Benchmarks wipe off initial gains, Sensex edges below 20K level

Extending gains for the fourth-straight day, the Indian benchmarks after opening strong, soon shed their initial gains and were lurching marginally in the negative zone in the late morning session. The decline though not as prominent, however showed signs of minor profit booking in stocks across the bourses. On the global front, Asian markets were trading in mixed while South Korean Kospi edged higher by over a percent after the central bank of Korea unexpectedly cut interest rates by 25 basis points to 2.50%, the first cut in seven months.

Back home, the traders were seen piling up positions in IT, Teck and FMCG, while selling was seen in Capital Goods, Health Care and Realty sector. In scrip specific actions, HDFC gained after it reported 17% year-on-year (yoy) jump in net profit at Rs 1,555 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2013. India’s largest mortgage lender had profit of Rs 1,326 crore in a year ago quarter. Further, the directors have recommended a dividend of Rs 12.50 per share on face value of Rs 2 per share. ITC rose as Uttar Pradesh government on Wednesday slashed VAT on cigarette/cigar from existing 50% to 25%, official sources said here. The decision was taken at the cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav. ABB slumped on reporting net profit fell 10.66% to Rs 42.56 crore on 10% rise in total income to Rs 1971.40 crore in Q1 March 2013 over Q1 March 2012.

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 negative trend with advances to declines in ratio of 825: 851.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 19961.25, down by 28.93 points or 0.14% after trading in a range of 20058.48 and 19948.45. There were 14 stocks advancing against 16 declines on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.01% and Small cap index was down by 0.18%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, IT up by 1.01%, Teck up by 0.80%, FMCG up by 0.51%, Consumer Durables up by 0.13% and FMCG up by 0.07% while, Capital Goods down by 0.96%, Health Care down by 0.77%, Realty down by 0.71%, Power down by 0.67%, and Bankex down by 0.60% were the losers on the BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were TCS up by 1.47%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 0.94%, Wipro up by 0.81%, HDFC up by 0.75% and Hero MotoCorp up by 0.61%. On the flip side, Sun Pharma was down by 1.97%, L&T was down by 1.26%,Tata Motors was down by 1.23%, Maruti Suzuki was down by 0.94%,and  RIL was down by 0.92% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, in a move to develop the country’s infrastructure, the government is planning to develop industrial cities with world class infrastructure as part of the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) project, which is expected to attract investment of about $90-100 billion over the next thirty years.

During the first phase of DMIC project, the government has approved financial assistance of Rs 17,500 crore at an average of Rs 2,500 crore per city (subject to a ceiling of Rs 3,000 crore per city) for the development of seven industrial cities including Dadri-Noida-Ghaziabad Investment Region and Ahmedabad-Dholera Investment Region among others. The project also proposed three airports in Rajasthan and Gujarat. Meanwhile, Japan is also providing financial and technical aid for the project. 

Minister of State for Commerce and Industry D Purandeswari said that this project would generate employment to about 2.8 crore people and the employment needed to create the estimated value of output is estimated to be 9.1 million in 2020, 17.5 million in 2030 and 28.7 million in 2040.

Referring to the requirement of land for project, the minister said that the process of land acquisition is in progress is various states. The contribution of the state government will be in the form of land and the cities would be launched with the development of townships of 25-50 sq km which are envisaged to be completed by the end of 2019.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,058.95 down by 10.35 points or 0.17% after trading in a range of 6,084.70 and 6,053.95. There were 18 stocks advancing against 31 declines while 1 stock remains unchanged on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were HCL Tech up by 4.21%, TCS up by 1.26%, Asian Paints up by 1.14%, Ambuja Cement up by 1.09% and UltraTech Cement up by 1.07%. On the flip side, Axis Bank down by 2.11%, Sun Pharmaceuticals down by 1.86%, Ranbaxy down by 1.71%, PNB down by 1.61% and LT down by 1.24%, were the major losers on the index.

Asian equity indices were trading in mixed; Straits Times surged 16.63 points or 0.48% to 3,429.40, KOSPI Composite soared 23.40 points or 1.20% to 1, 9780.03 and Taiwan Weighted was up by 20.19 points or 0.24% to 8,286.71. On the flip side, Shanghai Composite declined 16.96 points or 0.76% to 2,229.34, Hang Seng contracted 110.86 points or 0.48% to 23,133.49 , KLSE Composite was down by 6.16 points or 0.35% to 1,767.84 and  Nikkei 225  down  by  43.13 points or 0.30% to 14,242.43,

Indonesian market remained shut for the trade today.