Benchmarks continue to trade in green

Indian benchmarks have continued to trade in the green holding on to their gains through the late morning session on sustained buying by funds and retail investors led by robust Q4 earnings from Reliance and HCL Technologies amid firm Asian cues. Sentiments got some support a better trend in the Asian region, following overnight gains on US markets, following on the back of positive corporate earnings .On the global front, Asian markets were trading in green with Japanese Nikkei surging about a percent as the yen weakened after the IMF raised the growth forecast for Japan.

Back home, the traders were seen piling up positions in Realty, Metal and Bankex, while selling was seen in Oil & Gas, IT and Teck sector. In scrip specific development, Public sector oil marketing companies (OMCs) viz. BPCL, HPCL and IOC edged higher on Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s statement that the government is considering freeing prices of locally produced oil and natural gas from state controls in a bid to lure more foreign investment

In scrip specific actions, SBI jumped after the bank said it has an external commercial borrowing (ECB) pipeline from corporates of up to $600 million.HCL Technologies  soared  after the company’s earnings beat analysts’ estimates with a 73 percent rise in quarterly profit after winning orders and keeping a lid on hiring’. HMT surged as the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) is likely to consider an over Rs 1000 crore revival package for the company today. Puravankara Projects gained ahead of earnings expected today. The company has been posting very steady earnings due to improvement in the Bangalore market. TCS slumped ahead of its earnings today. RIL dropped despite on reporting a net profit of Rs 5,589 crore in January-March as against Rs 4,236 crore in the same period a year ago.

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading just above their psychological 5,700 and 18,700 levels respectively.

The market breadth on BSE was showing positive trend with advances to declines in ratio of 1008: 551. The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 18,765.93, up by 21.00 points or 0.11% after trading in a range of 18,832.05 and 18,703.26. There were 24 stocks advancing against 6 declines on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.90% and Small cap index was up by 0.72%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Realty up by 2.25%, Metal up by 1.62%, Bankex up by 1.09%, PSU up by 0.97% and Consumer Durables up by 0.79% while, Oil & Gas down by 1.09%, IT down by 0.50% and  Teck down by 0.28% were the losers on the BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were SBI up by 2.16%, Sterlite Industries up by 1.94%, Coal India up by 1.88%, Bajaj Auto up by 1.82% and Tata Steel up by 1.44%.

On the flip side, RIL was down by 2.38%, TCS was down by 1.24%, Dr Reddys Lab was down by 1.02%, Wipro was down by 0.86% and Infosys was down by 0.68% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, As per the World Economic Outlook (WEO) report, Indian economy is projected to grow by 5.7% in 2013 and 6.2% in the next year as against world output growth of 3.25% and 4% respectively in the same period. Further, global prospects have improved again however the road to recovery in the advanced economies still remains uneven.

To be more precise, emerging market and developing economies are still going strong, but in advanced economies, there appears to be a growing split between the US on one hand and the euro-zone on the other. Emerging and developing economies are expected to grow by 5.3% in 2013 and 5.7% in 2014, while growth in the US is projected to be 1.9% in 2013 and 3% in 2014.

Referring to the Euro-zone growth outlook, the report said growth in the euro area is forecast to be -0.3% in 2013 and 1.1% in 2014. The forecast for negative growth in the euro-zone reflects not only weakness in the periphery but also some weakness in the core businesses.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,708.20 up by 19.25 points or 0.34% after trading in a range of 5,723.65 and 5,682.25.

There were 37 stocks advancing against 12 declines while 1 stock remained unchanged on the index. The top gainers of the Nifty were Ambuja Cements up by 2.63%, PNB up by 2.15%, SBI up by 2.12%, Coal India up by 1.97% and DLF up by 1.96%.

On the flip side, Reliance Industries down by 2.21%, Dr Reddy's Laboratories down by 1.22%, TCS down by 1.16%, Infosys down by 0.64% and BPCL down by 0.63%, were the major losers on the index.

The most of Asian equity indices were trading in green; Jakarta Composite rose 35.57 points or 0.72% to 4,980.83, KLSE Composite surged 9.36 points or 0.55% to 1,709.89, Nikkei 225 soared 155.35 points or 1.17% to 13,376.79, Hang Seng rose 21.83 points or 0.10% to 21,693.86, Taiwan Weighted was up by 12.83 points or 0.16% to 7,813.33 and Straits Times was up by 5.52 points or 0.17% to 3,297.04.

On the other hand, Shanghai Composite declined 14.14 points or 0.64% to 2,180.70, KOSPI Composite dropped 0.81 points or 0.04% to 1,921.40.