Sensex, Nifty trade in green

Indian benchmarks have gained about half a percent in the late morning session on fresh buying by funds and retail investors. Sentiments got some support from positive global cues. On the global front, Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in a fine fettle as investors got confidence from reports that Cyprus and its international creditors had reached a deal that will qualify the island for a bailout.

Back home, the traders were seen piling up positions in Realty, PSU and Oil & Gas while selling was seen in, IT and Teck sector. In scrip specific development, Shares of state-owned oil marking companies (OMC), edged high after raising diesel prices by 45 paise per litre from March 23, 2013 and also on report that the government will give an additional cash subsidy of Rs 25,000 crore to make up for the losses suffered by them on selling fuel at subsidised rates

In scrip specific actions, NTPC surged on commissioning Unit-II of Vindhyachal Super Thermal Power Station on March 22, 2013. Dr Reddy's Laboratories soared after settling claims with Nordion Inc. Cairn India gained after the company began commercial sale of natural gas, while also starting production from the Aishwariya oil field from its RJ-ON-90/1 block in Rajasthan. Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading just above their psychological 5650 and 18,800 levels respectively.

The market breadth on BSE was showing positive trend with advances to declines in ratio of 1192: 892.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 18846.79, up by 111.19 points or 0.59% after trading in a range of 18950.22 and 18845.26. There were 20 stocks advancing against 10 declines on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.74% and Small cap index was up by 0.55%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 1.93%, PSU up by 1.47%, Oil & Gas up by 1.47%, Consumer Durables up by 1.24% and Power up by 1.22%while, IT down by 0.22% and Teck down by 0.11% were the losers on the BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were ONGC up by 3.99%, NTPC up by 2.33%, HDFC up by 2.21%, Jindal Steel up by 1.55% and Maruti Suzuki up by 1.38%.

On the flip side, Bharti Airtel was down by 1.07%, Coal India was down by 0.67%, Bajaj Auto was down by 0.65%, Hero MotoCorp was down by 0.61% and Mahindra & Mahindra was down by 0.55% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, the government has planned to pay Rs 25,000 crore additional cash subsidy to state-owned fuel retailers to cover for their losses incurred in this fiscal for selling auto and cooking fuel below cost. So far in this fiscal, the government has already provided Rs 55,000 crore to state-owned fuel retailers that include Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL), Indian Oil Corp (IOC) and Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) to cover the part of the revenue they lost on selling diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene at government controlled rates which were way below the cost. These three firms are together projected to end the 2012-13 fiscal with an under-recovery or revenue loss of Rs 161,343 crore on sale of diesel and cooking fuel.

The government is committed to insulate the common man from the impact of rise in international oil prices and domestic inflationary condition by providing essential fuels, particularly cooking fuels at affordable prices.

However, in order to reduce the subsidy burden, the government has decided to increase the price of diesel in the range of 40-50 paise per litre per month; sell diesel to bulk consumers at non-subsidised market determined price and restrict the supply of 14.2 kg domestic LPG cylinders to 9 per consumer per annum.  Despite these measures, currently, the under-recoveries for the fuel retailers are Rs 8.64 per litre for diesel, Rs 33.43 per litre for kerosene and Rs 439 per cylinder for domestic LPG. Presently, the oil marketing companies are losing Rs 407 crore per day on fuel sales

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,687.85 up by 36.50 points or 0.65% after trading in a range of 5,718.40 and 5,687.20. There were 37 stocks advancing against 13 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were ONGC up by 4.24%, DLF up by 3.53%, NTPC up by 2.69%, HDFC up by 2.34% and BPCL up by 2.34%.

On the flip side, Ranbaxy down by 1.15%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.00%, Hero MotoCorp down by 0.86%, HCLTech down by 0.83%, and Bajaj-Auto down by 0.67% were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the green; Hang Seng surged 156.58 points or 0.71% to 22,271.88, Jakarta Composite rose 39.51 points or 0.84% to 4,762.67, KLSE Composite jumped 7.94 points or 0.49% to 1,634.83, Nikkei 225 soared 231.55 points or 1.88% to 12,569.20, Straits Times increased 15.00 points or 0.46% to 3,273.20, KOSPI Composite added 25.24 points or 1.30% to 1,973.95 and Taiwan Weighted was up by 67.61 points or 0.87% to 7,863.83.

On the flip side, Shanghai Composite was down by 3.79 points or 0.16% to 2,324.49.