Benchmarks pare losses; trade marginally in green

The benchmarks pared opening losses and surged in the positive terrain with minor despite their Asian peers still languishing in the red, remaining weak on concerns of winding up of bond purchase programme in the US. The Asian markets were trading lower at this point of time amid concerns of Fed reducing its stimulus program and deepening Chinese slowdown. Back home, the traders were seen piling up positions in Teck, Oil & Gas and Realty while selling was seen in Bankex, Health Care and Metal sector. In scrip specific developments, software and technology stocks like Tech Mahindra, Infosys, Mphasis, Mahindra Satyam, CMC and HCL Technologies edged higher amid recent weakness in rupee against the dollar. Banking counter dragged the benchmarks lower in early trades on worries that the rising rupee would force the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to defer reduction in key policy rate going forward. 

In scrip specific actions, Coal India surged after the state-owned company submitted its final report on social sector spending in its Mozambique project to the coal ministry, bringing it a step closer to starting overseas production. Essar Steel soared after the company said that it had raised external commercial borrowings (ECBs) of $1 billion (around Rs.5, 970 crore today) to repay a part of its rupee-denominated debt, shield itself from exchange-rate volatility and save on interest costs. Siemens slumped after the Indian arm of German multi-national engineering giant Siemens AG, has laid off over 200 employees across various units in the country amid uncertain business environment and a sharp drop in profit.

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading just above their psychological 5,650 and 18,700 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was showing positive trend with advances to declines in ratio of 939:791. The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 18736.26, up by 16.97 points or 0.09% after trading in a range of 18755.19 and 18615.14. There were 3 stocks advancing against 27 declines on the index.The broader indices were trading on mixed note; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.12% and Small cap index was up by 0.30%.

The only gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Teck up by 1.15%, Oil & Gas up by 0.87%, Realty up by 0.66%, Power up by 0.44% and Consumer Durables up by 0.21% while Bankex down by 0.29%, Health Care down by 0.27%, Metal down by 0.20% and FMCG down by 0.02% were the top losers on the BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Hero MotoCorp up by 1.81%, Infosys up by 1.48%, BHEL up by 1.14%, ONGC up by 1.07% and TCS up by 1.02%. On the flip side, Jindal Steel was down by 2.79%, HDFC was down by 1.28%, Hindalco Industries was down by 1.23%, Sun Pharma was down by 1.06%, and ICICI Bank was down by 0.92% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, in a move to efficiently monitor Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) and to provide greater flexibility to states, the government has approved a proposal to merge over 140 CSS into 66 across various sectors. Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said that different schemes in one area will be condensed to one scheme and now the district collectors would have to deal with fewer schemes.

CSS are special purpose grants extended by the Central Government to States to encourage and motivate State governments to plan and implement programmes that help attain national goals and objectives, for instance, extending clean drinking water and sanitation to every habitation, to promote equitable and sustainable human development. Schemes, with small outlays which are not likely to make impact at the level of States and commensurate with the national priorities, then such schemes would be transferred to States and in some cases get merged with the main schemes.

In FY14, Rs.1,86,816 crore has been compressed into 66 programmes, out of which Rs.18,700 crore will be flexible for states’ utilization. The schemes guidelines have been made flexible for the states, which will allow the states to incur expenditure up to 10% of the central fund allocation under any programme.  

Further, the government’s statement said that a scheme may have state-specific guidelines to suit the requirements of the states and the financial assistance to the states in these schemes would be provided through the consolidated funds of the states.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,658.70 up by 2.80 points or 0.05% after trading in a range of 5,666.05 and 5,616.85. There were 26 stocks advancing against 22 declines while 2 stocks remains unchanged on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Indusind Bank up by 2.17%, NMDC up by 1.74%, Hero MotoCorp up by 1.54%, Lupin up by 1.44% and Cairn up by 1.36%. On the flip side, Jindal Steel down by 2.86%, HDFC down by 1.53%, ACC down by 1.49%, Hindalco Industries down by 1.28% and Sun Pharmaceuticals down by 1.26% were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in red; Shanghai Composite declined 17.61 points or 0.85% to 2,066.41, Hang Seng tumbled 180.65 points or 0.89% to 20,202.22, Jakarta Composite crumbled 147.55 points or 3.19% to 4,482.44, KLSE Composite dipped 10.91 points or 0.62% to 1,751.43, Straits Times dropped 10.34   points or 0.33% to 3,123.37, KOSPI Composite contracted 30.12 points or 1.63% to 1,820.91 and Taiwan Weighted was down by 128.36 points or 1.63% to 7,777.06.

On the flip side, Nikkei 225 up 156.10 points or 1.20% to 13,170.68.