Benchmarks trades near day's high, Nifty above 6,100 mark

Benchmarks were trading near their day high and the Nifty managed to hold on to 6,100 level in late morning trade on the back of covering-up of pending short positions in view of monthly expiry in the derivatives segment amid a firming trend in the Asian region in line with overnight gains on the US markets fuelled by upbeat jobs figures, mainly influenced the trading sentiment. However, the gains on the upside remained capped as the rupee fell in early trades with the unit at 62.33 per dollar versus Wednesday's close of 62.14/15. Month-end oil-related dollar demand will keep the rupee under pressure.

On the global front, most of the Asian equity markets were trading in the green in early deals, led by Japanese Nikkei, which was up by over a percent as stronger dollar triggered some hectic buying across the board. Back home, traders were buying, Capital Goods, Oil & Gas and Bankex while selling were seen in IT on the BSE. Telecom stocks too supported the sentiments with stocks like, Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Tata Communications edged higher after telecom regulator TRAI came out with guidelines and tariff on unstructured supplementary service data (USSD)-based mobile banking services in order to promote use of mobile banking services across the country.

The market breadth on BSE remains positive with advances to declines in the ratio of 1105:511. BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty were comfortably trading near their psychological 20,500 and 6,100 levels respectively. The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 20595.47, up by 175.21 points or 0.86% after trading in a range of 20606.38 and 20517.97. There were 28 stocks advancing against 2 declines on the index. The broader indices were trading green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.84% and Small cap index gained 0.79%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Capital Goods up by 1.58%, Oil & Gas up by 1.37%, Bankex up by 1.19%, Realty up by 1.16%, and Auto up by 1.00%, while IT down by 0.14% was the sole loser on the sectoral index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.86%, L&T up by 1.64%, RIL up by 1.61%, Dr Reddys Lab up by 1.45%, and ONGC up by 1.43%. On the flip side, Infosys was down by 0.61%, and TCS was down by 0.03% were the only losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, Oil Secretary Vivek Rae has said that the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas is working out a policy framework on shale gas exploration under which private domestic oil and gas players would get the right to explore shale gas or oil in their blocks.

At present, there are about 254 exploration blocks in India of which nearly half of them are allotted to two public sector oil firms ONGC and Oil India for shale gas exploration. Meanwhile, the ministry is framing a policy to allot remaining 120 blocks to private oil companies for exploration. In November, ONGC has started country’s first shale gas exploration programme.

Shale gas or natural gas trapped in sedimentary rocks (shale formations) below the earth's surface is seen as a new alternative to conventional oil and gas for meeting growing energy needs. Shale gas has become an increasingly important source of natural gas in the United States over the past decade, and now interest has spread to potential shale gas reserves in Canada, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Meanwhile, India has also initiated shale gas exploration programme and it is estimated that recoverable reserves of shale gas in the country is between 6 trillion cubic feet to 63 trillion cubic feet. The move is also a part of oil ministry’s roadmap for cutting India's dependence on imports to meet its oil needs. India currently imports around 80 percent of its oil needs and the Ministry wants this to be cut to 50 percent by 2020 and by 25 percent in 2025 through intensive exploration and exploitation of untapped reserves.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,109.30 up by 52.20 points or 0.86% after trading in a range of 6,112.95 and 6,090.00. There were 44 stocks advancing against 5 stock declines while 1 stock remains unchanged on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were JP Associate up by 5.85%, L&T up by 1.75%, M&M up by 1.75%, IDFC up by 1.64%, and Reliance up by 1.61%. On the flip side, Infosys down by 0.56%, Ambuja Cement down by 0.47%, TCS down by 0.17%, Power Grid down by 0.05%, and Ranbaxy down by 0.01% were the top losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in green; Shanghai Composite surged 28.31 points or 1.29% to 2,229.38, Hang Seng rose 163.89 points or 0.69 % to 23,970.24, KLSE Composite increased 5.03 points or 0.28% to 1,803.49, Nikkei 225 soared 180.37 points or 1.17% to 15,630.00, Straits Times strengthened 21.84 points or 0.69% to 3,193.90, Seoul Composite added 14.78 points or 0.73% to 2,043.59, and Taiwan Weighted was up by 71.35 points or 0.86% to 8,367.23.

On the flip side, Jakarta Composite was down by 5.41 points or 0.13% to 4,246.08.