.88%, Tata Motors up by 2.86% and M&M up by 2.60%.
On the flip side, UltraTech Cement down by 1.45%, ACC down by 1.44%, Tata Power down by 1.21%, HDFC down by 0.90% and Cairn India down by 0.49% were the major losers on the index.
Asian equity indices were trading mixed; Shanghai Composite declined 0.49%, Hang Seng dipped 0.08%, KOSPI Composite tumbled 0.91% and Taiwan Weighted dropped 0.30%.
On the flip side, Jakarta Composite rose 0.02%, KLSE Composite added 0.01%, Nikkei 225 surged 2.88% and Straits Times was up by 0.54%.
The European markets were trading on a mixed note with; France’s CAC 40 added 0.05%, Germany’s DAX gain 0.15% while the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 edged lower by 0.12%.
