Benchmarks hold early gains ahead of Union budget

Indian benchmarks have gained about half a percent in the late morning session on the expectations that the finance minister will take measures to boost growth, control price rise and rein in fiscal deficit.   However, Investors remained cautious ahead of the futures and options expiry. On the global front, Asian counters were trading higher at this point of time tracking overnight cues from the Wall Street. US stocks had ended higher on Wednesday on upbeat economic data and the Federal Reserve chief’s commitment to lose the monetary policy.

Back home, the traders were seen piling up position in Realty, Capital Goods and PSU sectors .In scrip specific actions, Infosys soared on expectations that the budget would provide incentives to exporters. Shares of Jet Airways gained on expectation that the company is now nearing a deal with Abudhabi-based Etihad Ariways. Reliance Industries and ONGC edged higher on hopes of a favourable federal budget. HDFC Bank gained on plan to raise $500 million from overseas markets. Coal India surged on report that company aims to acquire at least one foreign coal asset in fiscal 2013-14. Strides Arcolab dropped after weak Q4 results. Ranbaxy Lab hits 52-week low after weak Q4 numbers. Maruti Suzuki slumped as the company gets removed from the MSCI today. Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading near their psychological 5800 and 19,200 levels respectively.

The market breadth on BSE was showing positive trend with advances to declines in ratio of 1234:808.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 19268.20, up by 115.79 points or 0.60% after trading in a range of 19322.28 and 19244.76. There were 26 stocks advancing against 4 declines on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.62% and Small cap index has gained 0.60%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Realty up by 1.70%, Capital Goods up by 1.36%, PSU up by 0.90%, Metal up by 0.86% and Power up by 0.82% while, there was no loser on the BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Coal India up by 2.71%, Tata Motors up by 2.15%, L&T up by 1.81%, Sun Pharma up by 1.41% and Bharti Airtel up by 1.34%.

On the flip side, Maruti Suzuki was down by 1.09%, Gail India was down by 0.45%, Dr Reddys Lab was down by 0.30% and HDFC was down by 0.11%were the top losers on the Sensex. Meanwhile, Owing to global economic slowdown, the year 2012 turned out to be a bad year for foreign direct investment (FDI). Commerce Minister Anand Sharma said ‘the global economic slowdown has affected the inflow of funds into the country but the government is taking all possible measures to increase investment in the country.’ By adding further he said government had no plan to bring a FDI policy only for the manufacturing sector saying it was not sector specific.

Expressing views on the manufacturing sector slowdown, the minister said that it is incorrect to say that the manufacturing sector, which accounts for 11% of employment in the country, has not grown. ‘GDP has grown and so has the manufacturing sector, while, the government is taking a number of steps for development of manufacturing sector, including those for boosting employment and rural employment.’

India’s manufacturing sector has been affected due to the global slowdown, with its share in gross domestic product (GDP) remaining around 15-16% over the past decade. Listing out measures taken to boost manufacturing, Sharma said, government has announced the National Manufacturing Policy (NMP), 2011, with the objective of increasing the share of manufacturing in GDP to 25% and creating 100 million additional jobs over the next decade. The policy also envisages setting up of National Investment and Manufacturing Zones (NIMZs), which are industrial townships benchmarked to the best manufacturing hubs in the world.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,830.15 up by 33.25 points or 0.57% after trading in a range of 5,849.90 and 5,830.15. There were 39 stocks advancing against 11 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Coal India up by 2.70%, DLF up by 2.50%, Tata Motors up by 1.97%, L&T up by 1.93%, and Sun Pharma up by 1.50%

On the flip side, BPCL down by 1.47%, Ranbaxy down by 1.13%, Maruti Suzuki down by 0.98%, Power Grid down by 0.51% and GAIL down by 0.31%, were the major losers on the index.

All of the Asian equity indices were trading in the green; Shanghai Composite surged 14.21 points or 0.61% to 2,327.43, Hang Seng soared 319.95 points or 1.42% to 2,327.43, Jakarta Composite strengthened 55.52 points or 1.18% to 4,771.94, KLSE Composite rose 3.98 points or 0.25% to 1,628.12, Nikkei 225 zoomed 258.60 points or 2.30% to 11,512.57, Straits Times added 5.36 points or 0.16% to 3,266.48, KOSPI Composite increased 20.68 points or 1.03% to 2,024.72 and Taiwan Weighted was up by 17.08 points or 0.22% to 7,897.98.