Benchmarks cool off from intra-day’s high on profit-booking

Although in fine-fettle, Indian equity markets have come off from their high as wary investors cashed out their profits at high levels. Benchmarks crawled higher after data showed that India’s export, snapping eight months declining trend, 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. Nevertheless, the underlying tone at D-street continues to remain upbeat for second consecutive session on account of strong global cues. 30 share index, Sensex, trading higher over half a percent, was oscillating above 19650 level. Likewise, 50 share index, Nifty, too accumulating over similar magnitude gains, was hovering above 5950 crucial bastion. Broader indices too remained sanguine.

On the global front, most of the trading Asian pacific indices were in green helped by a survey showing consumer confidence data, which rose sharply in February to its highest level in over two years. Sentiment were also bolstered after the results of the survey, published by Westpac Banking Corp. suggested that the interest rate cuts undertaken by the Reserve Bank of Australia over the past year are having an effect on the domestic economy.

Closer home, stocks from Information Technology, Realty and Consumer Durable counters, were adding to the strength of the bourses, while stocks from Fast Moving Consumer Goods, Power, were slogging to limit these gains. Retail stocks enticed traction on reports which suggested that Finance Ministry will consider four FDI proposals in single brand retailing, including that of Decathlon and Fossil Inc, worth Rs 750 crore. The overall market breadth on BSE remains in the favour of advances which have thumped declines in the ratio of 1425:1063, while 121 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 19693.49, up by 132.45 points or 0.68% after trading in a range of 19723.01 and 19601.69. There were 16 stocks advancing against 14 declines on the index.

The broader indices continued to trade in fine contour; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap index was trading up by 0.73% and 0.53% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, IT up by 1.40%, Realty up by 1.34%, TECk up by 1.32%, Consumer Durables and Auto up by 0.89%. While, FMCG down by 0.27% and Power down by 0.01% were the only losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Motors up by 2.80%, Bharti Airtel up by 1.87%, TCS up by 1.83%, HDFC up by 1.64% and Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.37%.

On the flip side, Bajaj Auto down by 1.23%, Dr Reddys Lab down by 1.08%, Hindustan Unilever was down by 0.63%, Hindalco Industries down by 0.58% and Gail India down by 0.52% were the top losers on the Sensex.

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%.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,959.05, up by 36.55 points or 0.62% after trading in a range of 5,969.50 and 5,938.25. There were 25 stocks advancing against 24 declines on the index, while 1 stock remained unchanged.

The top gainers of the Nifty were HCL Tech up by 3.40%, Tata Motors up by 2.65%, IDFC up by 2.09%, TCS up by 2.00% and JP Associate up by 1.73%.

On the flip side, Bajaj Auto down by 1.33%, Dr Reddy down by 1.18%, Reliance Infra down by 1.06%, DLF down by 1.03% and Lupin down by 0.88% were the major losers on the index.

 Most of the Asian markets were trading in the green, Jakarta Composite rose 0.77%, KLSE Composite surged 0.46%, Straits Times strengthened 0.91% and KOSPI Composite soared 1.56%.

On the flip side, Nikkei 225 was down by 1.04%.  Meanwhile, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan markets were closed for trade today.