Post session - Quick review

After snapping eight long days’ losing streak in the previous session, benchmark equity indices added some more ground on Wednesday, as investors continued to shop for beaten down fundamentally strong blue chip stocks. Strong regional counterparts along with good macro-economic report on home front also added to the vigor of barometer gauges at D-street. Snapping eight months declining trend, India's exports rose at an annual rate of 0.82% at $25.58 billion in January, with imports too rising by 6.12% at $45.58 billion for the month, leaving a trade deficit of $19.99 billion.

However, in the fine trading session of trade, benchmarks witnessed much of the selling pressure in the last hour of trade, given select wary investor’s grabbed every opportunity of uptake to book their profits. Nevertheless, the recovery which emerged at lower levels in the wee hour of trade, mainly acted as cushion to the benchmark equity indices. Gains of benchmarks also remained capped on account of prevailing caution ahead of Wholesale Price Index data on February 14, 2013.

Gaining for the second session of trade, benchmark 30 share index- Sensex- added close to 3/10 of a percent to close above the psychological 19600 level. Likewise, 50 share index-Nifty- too gaining over 2/10 of a percent wrapped above the crucial 5900 bastion. On the other hand, the session turned out to be disappointing for broader indices, which shut shop with loss of close to and over quarter of a percent.

On the global front, Asian shares outside Japan rose on Wednesday, led by South Korean exporters as the yen firmed amid conflicting interpretations of Group of Seven (G-7) comments about the currency’s recent weakness. China, Taiwan and Hong Kong markets remain closed for the Lunar New Year holiday. Meanwhile, European shares opened slightly lower on Wednesday, near the top of a six-day trading range, with Societe Generale sinking 4 percent after the bank unveiled a bigger-than-expected quarterly loss.

Closer home, support was rendered from Information Technology (IT), TECk and Oil & Gas counters, while Power, Metal and Realty space, limited the further upside of benchmark equity indices. IT stocks remained in jaunty mood after the Nasscom in its reports stated that export revenues of the Indian IT industry will grow 12-14 per cent to clock $84-87 billion. However, Cement stocks, viz ACC, Ambuja Cement and UltraTech Cement, rose on expectations that the government will provide thrust on infrastructure development in Union Budget 2013-14 to be tabled in the Parliament on 28 February 2013. The market breadth on the BSE ended negative; advances and declining stocks were in a ratio of 777: 811 while 1385 scrips remained unchanged. (Provisional)

The BSE Sensex gained 54.16 points or 0.28% and settled at 19615.20. The index touched a high and a low of 19723.01 and 19574.15 respectively. 13 stocks were seen advancing while 17 stocks were declining on the index (Provisional)

The BSE Mid-cap index was down by 0.26% and Small-cap index was down by 0.48%. (Provisional)

On the BSE Sectoral front, IT was up by 1.16%, TECk up by 0.90%, Oil & Gas up by 0.50% and Auto up by 0.27% were the top gainers, while Power down by 1.79%, Metal down by 1.12%, Realty down by 0.95% , Capital Goods down by 0.92%  and FMCG down by 0.72% were the losers in the space.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Motors up by 2.13%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.95%,  HDFC up by 1.85%, ONGC up by 1.78% and TCS up by 1.40%, while, Tata Power down by 2.94%, Bajaj Auto down by 2.94%, Sterlite Industries down by 2.60%, Gail India down by 2.56% and Tata Steel down by 2.22% were the top losers in the index. (Provisional)

Meanwhile, snapping eight months declining trend, India's exports rose at an annual rate of 0.82% at $25.58 billion in January, with imports too rising by 6.12% at $45.58 billion for the month, leaving a trade deficit of $19.99 billion. Export and imports stood at level of $25.37 billion and at $42.95 billion respectively in January, 2012. However, exports between April and January fell 4.86% to $239.68 billion as against $251.93 billion in the same month of the previous year.

Adding to the country's economic gloom and heightening worries about its trade and current account deficits, exports have fallen since last year as demand slowed from major sales destinations. Meanwhile, cumulative value of imports for the period April-January, 2012-13 was at $406.85 billion as against $406.82 billion registering a positive growth of 0.01% over the same period last year.

Optimistic on this data, Commerce Minister Anand Sharma said, the government is hopeful that exports in January will help close the trade gap. The trade deficit for April-January, 2012-13 was estimated at $167.16 billion much higher than the deficit of $154.89 billion during April -January, 2012.

He further added that gold imports are a matter of concern and a balanced approach is needed towards gold import. India, which imported about 750 tons of gold last year, with 60 percent of that through banks has already increased the import duty on gold, which now stands at 6%.

India VIX, a gauge for markets short term expectation of volatility lost 1.11% at 15.14 from its previous close of 15.31 on Tuesday. (Provisional)

The S&P CNX Nifty gained 10.80 points or 0.18% to settle at 5,933.30. The index touched high and low of 5,969.50 and 5,922.95 respectively. 20 stocks advanced against 30 declining on the index. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Nifty were HCL Tech was up 4.42%, Tata Motors was up 2.16%, HDFC was up 1.87%, ONGC was up 1.86% and Mahindra & Mahindra was up 1.73%.

On the other hand, Reliance Infrastructure down 3.53%, Tata Power down by 3.10%, Sesa Goa down by 2.96%, Bajaj Auto down by 2.95% and Power Grid down by 2.79% were the top losers. (Provisional)

The European markets were trading in green with, France’s CAC 40 down by 0.25% and the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 down by 0.40% while Germany’s DAX up by 0.07%.

Asian markets ended mostly higher on Wednesday, after strong US corporate earnings. KOSPI Composite closed with strong gains as a firmer yen boosted South Korean exporters. Meanwhile investors were traded cautiously ahead of outcome of the G20 finance ministers meeting in Moscow beginning Friday. However, Japan's Nikkei went home with red mark with some weak earnings reports and stronger yen against dollar following a pledge by finance ministers from the world's major advanced economies to refrain from intentionally weakening their currencies.

Mainland Chinese markets, Hong Kong and Taiwanese were closed for the Lunar New Year holiday.