Sensex, Nifty trades marginally in green

Indian benchmarks- Sensex, Nifty bounced back after a weak start in the late morning session. On the global front, most of the Asian markets were trading in the red at this point of time with Shanghai composite losing the most on concern the government may accelerate measures to curb property-price gains. Japanese Nikkei also declined by over a percent on the back of profit booking after last session’s rally. Back home, the traders were seen piling up position in IT, Auto and Realty while selling was seen in Consumer Durables, Capital Goods and Metal sectors. In scrip specific development, Godrej Industries surged on reporting 4-fold rise in Q3 net profit. Cipla dropped after the company's October-December net profit missed estimates. AstraZeneca Pharma India was trading under pressure on reporting net loss of Rs 17.70 crore in Q3 December 2012 as against a net profit of Rs 14.94 crore in Q3 December 2011. The NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were managing to hold their psychological 5950 and 19,600 levels respectively.

The market breadth on BSE was positive; advances: declines in the ratio of 1114:862.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 19675.29 up by 35.57 points or 0.18% after trading in a range of 19702.56 and 19574.73. 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 0.38% and Small cap index was up by 0.10%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were IT up by 0.66%, Auto up by 0.36%, Realty up by 0.34%, TECk up by 0.32% and Bankex up by 0.31%, while Consumer Durables down by 1.07%, Capital Goods down by 0.20%, Metal down by 0.18% and Power by 0.03% were the losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were HDFC up by 1.34%, Tata Motors up by 1.21%, TCS up by 0.66% Infosys up by 0.62%, and Mahindra & Mahindra up by 0.62%.

On the flip side, NTPC was down by 1.84%, Sterlite Industries was down by 1.81%, Cipla was down by 1.80%,  Hero MotoCorp was down by 1.44%, and Bharti Airtel down by 1.10% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia has once again said that restricting the fiscal deficit at targeted levels is extremely important for the economy. The government has already revised upwards the fiscal deficit target for 2012-13 to 5.3 per cent of the GDP from the 5.1 per cent because of lower-than-estimated revenue realization and increasing expenditure.

Ahluwalia was quoted saying that 'as we have said ourselves in the plan and I think we should be very clear about the balancing deficit that doesn't mean zero fiscal deficit. But, maintaining a target deficit that's extremely important for the health of the economy'.

The planning commission deputy chief further stated that the country needs to have a planning that is consistent with fiscal responsibility. Ahluwalia also argued for curbing energy and fertilizer subsidy to fund UPA's ambitious food security legislation and bring down the fiscal deficit to the targeted level. He added that maintaining fiscal deficit at the targeted level is important for all the economies across the globe.

Finance minister P Chidambaram too had expressed the need of some tough decisions to bring down the fiscal deficit. While, to control the fiscal deficit and cap the rising subsidy burden, the government in the recent past has partially decontrolled diesel prices besides capping the number of subsidised cooking gas cylinder to nine per year per household.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,970.25 up by 11.05 points or 0.19% after trading in a range of 5,978.50 and 5,936.45. There were 22 stocks advancing against 28 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were JP Associate up by 2.39%, Power Grid up by 1.65%, HDFC up by 1.55%, Ranbaxy up by 1.49% and IDFC up by 1.44%.

On the flip side, Cipla down by 1.78%, Sesa Goa down by 1.62%, Hero MotoCorp down by 1.47%, NTPC down by 1.38% and Ambuja Cement down by 1.26%were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the red; Shanghai Composite declined 31.99 points or 1.31% to 2,402.48, Hang Seng dropped 113.45 points or 0.49% to 2,402.48, Nikkei 225 tumbled 101.82 points or 0.89% to 11,361.93, Straits Times contracted 17.90 points or 0.58% to 3,257.31, KOSPI Composite was down by 1.67 points or 0.09% to 1,934.52 and KLSE Composite declined 0.77 points or 0.05% to 1,613.37. On the flip side, Jakarta Composite rose 2.72points or 0.06% to 4,501.70.

Taiwan Weighted is shut for the trade today.