Sensex, Nifty continues to trade in green

Volatility continued on street as benchmarks after hitting fresh intraday high, trimmed gains and continued to trade in green in late morning trade. Market sentiment remained boosted on Finance Minister P Chidambaram questioning IMF’s low growth projection of 3.8 percent for India for the current fiscal and said that the government will not hesitate to take difficult decisions to contain fiscal and current account deficits. Sentiments also got some support as data showed foreign funds remained net buyers of Indian stocks on Friday, October 11, 2013. Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 1010.45 crore on Friday, October 11, 2013, as per provisional data from the stock exchanges. On the global front, Most of the Asian equity markets were trading in the red at this point of time amid concerns about the political impasse in the U.S. on the debt ceiling issue. However, Chinese market was marginally in green despite the data showing China’s export growth unexpectedly fizzled in September.

Back home, traders were buying, IT, TECk and Health Care while selling was seen in Metal, Power and Realty on the BSE. The market breadth on BSE remains positive with advances to declines in the ratio of 968: 612. BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty were comfortably trading near their psychological 20,000 and 6,100 levels respectively. 

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 20566.70, up by 38.11 points or 0.19% after trading in a range of 20645.94 and 20497.88. There were 15 stocks advancing against 15 declines on the index. The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.85% and Small cap index gained 0.72%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, IT up by 1.49%, Teck up by 1.25%, Health Care up by 0.49%, Auto up by 0.48% and Consumer Durables up by 0.44%, while Metal down by 0.79%, Power down by 0.38%, Realty down by 0.34%  and FMCG down by 0.02%  were the  losers on the sectoral index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Wipro up by 3.50%, Dr Reddys Lab up by 1.65%, TCS up by 1.61%, Coal India up by 1.20% and Infosys up by 1.15%. On the flip side, Hindalco Industries was down by 3.28%, BHEL was down by 1.90%, Tata Steel was down by 1.74%, Jindal Steel was down by 1.47%  and SSLT was down by 1.01% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, Amid rising concerns over the widening deficits of the country, Finance Minister P Chidambaram has said that the government is committed to the path of fiscal consolidation and will take difficult decisions soon to check country’s widening deficits. Confessing that the government policies are directly responsible for the current account deficit (CAD) and fiscal deficit, Chidambaram said the government has drawn red lines for the two deficits, which will never be breached under any circumstances. The government has set target to contain the CAD at 3.7 percent and fiscal deficit at 4.8 percent of GDP in the current financial year.

Country’s fiscal deficit has touched around three-fourths of the budget estimate in the first five months of the fiscal. To check fiscal deficit within target limit, the government has recently announced a slew of austerity measures including banning government departments for holding meetings in 5-star hotels among others to cut spending in non-critical areas. In order to restrain CAD, the government is taking steps to boost country’s exports and to restrain imports particularly gold. India's current account deficit widened to $21.8 billion or 4.9 percent of GDP in the April-June quarter of FY14 as compared to 3.6 percent of GDP in the previous quarter mainly due to high gold imports and decline in merchandise exports.

Referring to economic growth, Finance Minister said that Indian economy has been struggling with downturn, while, the government had taken a number of initiatives to ease supply constraints, improve investment climate and put the economy on the path of sustainable growth. Indian economic growth slowed down to four year low at 4.4 percent in Q1 FY14. Meanwhile, the government expects that economy will grow between 5 to 5.5 percent in the current fiscal.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,109.70 up by 13.50 points or 0.22% after trading in a range of 6,124.10 and 6,082.90. There were 29 stocks advancing against 21 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Wipro up by 3.83%, PNB up by 2.68%, Axis Bank up by 2.66%, Bank Baroda up by 2.35% and IndusInd Bank up by 1.92%. On the flip side, Hindalco down by 3.46%, Asian Paint down by 2.99%, BHEL down by 2.01%, Tata Steel down by 1.64%   and Jindal Steel down by 1.63% were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in red; Straits Times declined 23.38 points or 0.74% to 3,156.33, Seoul Composite slipped 1.71 points or 0.08% to 2,023.19 and Taiwan Weighted was down by 61.70 points or 0.74% to 8,287.67.

On the flip side, Shanghai Composite rose 10.25 points or 0.46% to 2,238.39 and KLSE Composite was up by 0.20 points or 0.01% to 1,785.95.

Hong Kong, Indonesian and Japanese markets remained closed for the trade today for public holidays.