Post session - Quick review

After starting on an optimistic note, benchmark equity indices managed to hold their fort in green for the entire session, thereby negotiating a positive close for Indian equity markets after two consecutive sessions of decline. Emergence of buying by funds and retail investors at lower levels amidst positive regional counterparts, helped the bulls come out slumber.

Nevertheless, the gains remained limited on the first day of the week, which is likely to remain range-bound ahead of budget session of Parliament that will begin on February 21 with President Pranab Mukherjee's first address to the joint sitting of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha.

Much of the profit-booking that emerged in the last hour of trade was tracing negative European counterparts, taking  steam of Indian equity markets, leading the benchmark 50 share index, Nifty, close below 5900 crucial level. However, 30 share index, Sensex, showcasing a little recovery, recouped its psychological 19500 level, by the close of the trade. Broader indices, meanwhile, outperforming frontline counters, ended with gains of close to half a percent.

On the global front, Asian markets ended mostly higher on Monday, with Japanese stocks surging after Japan avoided criticism over the weakening yen at the Group of Twenty meeting over the weekend, while strong earnings helped the Australian market touch a fresh multi-year high. The Group of Twenty meeting, held in Moscow, ended with its members pledging to refrain from targeting their currency policies to gain a competitive advantage. Meanwhile, European shares were trading cautious ahead of a flurry of data from the euro zone and also the start of a final week of election campaign in Italy.

Closer home, the uptick of barometer gauges was mainly led by massive gains in Realty, Capital Goods (CG) and Power counters, while Information Technology, TECk and Consumer Durable counters, languishing at the bottom, capped further uptrend of Indian equity markets. Sentiment was also bolstered by the rally in PSU OMC’s, viz, BPCL, HPCL and IOC, state run companies hiked petrol prices by Rs 1.50 per litre and diesel by 45 paise. While, Realty counter managed to top the BSE sectoral chart, aided by the gains of real estate major DLF, which rose more than 5% after brokerage houses upgraded the stock despite weak performance in third quarter. Additionally, Public sector companies such as MMTC and Hindustan Copper too gained over 5% on hopes of good demand in the upcoming stake sales by the government.The market breadth on the BSE ended positive; advances and declining stocks were in a ratio of 813: 712 while 1454 scrips remained unchanged. (Provisional)

The BSE Sensex gained 32.93 points or 0.17% and settled at 19501.08. The index touched a high and a low of 19554.48 and 19462.92 respectively. 16 stocks were seen advancing while 14 stocks were declining on the index (Provisional)

The BSE Mid-cap index was up by 0.42% while Small-cap index was up by 0.71%. (Provisional)

On the BSE Sectoral front, Realty was up by 2.08%, Capital Goods up by 1.18%, Power up by 1.03%, Metal up by 0.49% and PSU up by 0.33% were the top gainers, while IT down by 0.49%, TECk down by 0.47%, Consumer Durables down by 0.22% and Oil & Gas down by 0.03% were the losers in the space.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Steel up by 2.81%, Hindustan Unilever up by 2.07%, Sterlite Industries up by 1.76%,  L&T up by 1.60% and SBI up by 1.47%, while, Jindal Steel down by 2.12%, Coal India down by 1.62%, TCS down by 1.50%, Bajaj Auto down by 1.27% and Bharti Airtel down by 1.25% were the top losers in the index. (Provisional)

Meanwhile, as per the planning commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Indian economy would grow at a rate of between 5 and 5.5 percent in current fiscal and could expand by 7 per cent in 2013-14. In best case scenario the growth could climb to 5.5 percent for this fiscal and if there was strength in the recovery then many more signs would have been evident, Ahluwalia added.

The statement comes after the Central Statistical Organization (CSO) projected 5-percent economic growth this fiscal in its advance estimates released earlier this month. Baffled over the methodology of CSO in computing economic growth projections, Ahluwalia said that it has ignored the rising growth trend, while estimating the economic growth for current fiscal.

India’s economic growth in 2011-12 slipped to 6.2 percent from 9.3 percent a year ago mainly on the back of global economic slowdown and subdued investor sentiments. Gross domestic production (GDP) of the country grew by 5.5 percent in April-June quarter and further declined to 5.3 percent in July-September quarter.

While, the recent industrial production data, which reflects the health of the manufacturing sector, has also portrayed a dismal picture of sector as the factory output measured in terms of Index of Industrial Production (IIP) for December, 2012, has contracted by 0.6 percent for second straight month. Moreover, IIP declined by 0.8 percent in November 2012.

India VIX, a gauge for markets short term expectation of volatility gained 6.88% at 16.29 from its previous close of 15.24 on Friday. (Provisional)

The S&P CNX Nifty gained 11.70 points or 0.20% to settle at 5,899.10. The index touched high and low of 5,911.00 and 5,878.45 respectively. 29 stocks advanced against 20 declining and one stock remains unchanged on the index. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Nifty were DLF was up by 4.95%, JP Associate up by 3.62%, Tata Steel up by 2.87%, Power Grid up by 2.46% and Reliance Infrastructure was up by 2.16%. On the other hand, Jindal Steel down by 2.29%, Coal India down by 1.67%, TCS down by 1.52%, UltraTech Cement down by 1.39% and Bajaj-Auto down by 1.39% were the top losers. (Provisional)

Most of the European markets were trading in red with, France’s CAC 40 down by 0.35% and the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 down 0.08% while Germany’s DAX up by 0.18%.