Post Session: Quick Review

After being brutally butchered by over a percent in the last trading session, the domestic benchmark equity indices regained some fervor to negotiate a positive close. Though, the close was not that spectacular and benchmarks just managed to pull out decent gains. Profit-booking in the dying hours of the trade by cautious investors who preferred locking gains ahead of F&O expiry, mainly got the benchmarks off their highs. Nevertheless, recovery in the regional counterparts and positive start of European markets provided the required fillip to benchmark equity indices. Gaining around half a percent, benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty, ended past the crucial 18,600 and 5,600 mark respectively. The session failed to buy out some optimism for broader indices, which ended with loss of around half a percent.

On the global front, World equities recovered some of their recent losses on Tuesday and a dollar rally cooled off as comments by US and Chinese central bankers eased concerns about liquidity conditions. The sell-off began to lose steam in New York on Monday when two Fed policymakers downplayed the notion of an imminent end to the US central bank's money-printing and said the market reaction was not yet a cause for concern.

Closer home, value buying in select fundamentally strong but undervalued stocks also provided some cushion to bourses’ gains. Further, aggressive buying in Oil & Gas, Capital Goods and Fast Moving Consumer goods sectors too supported to the upside. On the other hand, aggressive selling in Power, Consumer Durable and HealthCare space limited the uptrend of Indian equity markets. Pessimism of JP Associates shares, which scaled 52 week low levels, mainly spilled across the entire power space. JP Group stocks such as JP Associates and Jaiprakash Power Ventures hit their respective record lows for fourth consecutive session on Tuesday. On the other hand, uptick of Reliance Industries shares mainly yanked the entire Oil & Gas pivotal higher. The market breadth on the BSE remained negative; advances and declining stocks were in a ratio of 983: 1308, while 153 scrips remained unchanged. (Provisional)

The BSE Sensex gained 88.26 points or 0.48% to settle at 18629.15.The index touched a high and a low of 18802.31 and 18487.30 respectively. Among the 30-share Sensex pack, 15 stocks gained, while 15 stocks declined. (Provisional) 

The BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices ended lower by 0.45% and 0.42% respectively. (Provisional)

On the BSE Sectoral front, Oil & Gas up by 1.53%, Capital Goods up by 0.68%, FMCG up by 0.54%, Auto up by 0.51% and Realty up by 0.46% were the only gainers, while Power down by 1.19%, Consumer Durables down by 0.69%, Health Care down by 0.55%, Metal down by 0.52% and IT down by 0.48% were the top losers. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bharti Airtel up by 4.91%, ONGC up by 3.73%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 3.46%, Hindalco Industries up by 2.44% and ITC up by 2.08%. While, Tata Power down by 3.05%, NTPC down by 2.15%, Coal India down by 2.02%, SBI down by 1.92% and Wipro down by 1.92% were the top losers in the index. (Provisional)

Meanwhile, for the purpose of seamlessly expanding companies’ operations from one special economic zone (SEZ) to other, the union government has allowed them permission to expand their operations into other zones. Now the companies can expand into another SEZ, but as a new unit and get tax benefit for the unexpired period.

Earlier, the companies use to ask permission from Board of Approval (BoA), which includes 19 members headed by the commerce secretary, if they decide to build up a unit in another zone, effectively meaning a full-fledged new application because of the ambiguity of the SEZ policy. The policy does not allowed the businesses to shift from domestic tariff areas (non SEZ) to SEZ, which baffled companies over SEZ to SEZ as well.

Hereafter, the companies are not needed to seek BoA nod and the unexpired period of tax benefits will be provided to the new units and in future companies may not even need to seek nod to expand.

India VIX, a gauge for markets short term expectation of marginally gained 0.61% at 21.14 from its previous close of 21.01 on Monday. (Provisional)

The CNX Nifty gained 15.20 points or 0.27% to settle at 5,605.45. The index touched high and low of 5,666.25 and 5,570.25 respectively. 23 stocks advanced against 26 declining, while one stock remains unchanged on the index. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Nifty were Bharti Airtel up by 4.43%, IndusInd Bank up by 3.92%, ONGC up by 3.90%, Reliance Infrastructure up by 3.66% and M&M up by 3.30%

On the other hand, Tata Power down by 3.41%, Cairn down by 3.12%, Power Grid down by 3.02%, Lupin down by 2.85% and NTPC down by 2.64%.

The European markets were trading in green; Germany’s DAX up by 1.55%, the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 up by 0.96% and France’s CAC 40 up by 1.39%.