Indian markets make gap-up opening on rupee appreciation

Indian equity markets made a gap-up opening and were trading with a gain of over half a percent with frontline gauges recapturing their crucial 18,100 (Sensex) and 5,300 (Nifty) bastions following appreciation in Indian rupee against dollar. The rupee was trading at Rs 67.18 per dollar as against previous close of 68.80 per dollar after the Reserve Bank of India announced measures late Wednesday to curb rupee fall through dollar flows. Benchmarks also got some strength after government turned down fears of any sharp spike in fiscal deficit this year because of the food security programme that will be implemented once the legislation is through in Parliament. Some support also came in on back of buying witnessed in oil marketing companies (OMCs) after the central bank opened a special window to sell dollars to meet the daily dollar requirements of the three public sector oil companies.

Global cues too remained supportive as the US markets stabilised overnight and ended with modest gains, mainly on the back of bargain hunting at lower levels and optimism of delay in Fed’s tapering after the report of a bigger than expected drop in pending home sales in July. Moreover, Asian equity indices too were trading mostly higher at this point of time as market-men opted to buy battered down fundamentally strong stocks.

Back home, being the F&O expiry day, the trade may remain volatile as traders may roll over positions in the futures & options (F&O) segment from the near month August 2013 series to September 2013 series. On the sectoral front, consumer durables witnessed the maximum gain in trade followed by capital goods and oil and gas, while realty, auto and metal remained the top losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices too were trading in-line with benchmarks, while the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 691 shares on the gaining side against 453 shares on the losing side while 45 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 18073.66; about 77 points higher compared to its previous closing of 17996.15, and has touched a high and a low of 18205.49 and 18071.22 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 18120.79, up by 124.64 points or 0.69%. There were 15 stocks advancing against 15 declines on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a strong start with 58.12% stocks advancing against 38.10% declines. The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices were up by 0.58% and 0.71% respectively. 

The few gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Consumer Durables up by 1.74%, Capital Goods up by 1.65%, Oil & Gas up by 0.82%, Teck  up by 0.68% and IT up by 0.50%, while Realty down by 0.78%, Auto down by 0.42%, Metal down by 0.34% and Health Care down by 0.11% were the top losers on the sectoral index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were HDFC up by 4.80%, L&T up by 3.10%, HDFC Bank up by 1.92%, Bharti Airtel up by 1.79% and TCS up by 1.70%. On the flip side, Sun Pharma was down by 1.78%, BHEL was down by 1.53%, Coal India was down by 1.30%, Hero MotoCorp was down by 1.07% and Sesa Goa was down by 1.06% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, in order to boost business sentiments in a slowing economy, the Cabinet Committee on Investment (CCI) has cleared infrastructure projects worth Rs 1.83 lakh crore including 18 power projects that were stuck due to delay in clearance. The 18 power projects worth Rs 83,773 crore, which were stuck due to lack of fuel linkages, will sign coal supply agreements with Coal India by September 6.

The banks have already disbursed as much as Rs 30,000 crore for these power sector projects. Besides this, the CCI cleared hurdles for projects like Reliance Power's 4,000 MW ultra mega power project at Sasan in Madhya Pradesh, L&T's Metro Rail project in Hyderabad, Essar Power's Jharkhand project and Hindalco Industries project. The Cabinet Committee on Investment (CCI) has also set a 60- day deadline for ministries to clear various infrastructure projects in the power, coal and highways sectors.

Country’s infrastructure development is crucial to boost the economy’s growth and thus the government has recently set up the Cabinet Committee on Investments (CCI) to clear the bottlenecks holding back mega infrastructure projects. For the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17), the government has set the $1-trillion investment target for the infrastructure sector. Further, in order to speed up the implementation of infrastructure projects, the government has also set up special cell, special project monitoring group, which is meant to supplement CCI's efforts and has been tasked with monitoring the progress of projects cleared by CCI.

The CNX Nifty opened at 5,316.50; about 31 points higher as compared to its previous closing of 5,285.00, and has touched a high and a low of 5,348.85 and 5,305.65 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 5,313.20, up by 28.20 points or 0.53%. There were 21 stocks advancing against 29 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were HDFC up by 5.02%, L&T up by 3.01%, Power Grid up by 2.45%, Asian Paint up by 2.04% and Bharti Airtel up by 2.00%. On the flip side, Ambuja Cements down by 3.22%, UltraTech Cement down by 3.05%, JP Associate down by 2.81%, DLF down by 2.01% and PNB down by 2.01% were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in green; Hang Seng rose 111.12 points or 0.52% to 21,635.77, Jakarta Composite increased 9.52 points or 0.24% to 4,035.99, KLSE Composite surged 17.47 points or 1.04% to 1,703.64, Nikkei 225 gained 62.83 points or 0.47% to 13,401.29, Straits Times strengthened 16.27 points or 0.54% to 3,020.45, Seoul Composite jumped 26.10 points or 1.38% to 1,910.62 and Taiwan Weighted was up by 95.18 points or 1.22% to 7,919.72.

On the flip side, Shanghai Composite was down by 6.53 points or 0.31% to 2,094.77.