Benchmarks pare some early gains on high WPI inflation

Indian equity benchmarks pared early gains in the afternoon session on account of profit booking witnessed in some blue chip stocks as investors’ sentiments were dented by the recently released Wholesale price Inflation number, which surged to 6.10 percent in August from 5.79 percent in July. Markets, however, continued trading in green, shedding some of their opening profits in banking, auto and finance stocks. Investors’ sentiments got a boost after SEBI allowed overseas entities to invest in government securities without any auction mechanism. The gain in rupee value against the dollar and firm Asian cues also added to the optimistic sentiments. On stock specific movement, ICICI Bank, Maruti Suzuki and Hero Moto Corp were trading up by over 2.5 percent; while, Wipro, Coal India, TCS and BHELwere trading over a percent lower on BSE. Ranbaxy Laboratories stock plunged around 27 percent on reports that USFDA has issued an import alert for drugs manufactured at its plant in Mohali. Meanwhile, the market breadth remained positive, out of 1,987 stocks traded, 1,123 stocks advanced, while 764 stocks declined on the BSE. On global front, most of the Asian equity indices were trading in green with Straits Times up by 1.67%.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 19,956.43 up by 223.67 points or 1.13% after trading in a range of 20,086.43 and 19,920.77. There were only 23 stocks advancing against 7 declines on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.31%, while Small cap index gained 0.47%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Bankex up by 2.96%, Auto up by 1.57%, FMCG up by 1.44%, and Capital Goods up by 1.29%. While, Healthcare down by 1.52%, IT down by 1.39% and TECK down by 0.86% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were, ICICI Bank up by 4.31%, Maruti Suzuki up by 3.95%, Hero Moto Corp up by 2.81%, ONGC up by 2.60% and Mahindra and Mahindra up by 2.54%. On the flip side, Coal India down by 1.50%, TCS down by 1.42%, BHEL down by 1.30%, Sesa Goa down by 1.28% and Infosys down by 1.06% were the only losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, in a move to boost the country’ s infrastructure development, the Cabinet Committee on Investment (CCI) headed by the Prime Minister is likely to contemplate approval of seven stalled mega infrastructure projects, envisaging investment of around Rs 1.6 lakh crore. The proposed projects have an average size of about Rs 25,000 crore and have been stalled because of lack of various regulatory clearances. Now, the government wants to expedite clearance of these projects, which involves companies such as Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals and Indian Oil Corporation among others.

The government had set up the CCI, to clear the bottlenecks holding back big infrastructure projects. So far, the committee has cleared 209 projects with an aggregate investment of Rs 3,84,203 crore. Meanwhile, last month, CCI has approved 36 infrastructure projects worth Rs 1.83 lakh crore, including 18 power projects worth Rs 83,773 crore, which were stalled because of lack of fuel linkages. 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 earlier by CCI. For the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17), the government has set the $1-trillion investment target for the infrastructure sector.

Moreover, in order to encourage investments, the government has been asking public sector enterprises (PSEs) to achieve their capital expenditure plans. The government has set Rs 1.41 lakh crore capital expenditure target for the 23 PSEs, which include ONGC, Gail, NMDC, NTPC and Coal India among others.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,904.85 up by 54.25 points or 0.93% after trading in a range of 5,957.25 and 5,899.05. There were 41 stocks advancing against 9 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Indusind Bank up by 4.25%, Maruti Suzuki up by 4.18%, ICICI Bank up by 4.01%, Hero Moto Corp up by 2.94% and ONGC up by 2.56%. On the flip side, Ranbaxy down by 27.11%, HCL Tech Cement down by 4.69%, BHEL down by 1.75%, Coal India down by 1.64% and TCS down by 1.58% were the major losers on the index.

The most of the Asian equity indices were trading in green; Seoul Composite up by 0.96%, Taiwan Weighted up by 1.39%, Straits Times up by 1.67%, Hang Seng up by 1.20%, Nikkei 225 was up by 0.12% and Jakarta Composite up by 1.67%. While, KLSE Composite down by 0.09% and Shanghai Composite down by 0.07%.