Benchmarks show volatile trade in late morning trade

After making a mildly lower opening in earlier deal, volatility continued on street as the key Benchmarks swung between negative and positive zone in late morning trade. Investors across the globe remained on cautions ahead of US jobs data that could shape expectations as to whether the Federal Reserve will start withdrawing stimulus this year. Sentiments got some support as the Planning Commission deputy chief, Chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to Prime Minister C Rangarajan’s statement that Current Account Deficit (CAD) will go down well below $70 billion this fiscal. There is some good news for the manufacturing sector, as the Commerce and Industry Ministry is working on a proposal on giving interest subsidy to the sector and the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) is considering an interest subvention of 3-4 percent, which could help in shoring up growth in the sector. However, the gains on the up -side remained capped as the rupee weakened in early trades due to month-end dollar demand from importers. The rupee was trading at Rs 61.75 compared with previous close of Rs 61.52 per dollar.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in the red at this point of time with Shanghai Composite declining over half a percent, led by property developers, on concern that the government may introduce measures to contain housing prices after they climbed in all but one city the government tracks. Back home, traders were buying, Power, IT and Teck while selling were seen in FMCG and Health Care on the BSE. The market breadth on BSE remains positive with advances to declines in the ratio of 1038: 603. BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty were comfortably trading near their psychological 20,800 and 6,200 levels respectively. 

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 20899.62, up by 5.73 points or 0.03% after trading in a range of 20948.91 and 20849.78. There were 20 stocks advancing against 10 declines on the index. The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.68% and Small cap index gained 0.81%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Power up by 1.06%, IT up by 0.93%, Teck up by 0.81%, PSU up by 0.75% and  Consumer Durables up by 0.70%. While FMCG down by 0.19% and Health Care down by 0.04% were the only losers on the sectoral index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Power up by 1.88%, Wipro up by 1.81%, Coal India up by 1.69%, Tata Steel up by 1.01% and TCS up by 1.01%, On the flip side, HDFC was down by 1.68%, Hero MotoCorp was down by 1.22%, Cipla was down by 0.84%, ITC was down by 0.83% and RIL was down by 0.90% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, Blame it on lower crushing and recovery levels in key producing states that the country’s sugar output dropped by 4.5% to 25.14 million tonnes in 2012-13 marketing year that ended last month as against 26.34 million tonnes of sugar output in the previous marketing year. However, despite the drop, the production was sufficient to meet the local demand, which increased by 3.6% to 22.8 million tonnes in the same period.

Further, data from Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) showed that 2.5% less sugarcane was crushed in the 2012-13 crop season, while the all-India average recovery rate stood at 10.03% compared with 10.25% in the previous year.

Maharashtra, the country's largest sugar producing states, produced 7.99 million tonnes of sugar after crushing 70.1 million tonnes of sugarcane. While, sugar production dipped by 11% than last year, sugar crushing for the season was 98% lower. This dip was mainly on account of lower sugar recovery in 2012-13 at about 11.41%.

However, Uttar Pradesh produced 7.4 million tonnes of sugar and crushed 81.5 million tonnes of sugarcane, which was 7.3% more sugar than last year and 6% more than the sugarcane crushing last year respectively. Better sugar recovery than last year's of 9.07%, helped in giving slightly more sugar production. Notably, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, together account for about 80% of the country's sugar production. Further, sugar production during 2012-13 marketing year stood at 3.46 million tonnes in Karnataka, 1.96 million tonnes in Tamil Nadu and 0.99 million tonnes in Andhra Pradesh.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,207.80 up by 2.85 points or 0.05% after trading in a range of 6,220.10 and 6,187.90. There were 32 stocks advancing against 18 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were IDFC up by 2.07%, Wipro up by 1.96%, HCL Tech up by 1.81%,Coal India up by 1.77%, and Tata Power up by 1.75%. On the flip side, HDFC down by 1.65%, ACC down by 1.36%, Hero MotoCorp down by 1.30%, NMDC down by 1.15%, and DLF down by 1.14% were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in red; Shanghai Composite declined 14.73 points or 0.66% to 2,214.51, Hang Seng decreased 113.65 points or 0.48% to 23,324.50, Jakarta Composite tumbled 54.86 points or 1.20% to 4,523.31, KLSE Composite slipped 1.40 points or 0.08% to 1,801.21, Seoul Composite dipped 0.38 points or 0.02% to 2,052.02 and Taiwan Weighted was down by 11.08 points or 0.13% to 8,408.24.

On the flip side, Nikkei 225 rose 8.06 points or 0.05% to 14,701.63 and Straits Times was up by 13.51 points or 0.41% to 3,210.51.