Benchmarks continue jubilant run; Nifty near 100 points

The Indian equity market continues trading strong though it has come off the high point of day as investors tracking positive cues from Asian markets and going on a buying spree. With extensive buying, all the sectoral indices were up in green with impressive gains. Metal, realty banking and oil stocks were among the most prominent gainers. Several stocks from power, capital goods, FMCG and IT sectors too were up sharply. On the global front, most of the Asian markets continued trading in green as European leaders have prepared draft operational rules for the European Financial Stability Facility, the bailout fund for the indebted region. The detailed operational rules for the EFSF would pave way for the 440 billion euro facility to draw cash from investors. Back home, the market breadth favoring the positive trend; there were 1,728 shares on the gaining side against 617 shares on the losing side while 74 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 16,019.08, up by 323.65 points or 2.06%. The index has touched a high and low of 16,043.80 and 15,888.28 respectively.  29 stocks were on advancing side against just one on decline side.

The broader indices too gained additional traction; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices surged 1.35% and 1.50% respectively.

Buying was witnessed across the board, so there were no losers on the BSE sectoral space. However, the top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Metal up by 3.42%, Realty up by 2.60%, Bankex up by 2.37%, Oil & Gas up by 2.12% and Power up by 2.09%.

Hindalco Industries up by 5.63%, Tata Motors up by 4.07%, Sterlite Industries up by 3.95%, ICICI Bank up by 3.32% and Maruti Suzuki up by 3.23% gained maximum traction amongst 30 share barometer index on BSE-Sensex, while Bajaj Auto down by 1.46% was the only loser on the BSE.

Meanwhile, the country’s foodgrain productivity in 2010-11 crop year (July-June) has improved to 1,921 kg per hectare from 1,798 kg per hectare in the 2009-10 crop year, an increase of around 8%, according to Harish Rawat, Minister of State for Agriculture. The productivity of foodgrains was 1,715 kg per hectare in 2005-06.

The minister informed Rajya Sabha in his written reply that the average annual growth in the agriculture and allied sectors during the first four years of the 11th Five-Year Plan (2007-08 to 2011-12) stood at 3.2% as against the targeted rate of 4%. He also opined that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth for agriculture sector touched 6.6% in 2010-11, the highest growth rate achieved in last six years, thanks to the corrective actions taken by government.

However, the average growth in GDP of agriculture and allied sectors in four years of the 11th Five-Year Plan lagged behind targets due to severe drought in many parts of the country during 2009-10 and drought/deficient rainfall in some states namely Bihar, West Bengal, Jharkhand and East Uttar Pradesh in 2010-11.

Harish Rawat also informed the house that over the years, investments in farm sector have been increasing and reached Rs 1,33,377 crore in 2009-10 from Rs 76,096 crore in 2004-05. This includes public sector investment from 16,187 crore in 2004-05 to Rs 23,635 crore in 2009-10 and private sector investment from Rs 59,909 crore to Rs 1,09,742 crore in the same period at 2004-05 prices.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 4,806.30, higher by 96.25 points or 2.04%. The index has touched a high and low of 4,813.30 and 4,766.40 respectively. There were 48 stocks advancing against 2 declining ones on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Hindalco up by 5.68%, Sesa Goa up by 4.55%, IDFC up by 4.46%, Tata Motors up by 4.25% and Sterlite Industries up by 3.90%. On the flip side, Bajaj Auto down by 1.31% and BPCL down by 0.13% were the laggards on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the green; Shanghai gained 0.05%, Hang Seng surged 2.07%, Nikkei 225 added 1.49%, Straits Times accumulated 1.45%, Seoul Composite soared 2.20% and Taiwan Weighted spurted 1.68%.

On the flip side, Jakarta Composite lost 0.32%, while stock markets in Malaysia remained shut in observance of Awal Muharram.