Benchmarks trade marginally in green

The Indian equities continued flat but positive trade in the late morning session. Sentiments got some support by a firming trend in the Asian region following overnight gains on the US markets ahead of the January-March corporate earnings season. On the global front, Asian markets too traded firmly in the late morning supported by the report of easing inflation in China from a 10-month high. The country’s inflation came in at 2.1 per cent in March, down from the 10-month-high of 3.2 per cent seen the month before and even below the estimated 2.4 per cent mark. The Japanese markets too traded in green in early trades as the yen sank to multi-year lows.

Back home, the traders were seen piling up positions in Metal, Realty and Capital Goods, while selling was seen in Teck, IT and Oil & Gas sector. In scrip specific actions, Cairn India gained after the company announced an oil discovery in the Rajasthan block in northwest India. Bharti Airtel slipped after the Supreme Court of India has deferred a decision on whether Bharti Airtel’s chairman can be summoned in a case over alleged corruption in allocating mobile phone bandwidth, lawyers said on Monday. Kingfisher Airlines slumped after Delhi HC asked DGCA to deregister 2 planes leased out to KFA lying at Istanbul. Wipro tumbled after the company demerged its non-IT businesses like consumer care & lighting into a new company to focus exclusively on IT services business.

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading just above their psychological 5500 and 18,400 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was showing positive trend with advances to declines in ratio of 1009: 586.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 18455.52, up by 17.74 points or 0.10% after trading in a range of 18521.73 and 18436.61. There were 18 stocks advancing against 12 declines on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.35% and Small cap index was up by 0.45%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Metal up by 1.03%, Realty up by 0.87%, Capital Goods up by 0.80%, Auto up by 0.76% and Bankex up by 0.49% while, Teck down by 0.94%, IT down by 0.93% and Oil & Gas down by 0.14%were the losers on the BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Jindal Steel up by 2.83%, Tata Motors up by 1.97%, ICICI Bank up by 1.54%, Tata Steel up by 1.18% and L&T up by 1.16%. On the flip side, Wipro was down by 10.80%, Bharti Airtel was down by 2.24%, Dr Reddys Lab was down by 1.18% ,Infosys was down by 0.99%, and RIL was down by 0.66% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, rising production of intermediate goods and the government's reform initiatives led the business climate in the country to improve in the month of March. As per the BluFin Business Cycle Indicator (BCI), which reflects various macro-economic trends on a monthly basis, stood at 166.6 points in March, 4.7% higher compared to the same month last year, suggesting that the Indian economy is growing at a faster rate than the previous year.

The key factors behind the strong improvement were improving foreign trade statistics, rising production of intermediate goods, moderating international metal prices and policy reforms leading to shrinking expenditures, rising revenues and lower government borrowing. In addition to this, indicators such as earnings from railway freight traffic and electricity production have also shown a significant improvement compared to the same time last year, however, domestic air travel and a weak currency impacted the growth.   

Further, the report also highlighted that the recovery signaled by the BCI is riding primarily on an improving intermediate sector, apart from a declining interest rate regime. On infrastructure sector it said that, the rise in Gross Fixed Capital Formation over the past few quarters indicating rising government investment in infrastructure projects corroborates the improvement in this sector.

Indicating a reversal in the economic slowdown since July 2012, financial information provider BluFin also expects that the economic growth in India will gather momentum by the second quarter of FY14. However, it appears that the recovery in the quarters to come is likely to be slower than in the past recoveries.  

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,563.40 up by 20.45 points or 0.37% after trading in a range of 5,580.60 and 5,558.45. There were 38 stocks advancing against 12 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Cairn up by 2.86%, Jindal Steel up by 2.42%, Ambuja Cements up by 2.32%, ACC up by 2.01% and Tata Motors up by 1.99%. On the flip side, Bharti Airtel down by 2.00%, Infosys down by 1.07%, Dr Reddys Lab down by 0.96%, Asian Paint down by 0.75% and Reliance down by 0.65% were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in green; Shanghai Composite rose 9.83 points or 0.44% to 2,221.42, Hang Seng surged 239.89 points or 1.10% to 21,957.94, Jakarta Composite increased 14.31 points or 0.29% to 4,911.83, KLSE Composite added 1.35 points or 0.08% to 1,689.34, Nikkei 225 jumped 42.03 points or 0.32% to 13,234.62, KOSPI Composite gained 2.21 points or 0.12% to 1,920.90 and Straits Times was up by 20.26 points or 0.62% to 3,304.87. On the flip side, Taiwan Weighted was down by 10.53 points or 0.12% to 7,743.47.