Firm trade prevails; Capital Goods, Realty support

Indian equities continued firm trade in the late afternoon session on account of buying in front line counters. The sentiments were on positive mood from the start of the trade after Reserve Bank of India reduced the rate under the marginal standing facility (MSF) by 50 basis points to 9 percent and introduced lending to banks for seven days and 14 days, instead of the current practice of just a day. Traders were seen piling positions in Capital Goods, Realty and Bankex stocks, while selling was witnessed in Metal and IT sector stocks. In scrip specific development, Brigade Enterprises was trading in green as it launched a premium residential project at Whitefield in Bangalore. Coal India was trading weak on news of likely dilution of stake by the government in December. Jet Airways was trading in red after the Supreme Court sought the Centre’s response on a plea by Subramanian Swamy seeking stay on the approval given to Jet-Etihad Airways deal.

On the global front, the Asian markets were trading in green while the European markets were trading on pessimistic note. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above their psychological 5,900 and 20,000 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was positive in the ratio of 1161:1068 while 133 scrips remained unchanged.  

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 20008.87, up by 113.77 points or 0.57% after trading in a range of 20,150.27 and 19936.72. There were only 17 stocks advancing against 13 declines on the index.

The broader indices were too trading in green; the BSE Mid and Small cap indices were trading up by 0.42% and 0.49% respectively.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Capital Goods up by 1.65%, Realty up by 1.48%, Bankex up by 1.02% Consumer Durables up by 0.88% and Power up 0.72% while, Metal down by 0.34% and IT down 0.03% remained the only losers on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were L&T up by 2.70%, ICICI Bank up by 2.61%,Tata Power up by 2.45%, Jindal Steel up 2.27% and Bharti Airtel up by 2.17%. On the flip side, Hindalco Industries down by 1.07%, Coal India down by 0.90%, Tata Steel down by 0.78%, HDFC down by 0.67% and Hero MotoCorp down by 0.60% 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 5,935.15, up by 29.00 points or 0.49% after trading in a range of 5,981.70 and 5,913.00. There were 29 stocks advancing against 21 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were L&T up by 2.70%, ICICI Bank up by 2.66%, IndusInd Bank up by 2.27%, Tata Power up by 2.26% and Jindal Steel up by 2.20%. On the flip side, BPCL down by 2.31%, Hindalco Industries down 1.15%, IDFC down 1.04%,  HCL Tech down by 0.92% and HDFC down by 0.79% were the major losers on the index.

All the Asian equity indices were trading in green; Jakarta Composite up by 1.21%, Shanghai Composite up by 1.08%, Seoul Composite up by 0.42%, Hang Seng up by 0.89%, Straits Times up by 0.41%, Nikki 225 up by 0.30%, Taiwan Weighted up by 0.50% and KLSE Composite added 0.04%.

The European markets were trading in red; France’s CAC 40 was down 0.30%, Germany’s DAX lost 0.08% and UK’s FTSE 100 dropped 0.35%.