Benchmarks continue firm trade in late morning trade

Benchmarks continue to move in northward journey in late morning trade as blue chips rallied on the back of strong foreign buying, marking a remarkable turnaround from two months earlier when the rupee fell to record lows and threatened a crisis of confidence. The index has been propelled by around $3.5 billion worth of foreign inflows since the Federal Reserve unexpectedly delayed tapering of its monetary stimulus at a meeting on September 18. Investor’s sentiments got some support after core sector industries recorded 8 percent growth in September, highest in the past 11 months. The growth in the eight infrastructure industries was mainly due to expansion in crude oil, steel and electricity production. Sentiments also got some boost after Department of Economic Affairs Secretary Arvind Mayaram has said that the government will meet the fiscal deficit target of 4.8 percent of GDP for the current financial year.

On the global front, most of the Asian equity benchmarks were trading in the red at this point of time with investors trading cautiously, despite some fairly encouraging economic data out of China. However, Chinese Shanghai remained in the green after the nation’s manufacturing sector grew at the fastest pace in 18 months in October. The official Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) stood at 51.4 last month, up from September’s 51.1. Back home, traders were buying, Realty, Bankex and Metal while selling were seen in Consumer Durables, FMCG and IT on the BSE.

The market breadth on BSE remains positive with advances to declines in the ratio of 1108:573. BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty were comfortably trading near their psychological 21,200 and 6,300 levels respectively.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 21222.42, up by 57.90 points or 0.27% after trading in a range of 21293.88 and 21146.57. 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 0.97% and Small cap index gained 0.85%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Realty up by 2.70%, Bankex up by 1.21%, Metal up by 1.10%, PSU up by 0.94% and Auto up by 0.89%. While Consumer Durables down by 1.63%, FMCG down by 0.45% and IT down by 2.84% were the only losers on the sectoral index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Hero MotoCorp up by 2.31%, Coal India up by 2.31%, SBI up by 2.26%, Jindal Steel up by 2.08% and BHEL up by 1.60%. On the flip side, ONGC was down by 1.40% , Gail India was down by 1.01%,  NTPC was down by 0.98%,  ITC was down by 0.96%, and Sun Pharma was down by 0.81% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, The inflation based on consumer price index for industrial workers (CPI-IW) in the month of September has surged to 10.7 percent on y-o-y basis as against 9.14 percent in same month last year and 10.75 percent for the previous month, mainly owing to the rise in price of food items, fuel and electricity charges.

The food inflation for industrial workers was stood at 13.36 percent as against 11.00 percent in same month of last year and 13.91 percent recorded in the August, 2013. The rise in food inflation was mainly due to the rise in prices of Arhar Dal, Goat Meat, Dairy Milk, Milk (Cow & Buffalo), Pure Ghee, Snack Saltish, Tea Leaves, Onion, Electricity Charges.

The CPI-IW for September rose to 238 points as compared to 215 points recorded in September’ 2012.  At centre level, the indices of 39 centres are above All-India Index and other 38 centres' indices are below national average. Labac Sichar recorded the highest increase of nine points each followed by Varanasi and Vishakhapattnam (seven points each) and Bhilwara, Tripura and Darjeeling (six points each). Furthermore, five points rise was registered in three centres, four points in two centres, three points in seven centres, two points in 14 centres and one point in 15 centres.

On the contrary, Goa witnessed a decline of eight points followed by Godavarikhani (seven points), Bhavnagar (five points) and Nagpur and Ahmedabad (four points each). Among others, three point decline was observed in two centres and one point in six centres.  

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,316.45 up by 17.30 points or 0.27% after trading in a range of 6,332.60 and 6,286.95. There were 39 stocks advancing against 11 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were PNB up by 5.19%, Bank of Baroda up by 4.51%, IDFC up by 4.02%, DLF up by 3.76% and SBI up by 2.46%. On the flip side, ONGC down by 1.58%, NTPC down by 1.44%, ITC down by 1.13%, Gail down by 1.06% and Sun Pharma down by 0.97% were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in red; Hang Seng dipped 14.36 points or 0.06% to 23,192.01, Jakarta Composite declined 54.87 points or 1.22% to 4,455.76, Nikkei 225 shed 129.99 points or 0.91% to 14,198.55, Straits Times dropped 13.47 points or 0.42% to 3,197.20 and Taiwan Weighted was down by 52.14 points or 0.62% to 8,397.92.

On the flip side, Shanghai Composite rose 2.53 points or 0.12% to 2,144.14, KLSE Composite increased 2.51 points or 0.14% to 1,809.36 and Seoul Composite was up by 5.28 points or 0.26% to 2,035.37.