Benchmarks edge higher on China's robust PMI data

Benchmarks continued to trade firm in late morning session. Sentiments got some support from firming trend on other Asian bourses on the back of strong manufacturing data from China but country’s slowing economic growth in April-June quarter, restricted gains. Back home, traders were buying, FMCG, Metal and Consumer Durables while selling were seen in Auto on the BSE. Metal shares have surged after robust China’s manufacturing data. Shares of public sector oil marketing companies rose after a hike in petrol and diesel prices, effective from midnight of 31 August 2013.

Meanwhile, the benchmarks NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading near the psychological 5,500 and 18,700 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was showing positive trend with advances to declines in the ratio of 991: 504.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 18771.67, up by 151.95 points or 0.82% after trading in a range of 18827.99 and 18678.93. There were 23 stocks advancing against 7 declines on the index. The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.87% and Small cap index up by 0.83%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, FMCG up by 2.07%, Metal up by 1.66%, Consumer Durables up by 1.38%, Health Care up by 1.07% and Bankex up by 0.83%,while Auto down by 0.17% was the only loser on the sectoral index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were ITC up by 2.57%, Sesa Goa up by 2.08%, Tata Steel up by 2.04%, Maruti Suzuki up by 1.96% and Jindal Steel up by 1.94%. On the flip side, Mahindra & Mahindra was down by 1.61%, NTPC was down by 1.41%,  Tata Motors was down by 1.31%, Tata Power was down by 1.06% and HDFC Bank was down by 0.29% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma expressed optimism over India’s exports and said that the recent pick-up in domestic exports’ will continue through the rest of the financial year despite the global slowdown. The country exports grew by 11.64 percent in the month of July, while imports recorded a negative growth of 6.20 percent in the reported month.

On high crude oil imports, Sharma said that since it is an energy requirement for the country, India has little scope to reduce imports; therefore we need to look at other options.  Referring to high gold imports, Commerce minister said that both the government and the RBI are taking measures to curb the gold imports. During the April-June quarter of 2013, India witnessed record gold imports of 310 tonnes, highest in the last ten years. 

Admitting that Indian economy is facing strong downturn, Commerce Minister said that an atmosphere of 'negative narrative' in the country cast adverse impact on the economy and contributed to the present crisis. Meanwhile, regardless of Q1 FY14 GDP growth, which slowed down to four year low at 4.4 percent, Commerce minister is confident that the domestic economy will grow at 5.5 percent in the current fiscal on the back of strong economic fundamentals.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,500.65 up by 28.85 points or 0.53% after trading in a range of 5,528.30 and 5,478.85. There were 39 stocks advancing against 11 declines on the index.The top gainers of the Nifty were Ranbaxy up by 3.47%, IndusInd Bank up by 2.59%, Bank Baroda up by 2.48%, NMDC up by 2.44% and Lupin up by 2.44%. On the flip side, M&M down by 2.18%, ACC down by 1.64%, Tata Motors down by 1.62%, NTPC down by 1.60% and Tata Power down by 1.12% were the major losers on the index.

The Asian equity indices were trading in mixed ; Hang Seng surged by 410.35 points or 1.89% to 22,141.72, Nikkei 225 gained 186.37 points or 1.39% to 13,575.52, Straits Times was up by 19.40 points or 0.64% to 3,048.03, Seoul Composite was up by 1.21  points or 0.06% to1,926.95 and Taiwan Weighted gained 25.33 points or 0.23% to 8,040.27.

On the other hand, Shanghai Composite was down by 2.64 points or 0.13% to 2,095.74, Jakarta Composite was down by 89.36 points or 2.13% to 4,105.73 and KLSE Composite has lost 9.27 points or 0.54% to 1,718.31.