Benchmarks off day’s high; celebration continues at Dalal Street

Although off day’s high level, Indian equity markets continued to celebrate BJP’s victory in state assembly elections, by trading sanguinely in positive territory with gains of close to one and half a percent, above the crucial 21,300 (Sensex) and 6,350 (Nifty) levels respectively. Meanwhile, broader indices too gaining some traction were up with gains of over quarter of a percent. Further, positive global set-up also were bolstering sentiment and leading to across the board buying activities at Dalal Street. Among BSE sectoral indices, only stocks from Consumer Durable pivotal were trading in red, while those from banking, Capital Goods and Oil & Gas counters were the shining stars of the session.  Additionally, Rupee’s appreciation for fourth straight session against dollar on increased dollar selling, was also aiding the upside momentum of the bourses. On the currency front, Indian rupee, after scaling a four month high at 60.90, was currently trading at 61.14, stronger by 30 paise from its previous close of 61.44 on Friday in the global markets, Asian counterparts marched higher on Monday; energized by a potent cocktail of upbeat Chinese trade data, a weaker yen and a firm finish on Wall Street after US jobs data indicated that Fed’s tapering would atleast not start since December. A total of 203,000 jobs were added in November, while the unemployment rate dropped three-tenths of a percentage point to a five-year low of 7%. Additionally, bourses also received sentimental boost after China's exports came in well above forecast in November, rising 12.7 percent from a year earlier, while imports rose 5.3%.

Closer home, the BSE Sensex is currently trading at 21311.93, up by 315.40 points or 1.50% after trading in a range of 21,483.74 and 21282.64. There were 23 stocks advancing against 7 stocks declining on the index. The overall market breadth on BSE is in the favour of declines which thumped advances in the ratio of 1177:603; while 58 shares remained unchanged.

The broader indices continued to trade with traction; with BSE Midcap and Smallcap indexes gaining by 0.59% and 0.21% respectively.

With across the board buying taking place, only Consumer Durable was down by 0.15%, nevertheless, the gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Bankex up by 3.27%, Capital Goods up by 2.86%, Oil and Gas up by 1.80%, Power up by 1.47% and Realty up by 0.92%.

The top gainers on the Sensex were SSLT up by 5.04%, ICICI Bank up by 4.93%, L&T up by 4.28%, ONGC up by 3.28% and NTPC up by 3.26%. On the flip side, Jindal Steel down by 5.50%, Cipla down by 0.94%, HUL down by 0.64%, Tata Steel down by 0.50% and BHEL down by 0.26%.

Meanwhile, the Ministry for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) will organize a meeting with the heads of the public sector banks soon in order to encourage them to lend to MSME sector under the Pradhan Mantri Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP).

Union Minister of State for Small and Medium Enterprises, K.H. Muniappa has said that presently, banks are cautious for lending under the scheme in some areas of MSMEs, therefore, the meeting will organize to learn about their problems and sort them out. The Government would stand guarantor for a significant portion of the loans and provide matching subsidies under scheme, Minister added. On the other hand, banks had reported that many MSMEs loans had turned bad as the subsidies were credited to the loan account holders’ account.

Under the PMEGP scheme, which has formed by merging the existing employment generation programmes - Rural Employment Generation Programme and Pradhan Mantri Rozgar Yojana loans are given without any collateral. Through the scheme, the government has planned to reach out to 1 lakh entrepreneurs in 650 districts across the country during 2013-14 and also aims to train 40 lakh people through the primary technical training centres during the 12th Plan period.

The MSME sector contributes around 8% of the country's GDP, 45% of the manufactured output and provides employment to over 8 crore persons engaged in over 3.6 crore units. Meanwhile, the government has been taking steps to boost the sector’s growth. In the 12th Five-Year Plan, the government has increased Budget allocation for the sector to Rs 24,000 crore from Rs 11,000 crore in the previous five-plan period.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,356.30, up by 96.40 points or 1.54% after trading in a range of 6,415.25 and 6,345. There were 42 stocks advancing against 8 declining stocks on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were SSLT up by 5.24%, ICICI Bank up by 4.86%, L&T up by 4.29%, Indusind Bank up by 3.64% and NTPC up by 3.56%. On the flip side, Jindal Steel down by 5.56%, Cipla down by 1.04%, NMDC down by 0.87%, Cairn India down by 0.62% and Tata Steel down by 0.52% were the major losers on the index.

The Asian equity indices were trading in green; Seoul Composite up by 1.01%, Jakarta Composite up by 0.49%, Taiwan Weighted up by 0.92%, KLSE Composite up by 0.67%, Nikkei 225 up by 2.29%, Hang Seng up by 0.32% and Straits Times up by 0.01%, while Shanghai Composite down by 0.01% was the lone loser amongst Asian pack.