Benchmarks edge higher in late morning trade

After paring early losses, the Benchmarks slowly extended their upward journey in late morning trade as Indian rupee recovered below 67 per dollar after falling to as low as 67.43 against the greenback in early trades. The partially convertible rupee traded at 66.65 as against Thursday's close of 66.55.The rupee had jumped 3.3 per cent on Thursday, its biggest one-day gain since mid-January 1998.The investors will keenly watch Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's likely statement on the economy later today. On Thursday, he said ‘I cannot deny that the country is faced with a difficult situation’. There are some domestic factors. There are also some international factors arising out of change in U.S. monetary stance,' he said, noting that rising tensions in Syria could drive up oil prices.

On the global front, Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the green but gains remained capped with investors remaining cautious with looming fed tapering decision. Back home, traders were buying, Realty, Banking and Health Care while selling were seen in Power on the BSE.

Meanwhile, the benchmarks NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading near the psychological 5,450 and 18,500 levels respectively.The market breadth on BSE was showing positive trend with advances to declines in the ratio of 1047: 491.The BSE Sensex currently trading at 18599.55, up by 198.51 points or 1.08% after trading in a range of 18602.81 and 18283.74. There were 18 stocks advancing against 12 declines on the index. The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.74% and Small cap index up by 0.85%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Realty up by 2.08%, Bankex up by 1.97%, Health Care up by 1.72%, IT up by 1.64% and  Teck up by 1.58%, and while Power down by 0.77% was only the loser on the sectoral index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Sun Pharma up by 5.68%, Cipla up by 3.18%, Wipro up by 3.18% ,Tata Steel up by 3.00%, and HDFC Bank up by 2.98%. On the flip side, Sesa Goa was down by 3.22%, Coal India was down by 1.54%, Maruti Suzuki was down by 1.37% , NTPC was down by 1.26%, and Tata Power  was down by 1.23% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, Giving a pleasant surprise for investors, Assocham President and Managing Director, Rana Kapoor said that India’s current account deficit (CAD) may come below $50 billion for the current fiscal on the back of sharp contraction in imports, primarily due to the recent initiatives  taken by the government. Assocham President’s forecast is substantially lower than the $70 billion CAD projected by the government for the FY14. Meanwhile, India's CAD rose to record high of $88.2 billion or 4.8 percent of the GDP in the previous fiscal.

In order to contain the country’s widening CAD, Kapoor said that there is a need for the government to push exports and should focus on creating agri-export zones in the country. By adding further, he added that the quantum of refinance made available by RBI to banks for supporting export should be increased to 100 percent from existing 50 per cent. As the government looking at a sovereign bond issue, to fund the burgeoning CAD, Assocham President is in favor of, but feels that the government would have to wait for an opportune time before going for sovereign bond issuance.

Referring to the Indian economic growth, Rana Kapoor said that Indian economy will bounce back on the back of its strong growth drivers. Further, he added that government’s disinvestment target of Rs 40,000 crore would be easily met even as the market conditions were not positive and it should go ahead with exchange traded fund (ETF) product on shares of public sector enterprises (PSE).  

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,455.55 up by 46.50 points or 0.86% after trading in a range of 5,460.20 and 5,367.35. There were 32 stocks advancing against 18 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Sun Pharmaceuticals up by 4.45%, Bank of Baroda up by 3.65%, Cipla up by 3.12%, Tata Steel up by 2.96% and HDFC Bank up by 2.94% and On the flip side, Sesa Goa down by 3.20%, Power Grid down by 3.03%, Grasim down by 2.46%, Ambuja Cements down by 2.10% and Kotak Bank down by 1.89% were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in green; Jakarta Composite surged 38.32 points or 0.93% to 4,141.91, KLSE Composite strengthened 15.44 points or 0.91% to 1,719.22, Straits Times rose 1.48 points or 0.08% to 3,040.37, Seoul Composite increased 10.69 points or 0.56% to 1,918.23 and Taiwan Weighted was up by 52.37 points or 0.66% to 7,970.03.

On the flip side, Hang Seng declined 27.56 points or 0.13% to 21,677.22 and Nikkei 225 was down by 51.07 points or 0.38% to 13,408.79.