Post session - Quick review

Consolidation creeped into D-street after two consecutive sessions of gains, as wary investors lacking confidence preferred to cash their profits ahead of the 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. However, in the volatile session of trade, benchmarks if not showcased fervor like last session, they managed to keep their neck in green. Strong global cues combined with support at lower level buying mainly kept the markets afloat. Thus, even in a dull session of trade, benchmark indexes, Sensex and Nifty, managed to end above the psychological 19650 and 5900 levels respectively. Positive momentum of the bourses also sustained thanks to the spurt of the index heavyweight, Reliance Industries, after it announced last day that the company would be investing over $5 billion in the next three to five years with UK partner BP to boost declining output at a key natural gas field off India's east coast.

Much of the support was lent by Asian counterparts, which rose to their highest since August 2011 on Wednesday after an improving global economic outlook boosted world equities overnight, encouraging investors to take on risk. However, benchmarks relinquished substantial portion of their gains with the opening of European counterparts, which slowly but steadily lost its steam to trade on flat note on prevailing caution ahead of the minutes to the US Federal Reserve's January policy meeting. At its January meeting, the Federal Open Market Committee left in place the central bank's monthly $85 billion bond-buying stimulus plan, saying it needed to support employment conditions even as it indicated a recent stall in U.S. economic growth was likely temporary.

Closer home, Oil & Gas, Realty, Information Technology (IT) and Technology, were the counters that managed to gain some traction, otherwise all BSE sectoral indices ended in red terrain. Besides that, telecom stocks  traded lower for second consecutive session after Department of Telecom (DoT) decided to auction 900 mhz spectrum as planned earlier. On the same time, although Aviation stocks ended lower, Kingfisher Airline stocks touched its upper circuit in afternoon trade, after the cash-strapped carrier started paying salaries to some of its employees. The market breadth on the BSE ended positive; advances and declining stocks were in a ratio of 1038: 856 while 1083 scrips remained unchanged. (Provisional)

The BSE Sensex gained 7.03 points or 0.04% and settled at 19642.75. The index touched a high and a low of 19742.42 and 19619.89 respectively. 11 stocks were seen advancing while 19 stocks were declining on the index. (Provisional)

The BSE Mid-cap index was down by 0.17% while Small-cap index was up by 0.36%. (Provisional)

On the BSE Sectoral front, Oil & Gas was up by 1.70%, Realty was up by 0.77%, IT was up by 0.60% and TECk was up by 0.29% were the only gainer, while Consumer Durables down by 1.37%, Metal down by 0.61%, Capital Goods down by 0.47%, FMCG down by 0.47% and Bankex down by 0.38% were the top losers in the space. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Sensex were RIL up by 3.13%, Sun Pharma up 1.37%, Hero MotoCorp up by 1.31%, Coal India up by 1.12% and Gail India up by 1.05%, while, Tata Steel down by 1.75%, Jindal Steel down by 1.47%, Cipla down by 1.32%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.04% and SBI down by 0.98% were the top losers in the index. (Provisional)

Meanwhile, the government is likely to push key economic reform bills in areas such as insurance, pension and corporate law in the Budget Session of Parliament beginning on February 21. The budget for FY14, which will be preceded by economic survey, is scheduled to be announced on February 28 by Finance Minister P Chidambaram, will also address key issues like declining industrial output, widening fiscal deficit and decelerating economic growth.

The government’s economic agenda includes passage and consideration of bills on insurance, pension and Food Security Law, which has been pending from long time. The insurance and pension bills is seeking to raise foreign direct investment (FDI) cap in the sector from 26 percent to 49 percent, while the Food Security Bill seeks to provide subsidized food grain to people below poverty line.

However, more than 70 items, including 16 new Bills, are part of the government’s business for the budget session of parliament. The session, which will have 34 sittings in two laps, will begin on Feb 21. Other important economic reforms bills on the economic agenda includes Forward Contracts (Regulation) Amendment Bill, Agricultural Bio Security Bill, the Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India Bill and the Companies Bill, which is yet to be vetted by the Rajya Sabha.

India VIX, a gauge for markets short term expectation of volatility lost 1.32% at 15.60 from its previous close of 15.81 on Tuesday. (Provisional)

The S&P CNX Nifty gained 3.10 points or 0.05% to settle at 5,942.80. The index touched high and low of 5,971.00 and 5,937.55 respectively. 20 stocks advanced against 30 declining ones on the index. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Nifty were DLF up by 3.57%, Ambuja Cements up by 3.46%, BPCL up by 3.27%, Reliance up by 3.19% and HCL Tech was up by 2.48%. On the other hand, TATA Steel down by 2.13%, IDFC down by 1.90%, Jindal Steel down by 1.76%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.40% and CIPLA down by 1.34% were the top losers. (Provisional)

Most of the European markets were trading in green with, Germany’s DAX up by 0.25% and the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 up by 0.33% while France’s CAC 40 down by 0.20%.

Most Asian markets extended gains for the third consecutive session and ended higher on Wednesday, amid signs of global economic recovery. Japan’s Nikkei went home with green mark, touching 11,500 mark for the first time since September 2008, despite of firmness in the yen, because of Tokyo Electric Power Company’s gains. Meanwhile, stocks in South Korea had their best day since September after Bank of Korea Governor Kim Choong Soo said the world economic outlook is improving. Mainland Chinese stocks too ended higher, as its property firms recouped earlier session’s losses.