Firm global cues fortify benchmarks in early trade

Buoyed by firm global cues, Indian equity indices have made a positive start and both the frontline gauges are trading in fine fettle in early deals on Thursday. The US markets rebounded in late trade overnight. Sentiment remained improved after US jobless claims fell to 343,000 in the week ended June 29 from a revised 348,000 in the prior week. Firm opening in Asian counters too supported the sentiments with all the regional peers, barring Japanese Nikkei, trading in the green, supporting the investors’ confidence. Though, gains in China remained capped amid concerns about the country’s economic outlook, after reports this week showed slowing expansion in the country’s manufacturing and non-manufacturing sectors.

Back home, sentiments got some respite after Indian rupee witnessed some recovery and was trading higher at 60.03 in early deals today. Meanwhile, investors continued to pile-up positions in beaten down, but fundamentally strong stocks. Buying in software and technology counters too supported the sentiments. Stocks like Infosys, TCS, Wipro and HCL Technology edged higher on government’s notification that allows SEZs and units operating in them to not pay service tax - instead of paying the tax and then claiming refunds.

On the sectoral front, fast moving consumer goods witnessed the maximum gain in trade followed by software and technology, while realty, public sector undertaking and metal remained the top losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices, however, were struggling to get some traction, while the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 695 shares on the gaining side against 449 shares on the losing side while 61 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 19256.12; about 78 points higher compared to its previous closing of 19177.76, and has touched a high and a low of 19354.76 and 19245.01 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 19272.33, up by 94.57 points or 0.49%. There were 18 stocks advancing against 10 declines and two stocks remained unchanged on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a strong start with 57.68% stocks advancing against 37.26% declines. The broader indices too were trading in mixed; the BSE Mid cap down by 0.02% and Small cap indices up by 0.25%. 

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, FMCG up by 1.24%, IT up by 1.23%, Teck up by 1.21%, Consumer Durables up by 1.13% and Health Care up by 0.78%, while Realty down by 0.77%, PSU down by 0.73%, Metal down by 0.72%, Bankex down by 0.46% and Auto down by 0.21% were the top losers on the sectoral index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Power up by 2.61%, Bharti Airtel up by 2.12%, Wipro up by 1.66%,  ITC up by 1.59% and L&T up by 1.50%.  On the flip side, Sterlite Industries was down by 1.72%,  Jindal Steel was down by 1.30%, Bajaj Auto was down by 1.27%, SBI was down by 1.09% and ICICI Bank was down by 0.98% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, in view of the severe shortage of coal, the Govt may temporarily suspend taking new coal supplies applications from power plants seeking coal supply for the next two years. As per the Coal Minister, applications for approval of coal supply of about 3200 million tonnes per annum were still pending with the ministry due to limited availability of coal from Coal India (CIL) as on 31st December 2012.

While the subsidiaries of CIL have already alloted 176 Letters of Assurance covering about 1,08,000 MW power generation capacity of which 26,000 MW has already been commissioned in the past three years and the remaining capacity of 80,000 MW is to be commissioned in the next five years, a negative balance is recorded in all the subsidiaries of CIL.

The Standing Linkage committee has further suggested that the fees submitted by unprocessed applications be deposited to government account though their processing should be kept in abeyance. In wake of the gas prices being hiked from the next fiscal and domestic coal unavailable, power firms might have to look towards imported coal, costs of which will only spiral down on to the consumers.

The CNX Nifty opened at 5,794.75; about 23 points higher as compared to its previous closing of 5,770.90, and has touched a high and a low of 5,831.50 and 5,788.10 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 5,794.20, up by 23.30 points or 0.40%. There were 29 stocks advancing against 21 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Tata Power up by 2.67%, ACC up by 2.50%, HCL Tech up by 2.10%, Bharti Airtel up by 2.00% and ITC up by 1.62%.

On the flip side, IDFC down by 2.38%, PNB down by 2.10%, JP Associate down by 1.93%, Sesa Goa down by 1.60% and Jindal Steel down by 1.48% were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in green; Shanghai Composite rose 19.22 points or 0.96% to 2,013.49, Hang Seng surged 353.88 points or 1.76% to 20,501.19, Jakarta Composite increased 48.12 points or 1.05% to 4,625.27, KLSE Composite jumped 3.15 points or 0.18% to 1,772.36, Straits Times soared 28.37 points or 0.91% to 3,157.86, KOSPI Composite added 7.80 points or 0.43% to 1,832.46 and Taiwan Weighted was up by 3.38 points or 0.04% to 7,914.80.

On the flip side, Nikkei 225 was down by 23.14 points or 0.16% to 14,032.42.