Markets extend early gains in afternoon session

Indian equity benchmarks extended early gains and reached at intra-day high levels in afternoon session mainly on the back of buying witnessed in IT stocks after Infosys reported healthy set of results for Q2FY2014 with dollar revenues significantly ahead of estimates. Shares of information technology (IT) companies are trading firm with Infosys up by over 5%, Wipro up by 3.10% and TCS up by 2.48% on BSE. Further, appreciation in rupee value and firm global cues also added to optimistic sentiments. Buying was also witnessed in Realty, Teck, Banking and Capital Goods stocks. On stock specific movement, Ranbaxy Laboratories has rallied over 4% on reports that the pharmaceutical company got a clean chit from the American regulator. On the global front, Asian markets were trading with Japanese index Nikki up by 1.48% as global investors’ sentiments got support amid hopes that the US politicians would at the very least avert a possible US debt default next week.

Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above their psychological 6,000 and 20,000 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was positive, out of 2,100 stocks traded, 1200 stocks advanced, while 770 stocks declined on the BSE.     

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 20,498.51 up by 225.60 points or 1.11% after trading in a range of 20,559.69 and 20,368.06. There were only 21 stocks advancing against 9 declines on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.76%, while Small cap index up by 0.64%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were IT up by 3.64%, Realty up by 3.55%, Teck up by 3.02%, Bankex up by 1.91% and Capital Goods up by 1.62%. While, Consumer Durables down by 0.45%, FMCG down by 0.38%, Metal down by 0.36% and Healthcare down by 0.05% were remained the only losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Infosys up by 5.18%, ICICI Bank up by 3.39%, Wipro up by 3.10%, TCS up by 2.48% and L&T up by 2.13%. On the flip side, SSLT down by 1.39%, Hindalco Inds down by 1.03%, ITC down by 0.71%, Sun Pharma down by 0.68% and Tata Power down by 0.48% were the only losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, concerned over acute liquidity crunch faced by the Indian fertiliser sector, fertiliser ministry has sought additional Rs 35,000 crore funds towards subsidy payment to companies. Fertiliser Minister Srikant Jena in a letter written to government has said that in order to address present liquidity concern of the sector, there is a need of immediate release of extra funds as the Department of Fertiliser (DoF) did not get funds under the first supplementary grants and second supplementary grants would be made available only in December. The DoF has been able to pay subsidy dues till May to fertiliser firms manufacturing urea locally, while for non-urea fertilizers, it can pay subsidy only till this month.

So far this fiscal, the DoF has been allocated Rs 70,586 crore funds towards subsidy payment to fertiliser firms against the total demand of Rs 1,05,497 crore for the 2013-14 fiscal. Rising fears for closure of two state-run firms, the fertilizer ministry added that state-run National Fertilisers Ltd (NFL) and Madras Fertilisers Ltd (MFL) could face closure by the end of this month due to liquidity crisis. Furthermore, private fertilizer firms are also facing the liquidity crunch as the government has exhausted its funds towards subsidy payment on indigenous urea.

Earlier in September, the Finance ministry had agreed to pay only Rs 5,500 crore subsidy under a special banking arrangement (SBA) as against Rs 12,000 crore sought by the Department of Fertilisers (DoF). Meanwhile, in order to support the industry, the Fertiliser Association of India (FAI) has recently filed a petition in the Delhi High Court seeking 14.75 percent interest on the delayed subsidy payments.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,091.05 up by 70.10 points or 1.16% after trading in a range of 6,107.60 and 6,046.40. There were 34 stocks advancing against 16 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Infosys up by 5.19%, HCL Tech up by 4.39%, Ranbaxy up by 4.28%, DLF up by 3.01% and Bank of Baroda up by 2.92%. On the flip side, SSLT down by 1.55%, Hindalco Inds down by 1.20%, Sun Pharma down by 0.87%, IDFC down by 0.82% and BHEL down by 0.81% were the major losers on the index.

The Asian equity indices were trading in Green; Jakarta Composite up by 0.57%, Straits Times up by 0.68%, Nikki 225 up by 1.48%, KLSE Composite up by 0.53%, Hang Seng up by 1.30%, Taiwan Weighted up by 0.06%, Seoul Composite up by 1.17%, and Shanghai Composite up by 1.43%.