Benchmarks pare minor gains; Consumer Durables leads

Indian equity markets pared minor gains and have come off the highs slightly but continue to trade in green in the late afternoon session on account of cautioned buying in front line blue chip counters and taking cues from European counterparts and other events. The sentiments turned cautious after Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofA-ML) in its latest report stated that India’s current account deficit (CAD) is likely to remain high until 2015. Even while the bank admits that the CAD is peaking, it opines that the deficit will persist at around 4% of GDP until 2015. The bank expects the rupee to remain under pressure of 3-5% annual depreciation until the RBI recoups foreign exchange reserves. Traders were seen piling positions in Consumer Durables, Realty and Bankex stocks while selling was witnessed in Health Care sector stocks. Hectic activity was noticed in jewellery stocks following Reserve Bank’s stringent conditions for gold importers, linking inward shipments to future exports, a move which is likely to make gold prices costlier and may impact demand. In scrip specific development, Bayer Cropscience was trading in red after the board of directors of the company fixed the maximum price for its buyback offer at Rs 1,580 per share.

On the global front, all the Asian markets were trading in green while the European markets were too trading on optimistic note. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above their psychological 6,050 and 20,200 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was positive in the ratio of 1067:1041, while 145 scrips remain unchanged. 

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 20295.62, up by 136.50 points or 0.68% after trading in a range of 20,351.06 and 20,249.98. 

The broader indices too continued to trade in fine fettle; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap index gained 0.16% and 0.13% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Consumer Durables up by 3.23%, Realty up by 1.63%, Bankex up by 1.54%, FMCG up by 1.23% and PSU up by 0.90%, while Health Care down by 0.19% was the sole loser on the BSE sectoral space.

Of the Sensex, 20 shares were advancing and 10 of them were on declining side. The top gainers on the Sensex were Hindustan Unilever up by 2.34%, SBI up by 2.07%, BHEL up 1.80%, Dr. Reddy’s Lab up by 1.73% and ICICI Bank up by 1.69%.  On the flip side, Wipro down by 1.92%, Sun Pharma down by 1.62%, Bharti Airtel down by 0.98%, Cipla down by 0.75% and Coal India down by 0.63% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, buoyed by favourable monsoon condition, Indian economy will achieve a gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 6 per cent in financial year 2013-14, Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC) Chairman C Rangarajan said at an event in Tezpur University. Earlier this month, Rangarajan had said India’s economic growth rate is expected to be at least 6 percent in the 2013 -14 fiscal.

Further, Rangarajan said the government is also taking measures to control current account deficit. In this regard, the government is trying to curb demand of gold and petroleum products, which is the biggest constraint of the trade deficit. The government has further taken steps to minimise the imports of petroleum products by encouraging domestic production.

The economy grew at 4.8 percent in the fourth quarter of FY’13, while for the full year 2012-13, the economic growth was 5 percent, a decade low. Earlier, Reserve Bank of India has estimated the economy to grow at 5.7 percent in the current fiscal, while the Finance Ministry has forecast 6.1-6.7 percent growth.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,074.45, up by 42.65 points or 0.71% after trading in a range of 6,093.35 and 6,061.30.

On Nifty 36 shares were on advancing side and 14 on declining. The top gainers of the Nifty were Bank of Baroda up by 4.31%, Kotak Mahindra Bank up by 3.43%, DLF up by 3.18%, Reliance Infrastructure up by 3.17% and PNB up by 2.50%. On the flip side, Asian Paints down by 2.22%, Sun Pharma down by 1.62%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.13% Ambuja Cement down by 0.99% and Cipla down by 0.86% were the major losers on the index.

The Asian equity indices were trading in green; Shanghai Composite soared 1.95%, Hang Seng surged 2.33%, Jakarta Composite jumped 1.49%, KLSE Composite rose 0.29%, Nikkei 225 increased 0.82%, Straits Times added 0.58%, Seoul Composite strengthened 1.27% and Taiwan Weighted was up by 1.35%.

The European markets were trading in green; France’s CAC 40 was up 0.10%, Germany’s DAX added 0.14% and the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 edged higher by 0.10%.