Indian markets trade slightly in green on Monday

Indian equity benchmarks have made an optimistic start and are trading slightly in the green on Monday’s morning session ahead of the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) third-quarter policy review on January 29 amid expectations that the central bank will cut interest rates to boost growth into Asia's third-biggest economy. Risk-appetite also improved after robust US earnings in the fourth quarter coupled with rise in Germany’s business confidence flaring hopes that Europe’s largest economy is gathering momentum after contracting late last year. While, most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the green at this point of time with Chinese Shanghai Composite surging over one and a half percent amid a relatively positive earnings outlook.

Back home, some strength came in from FICCI’s prediction that the economy will grow by 6.7 per cent for 2013-14. The chamber has revised its growth forecast upwards from 6.5 percent to 6.7 percent for the next fiscal. Sentiments also remained higher after shares of rate sensitive sectors such as automobiles and realty were trading higher on the bourses ahead of the RBI’s third quarterly policy review meeting. On the sectoral front, realty witnessed the maximum gain in trade followed by auto and software while, oil and gas, capital goods and public sector undertaking remained the top losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices were outperforming benchmarks while, the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 1,082 shares on the gaining side against 547 shares on the losing side while 72 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 20,129.00; about 25 points higher compared to its previous closing of 20,103.53, and has touched a high and a low of 20,172.45 and 20,107.82 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 20,132.22, up by 28.69 points or 0.14%. There were 20 stocks advancing against 10 declines on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a positive start with 63.61% stocks advancing against 32.16% declines. The broader indices were outperforming benchmarks; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices rose 0.45% and 0.71% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Realty up by 0.96%, Auto up by 0.79%, IT up by 0.54%, Bankex up by 0.50% and Teck up by 0.45%. While, Oil & Gas down by 0.57%, Capital Goods down by 0.28%, PSU down by 0.13%, Metal down by 0.09% and Power down by 0.05% were the few losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Maruti Suzuki up by 1.77%, Hero MotoCorp up by 1.58%, Cipla up by 1.04%, Wipro up by 0.99% and Gail India up by 0.75%.

On the flip side, ONGC was down by 1.20%, RIL was down by 0.98%, NTPC was down by 0.82%, Coal India was down by 0.79% and L&T was down by 0.76% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) tightening the rules of offering differential interest rates on large size term deposits, has also allowed  banks to now stop large depositors from premature withdrawal of their money.

As per RBI’s circular on ‘Interest Rates on and Premature Withdrawal of Rupee Term Deposits’, the bank can now charge different rates of interest only on bulk deposits of above Rs 100 million (i.e., Rs 10 crore), higher than previous limit of Rs 1.5 million. Meanwhile, for deposits below Rs 1 crore (10 million rupees), the same rate will be applicable for deposits of the same maturity.

Additionally, RBI has allowed banks to disallow premature withdrawal of deposits of over Rs 1 crore, of all depositors, including deposits of individuals and HUFs. However, bank should notify such depositors of its policy of disallowing premature withdrawal in advance, i.e., at the time of accepting such deposits. Further, banks will have the freedom to determine its own penal interest rates for premature withdrawal of term deposits.

The S&P CNX Nifty opened at 6,082.10; about 7 points higher compared to its previous closing of 6,074.65, and has touched a high and a low of 6,088.40 and 6,072.35 respectively. The index is currently trading at 6,076.40, up by 1.75 points or 0.03%. There were 29 stocks advancing against 21 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Ranbaxy Laboratories up by 2.14%, HCL Tech up by 1.82%, Maruti Suzuki up by 1.75%, Hero MotoCorp up by 1.62% and IDFC up by 1.39%.

On the flip side, Reliance Infrastructure down by 1.32%, ONGC down by 1.23%, BPCL down by 1.14%, Sun Pharmaceuticals down by 1.11% and Reliance Industries down by 1.02% were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the green; Shanghai Composite surged 37.41 points or 1.63% to 2,328.71, Hang Seng rose 108.22 points or 0.46% to 23,688.65, Straits Times added 7.28 points or 0.22% to 3,276.59 and Taiwan Weighted was up by 28.05 points or 0.37% to 7,700.63.

On the flip side, Jakarta Composite declined 18.63 points or 0.42% to 4,418.96, Nikkei 225 slipped 43.31 points or 0.40% to 10,883.34 and KOSPI Composite was down by 9.13 points or 0.47% to 1,937.56.