Barometer gauges continue to trade with vigor; Sensex re-claims 20,000 mark

Benchmark equity indices, off day’s low point, were trading with zeal on account of prevailing upbeat mood after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) cut an overnight interest rate on Monday, further unwinding extraordinary measures taken to defend the rupee as pressure on the embattled currency eases. This development which came as short in the arm of banking stocks, especially those more dependent on short-term funding, putting up a strong rally heaved the markets higher.  However, Capital Goods pivotal dodging Banking index emerged to be the star performer of the trade at this point of time, with stocks from Realty and Consumer Durable counters too following the suit. Although, bit of selling pressure was witnessed at the early noon deals, markets soon recovered that wee bit with opening of European markets, with Sensex trading above the crucial 20,000 level and Nifty trading little shy of crucial 5,950 mark, with gains of over half a percent.

Meanwhile, on the global front, despite positive Asian counterparts, European shares were little changed near a four-week low as investors watched the start of the U.S. earnings-reporting season and negotiations to end a government shutdown in the world’s largest economy. On the other hand, most of the Asian peers were set for a positive close on Tuesday after data showed showed China's services industry continued to expand, soothing to some extent nerves jarred by fears of a US debt default as the US government shutdown entered a second week.

Closer home, contrary to uptrend, stocks from Metal counter were only playing spoil sports. Additionally, Auto stocks too were in top gear after Car and motorcycles sales were up by 0.73% and 17.44% in September, according to the data released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM). The overall market breadth on BSE is in the favour of advances which have thumped declines in the ratio of 1133:975; while 135 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 20015.76, up by 120.60 points or 0.61% after trading in a range of 20,150.27 and 19962.35. There were only 18 stocks advancing against 12 declines on the index.

The broader indices trimmed some portion of their gains; the BSE Mid and Small cap indices were trading up by 0.39% and 0.44% respectively.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Capital Goods up by 1.85%, Bankex up by 1.48%, Realty up by 1.43%, and Consumer Durables up by 0.97%. While, Metal down by 0.16% remained the only losing pivotal on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were L&T up by 2.94%, ICICI Bank up by 2.72%, Bharti Airtel up by 2.65%, Tata Power up by 2.20% and Tata Motors up by 1.88%. On the flip side, Coal India down by 1.37%, Bajaj Auto down by 0.98%, Hindalco Inds down by 0.70%, TCS down by 0.47% and Cipla down by 0.38% were the losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has slashed the proposed one time charge to Rs 1,989.18 crore from Rs 2,764.29 that was originally demanded for airwaves held by nine mobile phone companies whose permits were quashed by Supreme Court in February 2012. 

Earlier, in December, the government had imposed a one-time fee on telecom operators both prospectively and retrospectively for the airwaves they currently hold. Meanwhile, all leading telecom companies have challenged this fee in court. One-time charges have been calculated for spectrum allocated on a pro-rata basis based on the approved reserve price of airwaves in 1800 MHz and 800 MHz band auctioned last November.

The retrospective component of this charge also applies to the nine companies whose licences were canceled in February last year. Accordingly, DoT has provisionally computed one-time airwave charges for these operators by pegging licence validity till February 15, 2013 as there is no information on these players subsequently inking unified licences. Telecom players which are expected to incur biggest losses are Unitech Wireless, or Uninor at Rs 515.63 crore, followed by Sistema Shyam Teleservices at Rs 490.96 crore, Videocon Telecommunications at Rs 478.09 crore, Idea Cellular Rs 162.17 crore.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,941.00, up by 34.85 points or 0.59% after trading in a range of 5,981.70 and 5,929.15. There were 33 stocks advancing against 16 declines on the index, while 1 stock remained unchanged.

The top gainers of the Nifty were L&T up by 2.99%, IndusInd Bank up by 2.92%, ICICI Bank up by 2.79%, Bharti Airtel up by 2.46% and DLF up by 2.14%. On the flip side, BPCL down by 1.98%, Coal India down by 1.25%, Bajaj Auto down by 1.14%, HCL Tech down by 0.75% and TCS down by 0.71% were the major losers on the index.

most of the Asian equity indices were trading in green; Jakarta Composite up by 1.11%, Shanghai Composite up by 1.08%, Seoul Composite up by 0.42%, Hang Seng up by 0.86%, Straits Times up by 0.31%, Nikki 225 up by 0.30%, Taiwan Weighted up by 0.50%. While, KLSE Composite down by 0.03% was the sole loser amongst Asian pack.

European markets have got off to mostly negative start; with DAX declining by 0.07%, and FTSE 100 losing by 0.23%, while CAC 40 was only pivotal trading higher by 0.06%.