Markets trade flat in positive territory; Nifty near 5,700 level

Indian equity markets are trading marginally higher in the late morning session on Tuesday amid alternate bouts of buying and selling. Investors were not that keen on building up positions, due to lack of prominent triggers. The Nifty trading near 5,700 level, while the Sensex was up 6.47 points. In currency markets, rupee depreciated against dollar on worries over record current account deficit, but inflows kept losses in check. On the sectoral front, capital goods, metals and pharma stocks were supporting the indices. Sugar stocks were trading up as the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) is expected to meet today and the sugar decontrol issue is on the agenda, while, auto stocks were reacting negatively to the dismal March sales numbers. On the global front, Asian shares were trading mostly lower as Japanese shares sank for a second straight day as the yen extended its recent gains. Back home, the market breadth was favoring positive trend; there were 1,391 shares on the gaining side against 869 shares on the losing side while 97 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 18,871.22, up by 6.47 points or 0.03% after trading in a range of 18,887.78 and 18,826.53. There were 17 stocks advancing against 13 declines on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap index were trading up by 0.66% and 1.00% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Metal up by 1.13%, Health Care up by 1.12%, Capital Goods up by 1.03%, Oil & Gas up by 0.91% and Consumer Durables up by 0.79%, while Realty down by 0.95%, FMCG down by 0.53%, Auto down by 0.50% and Bankex down by 0.31% were the top losers on the BSE. 

The top gainers on the Sensex were Sun Pharma up by 2.62%, Sterlite up by 2.56%, Wipro up by 2.19%, Jindal Steel up by 1.53% and ONGC up by 1.31%.  On the flip side, Bajaj Auto was down by 1.76%, Tata Motors was down by 1.28%, HDFC was down by 1.05%, Tata Power was down by 0.78% and ICICI Bank was down by 0.74% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, as per the industry chamber - ASSOCHAM’s sector-specific analysis titled 'Job Trends Across India in 2012-13’, new job generation across India has declined by 14.1% during the second half of financial year 2012-13 as against the corresponding period last year. Job creation was hurt mainly due to India's slowing economy and policy unpredictability, which had significantly slowed down fresh investments.

Among cities, Ahmedabad registered the steepest fall with 37.4%, followed by Pune at 23.2%, Mumbai 21.6%, Kolkata 18%, Chennai 11.3%, Bangalore 9.9% and Delhi/NCR 1.6%. To be more precise, a total of over 5.38 lakh jobs were generated during the financial year across India with 2.65 lakh jobs getting generated in the first half and 2.73 lakh jobs during the second half of the fiscal.

Sector-wise, information technology ranked on top with 1.2 lakh new jobs during the second half of 2012-13, followed by academics and education with over 19,500 jobs. In terms of growth, the aviation sector created the highest number of new jobs at over 72%, followed by human resources at 16.3%, academics and the education sector 8% and real estate 0.2%.

The industry chamber mainly source their inputs from data tracked on a daily basis for vacancies posted by about 4,000 companies via job portals and job-related advertisements in national and regional newspapers for about 56 cities and 32 sectors offering job opportunities.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,699.85 down by 4.55 points or 0.08% after trading in a range of 5,710.15 and 5,687.15. There were 29 stocks advancing against 21 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Sun Pharma up by 2.86%, Sesa Goa up by 2.74%, Cairn up by 1.82%, Jindal Steel up by 1.53% and IDFC up by 1.41%.

On the flip side, Bajaj-Auto down by 1.68%, UltraTech Cement down by 1.67%, DLF down by 1.38%, Tata Motors down by 1.36% and HDFC down by 1.25% were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in red; Shanghai Composite decreased 0.18%, Nikkei 225 dropped 1.08%, Hang Seng down by 0.03%, Straits Times down by 0.02% and KOSPI Composite was down by 0.49%.

On the flip side, Jakarta Composite up by 0.32%, KLSE Composite up by 0.40% and Taiwan Weighted was up by 0.18%.