Sensex, Nifty continue to trade in green

Indian equities pared gains but continued to trade in green in the late morning session. As investors continued to lap up banking stocks ahead of their quarterly results, with hopes of a rate cut by the Reserve Bank of India at its policy meet next month. On the global front, Asian markets were a mixed bag while Japanese Nikkei which surged nearly five-year highs in early deals, after a meeting of global finance leaders lent support to Japan’s aggressive monetary policy.  Back home, the traders were seen piling up positions in Consumer Durables, Bankex and Capital Goods, while selling was seen in IT, Teck and FMCG sector. In scrip specific actions, MTNL gained after the government formed a panel to look into the revival of BSNL and MTNL. Tata Motors soared after unit Jaguar Land Rover China chief said it aims to increase its sales by 20-30 percent this year in China, its biggest market. Tata Elxsi dropped after weak Q4 earnings.

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading just above their psychological 5,800 and 19,000 levels respectively.

The market breadth on BSE was showing positive trend with advances to declines in ratio of 1002: 655.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 19073.03, up by 56.57 points or 0.30% after trading in a range of 19144.47 and 18989.78. There were 17 stocks advancing against 13 declines on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.51% and Small cap index was up by 0.67%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Consumer Durables up by 2.25%, Bankex up by 1.74%, Capital Goods up by 1.53%, Metal up by 1.17% and PSU up by 0.82% while, IT down by 2.48%, Teck down by 1.66% and FMCG down by 0.33% were the losers on the BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Coal India up by 3.44%, HDFC Bank up by 2.30%, L&T up by 1.91%, Hero MotoCorp up by 1.52% and SBI up by 1.26%.

On the flip side, Wipro was down by 9.36%, Infosys was down by 2.35%, Dr Reddys Lab was down by 1.78%, Mahindra & Mahindra was down by 1.30% and ONGC was down by 1.00% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, Highlighting that India’s economy is facing only a temporary downturn, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed the need for increasing investments across all sectors and create an investment-friendly climate as soon as possible to correct the economy’s growth. While, inaugurating 8th Civil Services Day function, Manmohan Singh said that investment across sectors will help us emerge from the existing difficult situation. Therefore, the government has taken a major initiative in setting up the Cabinet Committee on Investment (CII) for fast-tracking industrial and infrastructural projects.

By adding further, Singh said that since the last two decades, the role of the government has undergone a major transformation in many sectors of the economy as it moved far away from the command and control economy of the earlier times. Ensuring that good governance and managing the economy today are complex tasks, Manmohan Singh said that our Civil Services must have the required sets of skills to manage this complexity, which is a major challenge. 

Regarding the agriculture sector, he said that agriculture sector plays an important role in strengthening rural economy and suggested that the best and brightest civil servants should come in this field. Further, there is the need to put efforts for developing skills in young men and women both in rural and urban areas, to enable them to gain productive employment and to reap advantage of country's immense potential.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,809.55 up by 26.45 points or 0.46% after trading in a range of 5,833.45 and 5,789.80.

There were 32 stocks advancing against 18 declines on the index. The top gainers of the Nifty were IndusInd Bank up by 4.05%, Coal India up by 3.42%, HDFC Bank up by 2.47%, BPCL up by 2.44% and Axis Bank up by 2.33%.

On the flip side, Infosys down by 3.08%, HCL Tech down by 2.07%, Dr Reddy's Laboratories down by 2.05%, UltraTech Cement down by 1.87%, and IDFC down by 1.52%, were the major losers on the index.

Asian equity indices were a mixed bag; Nikkei 225 surged 224.37points or 1.68% to 13,539.59, Straits Times jumped 2.65 points or 0.09% to 3,297.00, KOSPI Composite added 14.84 points or 0.78% to 1,921.48 and Taiwan Weighted was up by 25.75 points or 0.32% to 7,956.55.

On the flip side, Shanghai Composite declined 10.74 points or 0.48% to 2,233.90, KLSE Composite was down by 0.35 points or 0.02% to 1,705.91, Hang Seng slumped 49.14 points or 0.22% to 21,964.43 and Jakarta Composite decreased 7.19 points or 0.14% to 4,991.27.