Indian equities add gains; Nifty above 5,900 mark

Indian equity markets added gains to continue firm trade hovering near the highest point of the day in the late afternoon session on account of buying in front line counters and taking cues from European counterparts. The sentiments on the street turned on optimistic note, after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said, India needed high growth rate to solve the problems of poverty and unemployment. Singh added that the government is doing its best to achieve high growth rate and slow growth rate of the country will not stay for long. Traders were seen piling some position in FMCG, Oil & Gas and Metal sector while selling was witnessed in IT and TECK sector. In the scrip specific development, Mumbai-based realty developer Peninsula Land was trading in green on reports that Aditya Birla Group’s real estate fund may buy 50% stake in Ashok Piramal-led realty developer’s 30-acre township project in Pune for over Rs 150 crore. Cairn India, a subsidiary of Vedanta Resources and one of the biggest private exploration and production companies, was trading in green after the foreign research house CLSA recommended a buy rating on the stock. Bharti Airtel was trading in green after foreign research house Credit Suisse kept an outperform rating on the stock.

On the global front, the Asian markets were trading in green barring Shanghai Composite and Straits Times while the European markets were trading on optimistic note. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above their psychological 5,900 and 19,600 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was positive in the ratio of 1592:1097 while 116 scrips remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 19,610.21, up by 196.67 points or 1.01% after trading in a range of 19,648.22 and 19,477.61. There were 23 stocks advancing against 7 declines on the index.

The broader indices were too trading in green; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices were trading higher by 0.54% and 0.66% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, FMCG up by 1.89%, Oil & Gas up by 1.82%, Metal up by 1.47%, PSU up by 1.25% and Capital Goods up by 1.15%. While, IT down by 0.70% and TECK down by 0.42% were the top losers on the BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Jindal Steel up by 3.93%, HDFC up by 2.87%, Hero MotoCorp up by 2.44%, ITC up by 2.23% and Coal India up by 2.17%.

On the flip side, Maruti Suzuki down by 1.95%, Infosys down by 1.19%, Tata Motors down by 0.90% Dr Reddy’s Lab down by 0.62% and Hindalco Industries down by 0.54% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, though surging current account deficit is a big problem for now, Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia believes that India has all the requirements to return to a GDP growth rate of 8-percent in the coming years. While addressing an event he said, ‘India has averaged 7.5% growth in the last 10 years. It should have done that for 15 years but it is possible to bring it back to the average performance of the last decade. The target for 2013-14 is 6.5-7% and then accelerate further.

As per Ahluwalia, economic growth is important but that growth should be inclusive and sustainable. By adding further he said that in recent years, India has posted high economic growth, but it was not an inclusive growth and the latest data indicates that the pace of poverty reduction has increased. For the current fiscal, the economy is expected to grow by a little over 5 percent, but it is not a big disaster as the whole world is experiencing a slowing of growth, he added.

On the global scenario, Ahluwalia said, the current state of the economy is challenging, but the global financial system appears to be stabilizing. The focus of government policy is to attract the foreign investment and with the recovery of global economy, the country will re-assure foreign investors as India is a good bet for foreign investment. India has the human resources in place and an expanding private sector, the only problem is the current account deficit, which needs to be contained.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,927.50, up by 64.20 points or 1.09% after trading in a range of 5,935.50 and 5,883.00. There were 40 stocks advancing against 10 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Jindal Steel & Power up by 4.10%, BPCL up by 3.49%, HDFC up by 3.11%, Cairn India up by 2.60% and IDFC up by 2.53%.

On the flip side, Maruti Suzuki down by 1.75%, Ambuja Cement down by 1.66%, Infosys down by 1.14%, DLF down by 1.11% and Tata Motors down by 0.83% were the major losers on the index.

Most Asian equity indices were trading in the green; Hang Seng surged 1.41%, Jakarta Composite strengthened 0.65%, KLSE Composite gained 0.04%, Nikkei 225 soared 2.64%, KOSPI Composite was up by 0.08% and Taiwan Weighted was up by 0.69%.

On the flip side, Shanghai Composite dropped by 0.24% and Straits Times slipped 0.30% were the only losers.

The European markets were trading in green; France’s CAC 40 added 0.76%, Germany’s DAX ascended 0.60% and United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 jumped by 0.60%.