Benchmarks pare gains; trade continues in green

Indian equities trimmed gains but continued firm trade in green in the late afternoon session on account of profit booking in front line counters. Investors took note of report compiled by India Ratings and Research, which stated that the economy would grow 4.9% in the current financial year despite favourable monsoon brightening the scope for agriculture performance. Traders were seen piling position in Capital Goods, Consumer Durables and Bankex stocks while selling was witnessed in IT, TECK and Realty sector stocks. Hectic activity was witnessed in PSU banks on yesterday’s announcement that the government will infuse money in the public sector banks via qualified institutional placements. The banking secretary added that additional capital infusion will take place by March, based on the banks performance. In scrip specific development, Jet Airways was trading in red on the bourses after the Naresh Goyal-run company reported an eight-fold increase in losses at Rs 891 crore in the September quarter.

On the global front, most of the Asian markets were trading in green barring Shanghai Composite and the Hang Seng while the European markets were too trading on optimistic note. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above their psychological 6,150 and 20,700 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was negative in the ratio of 1132:1212 while 164 scrips remained unchanged.  

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 20786.70, up by 18.82 points or 0.09% after trading in a range of 21039.42 and 20718.09. 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 0.39%, while Small cap index gained 0.01%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Capital Goods up by 1.45%, Consumer Durables up by 1.27%, Bankex up by 0.76%, Auto up by 0.58% and FMCG was up by 0.28%.

On the other hand IT down by 1.25%, TECK down by 1.00%, Realty down 0.45%, Healthcare down by 0.33% and Power down 0.23% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were M&M up by 2.35%, L&T up by 2.08%, ONGC up by 1.40, Bharti Airtel up by 1.28%, and HDFC Bank up by 1.20%. On the flip side, Wipro down by 2.82%, Coal India down by 1.90%, TCS down by 1.82%, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories down by 1.15% and Bajaj Auto down by 0.81% were the major losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, in a major development, Petroleum Ministry has allowed private upstream companies like Reliance Industries and Cairn India to start producing oil and gas from discoveries even before securing approval for field investment plans. To enable monetization of the finds contained with an already producing area, Oil Minister M Veerappa Moily approved 5-page guidelines for production and development of oil and gas discoveries.

As per the guidelines approved, each company will be allowed the option to submit an integrated development plan (IDP) encompassing multiple new discoveries. Presently, every discovery is treated as a separate factory and operators are required to first get approval for commercial viability and then seek approval for an investment plan, called a field development plan (FDP).

However, now the Ministry has permitted submission of declaration of commerciality (DOC) and FDP/IDP together by subsuming DOC within the FDP/IDP. Further while, the cases with single discovery will be termed as FDP and cases of multiple discoveries will be termed as IDP.

Thus, with these new guidelines, the contractor, for early monetisation of new discoveries in a mining lease (or producing) areas, may be allowed by the Management Committee (MC) to produce hydrocarbons from the notified new discoveries, pending approval of FDP/IDP. However, this will be subjected to condition that the contract has taken approval of the MC for the annual work programme, budget and program quantity for such new discoveries. Additionally, recovery of all costs associated with new recoveries pending approval of FDP/IDP, despite their inclusion in the annual work program and budget, will not be permitted.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,182.80, up by 4.45 points or 0.07% after trading in a range of 6,252.45 and 6,158.40. There were 27 stocks advancing against 22 declines while 1 stock remained unchanged on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Ranbaxy up by 3.30%, NMDC up by 2.64%, M&M up by 2.56%, Bank of Baroda up by 2.52% and L&T up by 2.09%. On the flip side, HCL Tech down by 3.77%, Wipro down by 2.87%, Coal India down by 2.31%, TCS down by 1.83% and Ambuja Cement down 1.27% were the major losers on the index

The Asian markets are mostly in green; Jakarta Composite rose by 0.81%, Nikkei 225 was up by 0.42%, KLSE Composite was up by 0.32%, Straits Times gained 0.31%, Seoul Composite added 0.54% and Taiwan Weighted was up by 0.24%. On the flip side, Shanghai Composite was down by 0.86% and the Hang Seng lost 0.71%.

The European markets were trading in green; France’s CAC 40 was up 0.09%, Germany’s DAX added 0.44% and UK’s FTSE 100 gained 0.23%.