Benchmarks trade in fine fettle in early deals; Nifty surpasses 6,100 mark

Extending their two days rally, key domestic benchmarks have made a positive start with both the frontline gauges surpassing their crucial 20,100 (Sensex) and 6,100 (Nifty) levels in Tuesday’s morning trade supported by positive cues from other regional peers. Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in green at this point of time with Japanese Nikkei surging over a percent, regaining stability following extreme volatility in recent days, as some investors picked up battered stocks, including blue-chips Toyota Motor Corp and Sony Corp. Meanwhile, Seoul shares too were trading slightly higher, supported by gains in automakers and shipbuilding firms such as Hyundai Mobis and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering.

Back home, some support to the market came in from the Finance minister P Chidambaram’s statement that India’s growth story is here to stay. He said that the country has a huge potential and would continue to grow at 5-6% in the coming decades. Sentiments also remained upbeat after Coal India reported better than expected fourth quarter numbers. The company on consolidated basis reported 34.89% rise in net profit to Rs 5413.91 crore on 1.77% rise in total income to Rs 22111.07 crore in Q4 March 2013 over Q4 March 2012. 

On the sectoral front, public sector undertaking witnessed the maximum gain in trade followed by oil and gas and metal while, consumer durables remained the top losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices were trading in-line with benchmarks while, the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 807 shares on the gaining side against 469 shares on the losing side while 55 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 20,056.28; about 25 points higher compared to its previous closing of 20,030.77, and has touched a high and a low of 20,139.28 and 20,038.56 respectively. The index is currently trading at 20,127.59, up by 96.82 points or 0.48%. There were 18 stocks advancing against 12 declines on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a strong start with 60.63% stocks advancing against 35.24% declines. The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices up by 0.60% and 0.53% respectively. 

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, PSU up by 1.30%, Oil & Gas up by 1.10%, Metal up by 0.97%, Capital Goods up by 0.77% and Power up by 0.70% while, Consumer Durables down by 0.08% was the sole loser on the sectoral index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Coal India up by 3.54%, Bharti Airtel up by 2.26%, Gail India up by 1.83%, ONGC up by 1.47% and Jindal Steel up by 1.37%.

On the flip side, SBI was down by 0.68%, Hindalco Industries was down by 0.67%, BHEL was down by 0.51%, Wipro was down by 0.50% and  Tata Motors was down by 0.42% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, with a view to boost investment and promote growth, the government is working out norms for utilisation of surplus funds, estimated at around Rs 2.8 lakh crore of cash-rich public sector units (PSUs) including Coal India (CIL), ONGC, NMDC and OIL among other. Currently, a panel, constituted to review guidelines on investment of excess funds available with cash-rich CPSEs, has submitted its report to the Finance Ministry and once the report is finalized the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) will go ahead with new norms.

The panel, in its draft report has suggested various investment options such as term deposits, mutual funds, treasury bills and government securities wherein PSUs can invest their money. Further, the panel is also in process for rationalizing and consolidating the existing investment norms for CPSEs. Meanwhile, there are number of guidelines issued by the DPE in regard to investment by PSUs.

Since last fiscal, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has been monitoring investment and capital expenditure plans of about 17 major PSUs, to enhance investment in the economy by utilizing their substantial cash surpluses as the country is facing the issue of high fiscal deficit. Recently, finance ministry also asked cash-rich public sector entities (PSE) to consider buying government equity in other state-run firms to achieve Rs 40,000 crore disinvestment target in the current fiscal.   

The CNX Nifty opened at 6,086.35; about 3 points higher as compared to its previous closing of 6,083.15, and has touched a high and a low of 6,110.25 and 6,078.65 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 6,110.05, up by 26.90 points or 0.44%. There were 31 stocks advancing against 19 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Coal India up by 3.54%, JP Associate up by 1.80%, GAIL up by 2.59%, Bharti Airtel up by 2.43% and ONGC up by 1.84%.

On the flip side, UltraTech Cement down by 1.96%, Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 0.82%, Hindalco Industries down by 0.63%, BHEL down by 0.61% and Grasim down by 0.60% were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in green; Shanghai Composite rose 3.38 points or 0.15% to 2,296.46, Hang Seng increased 31.81 points or 0.14% to 22,717.86, Jakarta Composite surged 48.37 points or 0.95% to 5,133.50, KLSE Composite added 8.47 points or 0.48% to 1,775.60, Nikkei 225 soared 161.58 points or 1.14% to 14,304.23, Straits Times jumped 7.97 points or 0.24% to 3,399.27 and KOSPI Composite was up by 8.59 points or 0.43% to 1,988.56.

On the flip side, Taiwan Weighted was down by 9.41 points or 0.11% to 8,270.69.