Post Session: Quick Review

Indian equity markets witnessed some recovery on Friday after suffering a sharp set-back in the previous session, partly stoked by worries of Fed unwinding its monetary stimulus earlier than expected and partly tailing the brutal massacre in Asian counterparts. Benchmarks, snapping four consecutive sessions’ declining streak, notched higher, as investors’ saw the recent dips as the opportunity to enter into the market. However, the gains of local equity markets remained quite restricted on account of cautious approach by select traders going to the F&O expiry week. Benchmark 30 share index, Sensex gaining over quarter of a percent, ended above the psychological 19,700 mark, while widely followed index, Nifty, gaining similar magnitude of gains, ended just shy of the crucial 6000 mark. Broader indices too enticing traction for the session went home with gains of over a quarter percent. Despite negotiating a positive close for the session, both benchmark equity indices, Sensex and Nifty, snapped the week, with colossal loss of over 3%. For the week, NSE Midcap index plummeted by 4.5% and BSE Smallcap index shaved off close to 3.5%.

On the global front, Asian shares traded erratically on Friday but European markets found their footing in early trade, which was more seen as small technical bounce after their biggest one-day fall in nearly a year. Meanwhile, Wall Street looked set for a muted start ahead of the release of durable goods data for April.

Closer home, the uptrend at D-street was mainly led by stocks belonging to Consumer Durables, Metal and Capital Goods sector. Larsen & Toubro, which climbed 3% after the recent sell-off in previous two sessions was seen as overdone, mainly lifted the Capital Goods (CG) sector higher. Meanwhile, banking space was mainly led by private sector banks. Stocks of ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Yes Bank gained in the range of 0.50-2.50%. On the flip side, due to sharp plunge of Wockhardt, Health Care Counter was the worst performer amongst the sectoral space, following the suite were stocks from Information Technology and Auto counters. However, shares in Wockhardt recovered substantial ground after plummeting 19% in intra-day trade, lowest since August 2012, after the US Food and Drug Administration imposed an 'import alert' on a plant operated by the generic drug maker. The market breadth on the BSE ended positive; advances and declining stocks were in a ratio of 1190: 1098, while 146 scrips remained unchanged. (Provisional) Meanwhile, trade of close to 2.5 lac crore was done in terms of volume turnover.

The BSE Sensex gained 56.94 points or 0.29% to settle at 19731.27.The index touched a high and a low of 19833.14 and 19568.49 respectively. Among the 30-share Sensex pack, 15 stocks gained while rest of them declined (Provisional)

The BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices ended higher by 0.49% and 0.38% respectively. (Provisional)

On the BSE Sectoral front, Consumer Durables up by 2.12%, Metal up by 1.86%, Capital Goods up by 1.60%, Bankex up by 1.12% and Power up by 0.95% were the top gainers, while Health Care down by 1.02%, IT down by 0.47% and Teck down by 0.34%, were the only losers in the space. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Steel up by 4.56%, Tata Power up by 3.75%, L&T up by 2.70%, ICICI Bank up by 2.60% and Sterlite Industries up by 1.63%, while, Sun Pharma down by 3.67%, Hindalco Industries down by 1.70%, Cipla down by 1.63%, TCS down by 1.59% and BHEL down by 1.51% were the top losers in the index. (Provisional)

Meanwhile, the share of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) is expected to increase up to 50% in India's total exports by the end of 12th Plan (2012-2017) from 36% now on account of increasing demand from the western and emerging markets. The US and Europe which together account for 60% of the country's total exports.

MSME’s Minister K H Muniyappa said that adequate credit is paramount to the success of micro and small units and the government is implementing the Credit Guarantee Scheme to ensure better flow of credit to these enterprises by minimizing risk perception of banks/financial institutions in lending without collateral security.

Further, the scheme provides guarantee cover of up to 85% on collateral free credit facility to new and existing units for loans up to Rs 100 lakh. By adding further, the minister said, till April 2013, more than 11 lakh proposals have been approved under the scheme providing guarantee cover for total sanctioned amount of Rs 54,322 crore.

Moreover, the government has set up a six-member inter-ministerial committee under the chairmanship of Finance Secretary R S Gujral which will suggest measures to boost the MSME exports. The sector contributes around 8% of the country's GDP, 45% of the manufactured output and provides employment to over 8 crore persons engaged in over 3.6 crore units, producing more than 6,000 products.  

India VIX, a gauge for markets short term expectation of volatility lost 5.49 % at 17.70 from its previous close of 18.73 on Thursday. (Provisional)

The CNX Nifty gained 27.65 points or 0.46 % to settle at 5,994.70. The index touched high and low of 6,015.30 and 5,936.80 respectively. 34 stocks advanced against 16 declining and one stock remains unchanged on the index. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Nifty were Maruti Suzuki up by 7.86%, Tata Steel up by 4.77%, Tata Power up by 3.98%, Lupin up by 2.94% and Larsen & Toubro was up by 2.90%. On the other hand, Sun Pharmaceuticals down by 3.11%, BHEL down by 1.61%, CIPLA down by 1.53%, TCS down by 1.39% and Ranbaxy down by 1.32% were the top losers. (Provisional)

Most of the European markets were trading in red with, Germany’s DAX down by 0.70% and the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 down by 0.61% while France’s CAC 40 up by 0.04%.

Asian markets recovered after heavy falls a day earlier and ended mostly higher with Japan’s Nikkei surging back from its worst one-day drop since the March 2011 quake-tsunami disaster as investors moved to recoup losses. Chinese stocks went home with green mark after recovering from biggest slump in a month, as gains by health-care and technology stocks overshadowed losses among property developers. Japanese stocks closed with strong gains, as yen drifted lower against the dollar. Hong Kong stocks ended lower in volatile trade.

Stock markets in Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan remained closed for a public holiday.