Sensex, Nifty continue to trade in red

Indian benchmarks have traded range-bound with a negative bias in the late morning session on back of profit-booking in rate-sensitive sectors and other front-liners after benchmark indices surged for four consecutive trading days. Investors preferred to remain on the side-lines ahead of the Reserve Bank of India’s monetary policy meet next week. On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in the green at this point of time with Japanese Nikkei stock average surging about half a percent higher in early deals, after hitting its highest since June 2008 on Thursday, ahead of the Bank of Japan’s meeting today. 

Back home, the traders were seen piling up positions in Realty, Consumer Durables and Metal, while selling was seen in Bankex, IT and Health Care sector. In scrip specific actions, Idea Cellular surges on reporting better-than-expected 30 percent rise in quarterly profit. ICICI Bank slumped ahead of its Jan-March earnings later in the day. Coal India dropped on reports that it will import fuel of about 5.8 million tonnes in 2013-14 for the first time since it cannot meet the domestic demands.

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading just above their psychological 5,850 and 19,300 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was showing positive trend with advances to declines in ratio of 814: 784.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 19339.55, down by 67.30 points or 0.35% after trading in a range of 19384.95 and 19314.48. There were 14 stocks advancing against 16 declines on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.09% and Small cap index was up by 0.25%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Realty up by 0.80%, Consumer Durables up by 0.32%, Metal up by 0.30%, TECK up by 0.14% and Capital Goods up by 0.03% while, Bankex down by 1.35%, IT down by 0.92%, Health Care down by 0.31%, FMCG down by 0.28%, and Auto down by 0.24% were the losers on the BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bharti Airtel up by 5.12%, Gail India up by 1.70%, Coal India up by 1.18%, Bajaj Auto up by 1.02% and Sterlite Industries up by 1.00%.

On the flip side, Jindal Steel was down by 2.43%, Hero MotoCorp was down by 2.04%, ICICI Bank was down by 1.89%, Mahindra & Mahindra was down by 1.86% and TCS  was down by 1.81% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, Concerned over the land acquisition bill, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), an apex business organization has said that the proposed land acquisition bill should balance the interests of the farmers and the industry. 

The FICCI president Naina Lal Kidwai said that the proposed bill has become a concern for the industry as some of the proposed changes in it are not in line with the way of growth and employment. The bill proposes the payment of compensation to land owners that is up to four times the market value in rural areas and two times the market value in urban areas. Kidwai further stated that the application of Rehabilitation and Resettlement (R&R) to private transactions on willing buyer willing seller basis defies economic logic.

Though the industry body said that it favours fair compensation for land owners but on the other hand it needs to be ensured that land is available to industry at competitive rates, without delays and with certainty.

In an all party meeting most of the political parties consented over the much-awaited land acquisition bill after the government gave in to a key demand of opposition for 50 per cent compensation to farmers and sorted out certain other sticky issues. As per the proposed bill, permission of 80 percent of landowners would be required to acquire land for private industrial projects and in case of Public-Private Partnership projects permission of 70 percent of the landowners would be mandatory. The bill also has provisions to return the unutilized land to the land losers. 

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,886.25 down by 30.05 points or 0.51% after trading in a range of 5,907.05 and 5,879.15. There were 21 stocks advancing against 29 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Bharti Airtel up by 5.20%, Gail up by 2.00%, Asian Paints up by 1.97%, DLF up by 1.46% and Coal India up by 1.31%.

On the flip side, HCL Tech down by 3.07%, Jindal Steel & Power down by 2.51%, Grasim down by 2.29%, Axis Bank down by 2.22% and Indusind bank down by 2.09%, were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in green; Hang Seng surged by 229.54 points or 1.02% to 22,, 630.78, Jakarta Composite increased 6.28 points or 0.13% to 5,000.80, KLSE Composite rose 8.73 points or 0.51% to 1,715.07, Nikkei 225 jumped 1.89 points or 0.01% to 13,929.36, Straits Times added 6.49 points or 0.19% to 3,344.20 and Taiwan Weighted was up by 7.47 points or 0.09% to 8,028.65.

On the flip side, Shanghai Composite declined 10.86 points or 0.49% to 2,188.45 and KOSPI Composite was down by 5.51 points or 0.28% to 1,946.07.