Sensex, Nifty trade marginally in green

Indian equities have pared their opening gains and are trading marginally in green in the late morning session. Sentiments got some support from sustained buying by foreign funds and retail investors, driven by a firming trend in the Asian region after US markets surged to new record high in Tuesday’s trade. Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) have been buying Indian stocks, which has supported bullish sentiments on the Street.

On the global front, most of the Asian equity were trading in green at this point of time as strong Chinese trade data added to positive sentiment already bolstered by record highs overnight for US and German stocks. China’s exports rose 14.7% in April, while imports grew 16.8%, leaving the country with a trade surplus of $18.16 billion for the month.

Back home, the traders were seen piling up positions in Oil & Gas, FMCG and Health Care, while selling was seen in Capital Goods, Realty and Power sector. In scrip specific actions, Infosys rose on collaborating with SAP on development of mobile applications for the retail industry. Shriram Transport Finance Company gained on company’s board of directors at its meeting held on Tuesday, 7 May 2013, approved raising of funds by way of a public issue of secured, redeemable non-convertible debentures not exceeding Rs 2000 crore in one or more tranche. Brigade Enterprises jumped on the back of strong earnings, revenues up at Rs 300 crore while margins have improved to 23.9 percent. Its net profit jumped to Rs 28.3 crore.RPG Life Sciences soared after reporting a net profit of Rs 7.40 crore in Q4FY13, as against net loss of Rs 5.69 crore during the corresponding quarter of previous fiscal. Net sales increased by 37% to 56.34 crore from Rs 41.23 crore during the recently concluded quarter. Dewan Housing Finance surged on reporting a more-than-double net profit at Rs 197 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2013 (Q4) against profit of Rs 94 crore in a year ago quarter. Allahabad Bank dropped on posting 68.5% dip in net profit at Rs 126.15 crore on account of rise in bad loans. Oracle Financial Services slumped after the January-March profits dipped 47 percent Y-o-Y and slightly higher Q-o-Q to Rs 266.3 crore. Jubilant Lifesciences slipped after reporting a consolidated net loss of Rs 31 crore vs loss of Rs 63.5cr Y-o-Y. Margins have also dropped to 17 percent vs 20.2 percent Y-o-Y while net sales grew 15.5 percent to Rs 1388 crore

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading just above their psychological 6,000 and 19,900 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was showing positive trend with advances to declines in ratio of 907: 765.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 19946.10, up by 57.15 points or 0.29% after trading in a range of 19989.64 and 19913.22. There were 15 stocks advancing against 15 declines on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.15% and Small cap index was up by 0.43%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Oil & Gas up by 0.60%, FMCG up by 0.44%, Health Care up by 0.26%, IT up by 0.13%, Teck up by 0.12% and while, Capital Goods down by 0.60%, Realty down by 0.43%, Power down by 0.42%, Consumer Durables down by 0.20% and Bankex down by 0.15% were the losers on the BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were HDFC up by 1.92%, Tata Motors up by 1.84%, ONGC up by 1.31%, TCS up by 0.81% and Hindustan Unilever up by 0.79%. On the flip side, Hero MotoCorp  was down by 1.66%, Mahindra & Mahindra was down by 1.24% , L&T  was down by 1.13%,  NTPC was down by 1.11%, and BHEL was down by 1.04% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, Resolving the issue of fixing coal prices, a Group of Ministers (GoM) panel has decided that coal producers will continue to determine the prices of fuel rather than proposed regulator for the coal sector, which is expected to be set-up soon. The regulator, however, will be empowered to resolve issues including disputes arising out of fuel supply agreements (FSAs) and quality of fuel among others.

Regarding the set-up of coal authority, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said that an agreement has been arrived upon on the contents of the Coal Regulatory Authority Bill to set up the regulator and the law ministry has been asked to re-draft some sections of the bill. All the sections were examined carefully and re-drafted bill will come back to the GoM for formal approval and then it will move to the Cabinet for discussion, he added.

An independent regulator for the sector is considered important for improving competitiveness in the e-auctions, fixing guidelines for price revision, setting trading margins and increasing transparency in the allocation of reserves. Currently, a lot of coal projects have been blocked for long due to various reasons including delays in environment and forest clearances among others.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,051.10 up by 7.55 points or 0.12% after trading in a range of 6,070.15 and 6,045.90. There were 24 stocks advancing against 26 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Tata Motors up by 1.96%, Lupin up by 1.90%, HDFC up by 1.83%, ONGC up by 1.42% and BPCL up by 1.03%. On the flip side, Ranbaxy down by 2.16%, Hero MotoCorp down by 1.69%, Ambuja Cement down by 1.57%, Rel Infra down by 1.51% and DLF down by 1.27% were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in green; Shanghai Composite rose 5.51 points or 0.25% to 2,241.54, Hang Seng jumped 148.02 points or 0.64% to 23,195.11, Jakarta Composite increased 29.52 points or 0.59% to 5,072.31, Nikkei 225 surged 136.95 points or 0.97% to 14,317.19, Straits Times soared 29.63 points or 0.82% to 3,411.86, and Taiwan Weighted was up by 100.00 points or 1.23% to 8,263.06.

On the flip side, KLSE Composite was down by 2.02 points or 0.11% to 1,774.71 and KOSPI Composite  down  by  0.89 points or 0.05% to 1,953.46.