Sensex, Nifty continues to trade marginally in green

A bout of volatility was witnessed on street as the benchmarks recouped entire initial losses in late morning trade as investors heaved a sigh of relief after the US Senate agreed to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling to meet a crucial deadline. Sentiments got boosted on Reserve Bank of India’s governor Raghuram Rajan’s statement that India’s economy will pick up by year-end mainly due to the start-up of billions of dollars worth of stalled resource projects and a good monsoon season that will bolster agricultural production. Some support also came in after Planning Commission estimated that the current account deficit for 2013-14 will be around 2.5 percent of GDP, much lower than Finance Minister P. Chidambaram’s target of 3.7 percent of GDP. However, investors remained concerned after the World Bank revised India's economic growth forecast downwards for the current financial year to 4.7 percent from 6.1 percent projected in April, citing two consecutive months of negative business sentiment and higher interest rates

Global cues too remained supportive with US markets ending higher overnight, while Asian markets rallied in early deals after the Senate reached an agreement to increase the debt limit and ended the 16-day government shutdown. Back home, traders were buying, Oil & Gas, FMCG and Realty while selling were seen in IT, Capital Goods and Teck on the BSE. The market breadth on BSE remains positive with advances to declines in the ratio of 1101: 542. BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty were comfortably trading near their psychological 20,600 and 6,100 levels respectively. 

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 20627.69, up by 80.07 points or 0.39% after trading in a range of 20629.80 and 20471.25. There were 22 stocks advancing against 8 declines on the index. The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.91% and Small cap index gained 0.72%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Oil & Gas up by 1.98%, FMCG up by 1.72%, Realty up by 1.45%, Consumer Durables up by 1.45% and PSU up by 1.11%. While, IT down by 0.99%, Capital Goods down by 0.62%, Teck down by 0.57%, Auto down by 0.09%  and Bankex down by 0.08% were the top losers on the sectoral index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were ONGC up by 2.77%, Bajaj Auto up by 2.29%, RIL up by 1.77%, Hindustan Unilever up by 1.74%, and Bharti Airtel up by 1.55%. On the flip side, Tata Motors was down by 2.43%, TCS was down by 2.40%, L&T was down by 1.48%, ICICI Bank was down by 0.87% and HDFC Bank was down by 0.33% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, Giving respite to government's concern over the widening current account deficit (CAD) of the country, Planning Commission has estimated that India’s CAD will be around 2.5 percent of GDP in current fiscal, which is sharply lower than Finance Ministry's target of $70 billion or 3.7 percent of GDP. Planning Commission projection is based on a sharp decline in gold imports and better-than-expected growth in exports. Indian exports increased by 11.15%, a double-digit growth for the third consecutive month to $27.68 billion for the month of September. Imports of gold and silver plunged more than 80% to $0.8 billion in September from $4.6 billion a year earlier.

With the significant double-digit growth in country’s exports and a sharp contraction in imports, India’s trade deficit in September fell to its narrowest level in two-and-half years to $6.76 billion as against $17.15 billion in the same month of previous year and $10.9 billion recorded in August, 2013. Indian gold import bill for 2013-14 is expected to be $35-38 billion against $56 billion in 2012-13. Further, Planning Commission said, in case of increase in gold imports due to festival demand, it could easily be financed and thus the overall deficit would be not be impacted. On the other hand, the government is confident about improving country’s merchandise exports to $325 billion against $309 billion estimated earlier. 

CAD, the difference between inflow and outflow of foreign exchange widened to a record high of 4.9 per cent of GDP in the April-June quarter, 2013. High CAD also remained the main reason for rupee depreciation, which depreciated by over 15 percent against dollar in 2013.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,108.90 up by 19.85 points or 0.33% after trading in a range of 6,110.75 and 6,064.85. There were 39 stocks advancing against 11 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were JP Associate up by 4.43%, Cairn up by 2.94%, ONGC up by 2.62%, Ranbaxy up by 2.34% and Bajaj-Auto up by 2.27%. On the flip side, Tata Motors down by 2.33%, TCS down by 2.27%, HCL Tech down by 2.01%, IndusInd Bank down by 1.72% and L&T down by 1.57% were the major losers on the index.

The Asian equity indices were trading in green; Shanghai Composite rose 10.91 points or 0.50% to 2,203.99, Hang Seng gained 53.39 points or 0.23% to 23,281.72, Jakarta Composite surged 26.79 points or 0.60% to 4,519.05, KLSE Composite strengthened 7.15 points or 0.40% to 1,798.52, Nikkei 225 soared 39.89 points or 0.28% to 14,506.18, Straits Times increased 26.49 points or 0.83% to 3,200.52, Seoul Composite added 6.87 points or 0.34% to 2,041.48 and Taiwan Weighted was up by 42.39 points or 0.45% to 8,370.05.