Markets continue positive trade; consumer durables leading rally

Following a negative start and subsequent retreat, Indian equity markets pared some early gains but trading in positive territory in the late morning session on Friday. Meanwhile, markets sentiments remained charged with a pleasant surprise that, India's annual industrial output growth measured by index of industrial production (IIP) grew by 2.5% for the month of March 2013, not only higher than the previous month’s figure of 0.6%, but also higher than street’s expectation. In currency market, rupee continued its southward journey after touching more than three-week low against greenback in opening deals on the back of increase in demand for American currency from importers. On the sectoral front, consumer durables, auto, bank and oil stocks were trading in green, while metal and FMCG stocks were trading in red.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mixed on Friday with Japanese equities soared to a 5-1/2-year peak as the dollar's break above the symbolic 100 yen level underpinned sentiment. Back home, the market breadth was favoring positive trend; there were 794 shares on the losing side against 743 shares on the gaining side, while 82 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 19,963.97, up by 24.93 points or 0.13% after trading in a range of 20,039.35 and 19,908.80. There were 20 stocks advancing against 10 declines on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.18% and Small cap index was up by 0.39%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Consumer Durables up by 1.59%, Auto up by 1.28%, PSU up by 0.58%, Oil & Gas up by 0.37% and Bankex up by 0.27%, while Metal down by 0.19% and FMCG down by 0.02% were the top losers on the BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Maruti Suzuki up by 3.08%, Hero MotoCorp up by 2.20%, ONGC up by 2.09%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.67% and Dr Reddys Lab up by 1.44%.

On the flip side, Jindal Steel was down by 2.11%, HDFC was down by 1.53%, Sun Pharma was down by 1.31%, Coal India was down by 1.26% and Cipla was down by 0.84% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, concerned over the declining export growth, the Commerce Ministry has decided to work out a new ‘long term strategy’ to deal with the external sector issues like widening trade deficit and boosting shipments. The meeting, which was headed by Commerce Secretary S R Rao, identified various factors contributing to lower exports than projected and decided to formulate a discussion paper as part of the mid-term review of the existing strategy paper.

Further, the paper would also focus on the sector wise policy measures and the steps which need to be taken to boost overall exports and the discussion paper is expected to come out by June end. Moreover, the ministry would also consult with all the stakeholders, including export promotion councils and other sectoral ministries like agriculture. After receiving feedback from all concerned stakeholders, the ministry would then develop a long term strategy for the entire 12th Five Year Plan period and the draft strategy is likely to be finalized by end of December 2013.

Recently, the government had set the exports target to $325 billion for FY14 which is less than the previous fiscal's exports target of $360 billion due to the prevailing global economic slowdown which has impacted trades all over the world with India being no exception. The exports declined by 1.76% to $300.6 billion during FY13 which were the first ever decline since FY10 and pushed up the trade deficit during the fiscal to $190.91 billion from $183.4 billion in the previous financial year.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,054.50 up by 4.35 points or 0.07% after trading in a range of 6,079.80 and 6,045.60. There were 29 stocks advancing against 20 declines while 1 stock remains unchanged on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Maruti Suzuki up by 2.96%, Hero Moto Co up by 2.26%, ONGC up by 2.19%, Lupin up by 2.18% and IndusInd Bank up by 2.16%.

On the flip side, PNB down by 2.01%, Jindal Steel down by 1.95%, HDFC down by 1.69%, Sun Pharma down by 1.43% and Coal India down by 1.28% were the major losers on the index.

Asian equity indices were trading in mixed; Shanghai Composite rose 0.27%, KLSE Composite jumped 0.09%, Nikkei 225 soared 2.93% and Straits Times was up by 0.21%.  On the flip side, Hang Seng declined 0.04%, KOSPI Composite dropped 1.75%, Taiwan Weighted was down by 0.07% and Jakarta Composite decreased marginally 0.04%.