Sensex, Nifty trade marginally in green

The benchmarks pared most of the intraday gains and are trading near the neutral line though marginally in green in the late morning session as the rupee fell to record low against the US dollar. The positive cues from global markets failed to provide support to the benchmarks. Key data to watch this week will be April industrial output data and May consumer price index on Wednesday while Wholesale price index inflation for May will be out on Friday. The data will be crucial in steering the RBI’s monetary policy review on June 17. Indian markets are expected to stay volatile amid fresh risks to FIIs inflows thrown up by weakening rupee. Inflation and IIP data will also be crucial for markets as they set the tone of Reserve Bank of India’s policy review on June 17.

On the global front, most of the Asian equity indices were trading in green at this point of time with Japanese market rebounding from the biggest weekly drop in a year as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan revised its growth to 4.1 per cent in first quarter. On the political front, Narendra Modi has been declared as BJP’s Arjuna in the 2014 Mahabharata. Powerplays have begun all around as political parties and leaders begin maneuvering on the checkered board in the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Maratha Strongman and NCP leader Sharad Pawar initiated a rejig of his team by asking 20 NCP ministers to resign. 

Back home, the traders were seen piling up positions in Teck, Capital Goods and Auto while selling was seen in Consumer Durables, Health Care and Bankex sector. In scrip specific development, Stocks like Infosys, TCS, Wipro and HCL Technologies edged higher after rupee dropped to a record low in late morning trade on Monday tracking gains in the US dollar after disappointing data from China and slightly better-than-expected US jobs data

In scrip specific actions, SAIL surged after the steel maker said it was going ahead with its joint venture with Japanese steelmaker Kobe steel to set up an iron ore nugget plant in Durgapur at an investment of Rs 1,500 crore for which environment assessment study is on. Arvind soared after the integrated textile company said it would build brand 'Arvind' into a Rs 2000 crore entity by 2017-18. L&T rose after a consortium of Larsen and Toubro and Japan-based Sojitz has bagged Rs 6,700-crore railway contract, one of the country's biggest, for construction of 640-km-long twin-track line that will form part of the western dedicated freight corridor (DFC).MCX jumped after the country's newest stock exchange, MCX-SX, will commence live trading on its dedicated debt- trading platform from today.

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading just below their psychological 5,900 and 19,500 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was showing positive trend with advances to declines in ratio of 927:728. The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 19444.07, up by 14.84 points or 0.08% after trading in a range of 19585.75 and 19419.07. There were 16 stocks advancing against 14 declines on the index. The broader indices were trading on mixed note; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.08% and Small cap index was up by 0.32%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Teck up by 0.39%, Capital Goods up by 0.39%, Auto up by 0.31%, Power up by 0.13% and FMCG up by 0.08% while, Consumer Durables down by 1.08%, Health Care down by 0.96%, Bankex down by 0.53%, Realty down by 0.13% and Oil & Gas down by 0.10% were the top losers on the BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Wipro up by 2.19%, Hero MotoCorp up by 1.69%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.19%, Bajaj Auto up by 1.02%, and TCS up by 0.96%. On the flip side, Sun Pharma was down by 1.98%, Jindal Steel was down by 1.88%, Bharti Airtel was down by 1.04% , Maruti Suzuki was down by 0.84% and ICICI Bank was down by 0.83%  were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, Strengthening appeals for a cut in lending rate by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its forthcoming monetary policy review, FICCI survey, indicating persisting signs of deceleration in business environment, revealed that India Inc's business confidence fell for the second straight quarter in January-March period of 2013 to 57.4 as against 61.2 in the previous quarter.

FICCI survey said that in lieu of high current account deficit (CAD) coupled with prevailing weak demand in the market and inadequate infrastructure investments, India Inc felt that the worst is not over yet. Further, the rising import seems to be emerging as a concern as 28 percent of the participants said it was a bothering factor, up from 15 percent in the third quarter of FY13. Meanwhile, the recent easing of Wholesale Price Index (WPI) numbers will give some more space to the central bank to consider further rate cut in the policy rates, it added.

Besides, 74 percent of the industry respondents said if banks do not cut lending rates immediately, it would have a serious to moderate impact on their future investment plans. There was also marginal increase in the proportion of respondents citing cost of credit to be a concern for the companies, which were not upbeat about the sales prospects and profit margin performance over the next six months.

However, the industry believes that the measures taken by Cabinet Committee on Investments (CCI) to expedite the process of granting project clearances will unlock huge investments in core sectors of the economy, improving investment activity, it added. Moreover, the slight improvement in index of industrial production (IIP) and export numbers signal springing of green shoots and it will be crucial to keep nurturing them.  

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,883.35 up by 2.35 points or 0.04% after trading in a range of 5,931.65 and 5,874.20. There were 24 stocks advancing against 26 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Hero Moto Co up by 1.67%, UltraTech Cement up by 1.64%, Cairn up by 1.35%, TCS up by 1.35% and M&M up by 1.31%. On the flip side, Sun Pharmaceuticals down by 2.01%, Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 1.98%, Jindal Steel down by 1.90%, JP Associaties down by 1.24% and Maruti down by 1.10% were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in green; Hang Seng rose 9.85 points or 0.05% to 21,585.11, KLSE Composite jumped 13.66 points or 0.77% to 1,789.25, Nikkei 225 soared 530.17 points or 4.13% to 13,406.87, Straits Times increased 20.75 points or 0.66% to 3,202.98, KOSPI Composite surged 6.16 points or 0.32% to 1,930.49 and Taiwan Weighted was up by 64.59 points or 0.80% to 8,159.79.

On the flip side, Jakarta Composite was down by 76.26 points or 1.57% to 4,789.07.

Chinese markets remained shut for trade today.