Benchmarks trade slightly higher on penultimate day of F&O series expiry

Indian equity benchmarks are trading slightly in the green terrain on Tuesday tracking positive cues from global markets. The US markets continued their up-move in the new week taking the Dow and the S&P 500 to new record highs, backed by continued optimism about the outlook for the US economy following IMF’s positive comments. Moreover, all the Asian equity indices, barring Jakarta Composite, are trading with traction in early deals with Japanese markets gaining three fourth of a percent as a weaker yen triggering some hectic buying at several counters.

Back home, some support also came in after the Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma highlighted that India will achieve the modest export target of $325 billion for the current fiscal but to enhance it substantially, the country needs to boost its manufacturing capability. However, gains remained capped as investors opted to stay away from piling up positions in risky assets as it being the penultimate day of December series F&O expiry. Meanwhile, the rate sensitive counters like, Banking and Realty remained under pressure as the RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan has said that fighting rising prices will continue to be its priority and a call on raising interest rates will be taken after factoring in more data. However, he said that the Reserve Bank will wait for next set of data on inflation and industrial growth before taking a call on interest rates.

On the sectoral front, capital goods witnessed the maximum gain in trade followed by healthcare and oil and gas, while metal, banking and realty remained the few losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices, however, were outperforming benchmarks, while the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 822 shares on the gaining side against 380 shares on the losing side while 51 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 21127.66; about 26 points higher compared to its previous closing of 21101.03, and touched a high and a low of 21156.92 and 21076.16 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 21113.09, up by 12.06 points or 0.06%. There were 16 stocks advancing against 14 declines on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a strong start with 65.6065% stocks advancing against 30.33% declines. The broader indices too were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index up was by 0.54% and Small cap gained 0.75%. 

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Capital Goods up by 1.04%, Healthcare up by 0.89%, Oil & Gas up by 0.52%, Power up by 0.29% and Teck up by 0.27%, while Metal down by 0.75%, Bankex down by 0.57% and Realty down by 0.36% were the top losers on the sectoral index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were L&T up by 1.32%, NTPC up by 1.28%, Bajaj Auto up by 1.19%, RIL up by 0.96% and BHEL up by 0.92%. On the flip side, SSLT was down by 2.26%, Tata Power was down by 2.02%, HDFC  was down by 0.93%, HDFC Bank was down by 0.80% and Maruti Suzuki was down by 0.72% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, the Highway and Road Ministry expects stalled road projects worth over Rs 1 lakh crore to start getting executed from next month onwards as report of C Rangarajan Committee for restructuring the annual premium owed to the government by developers of stressed road projects is likely to be accepted by month-end. The panel, headed by PMEAC chairman C Rangarajan, was set up in November to decide the modalities of the premium rescheduling policy, while final decision could be implemented by the highways ministry after the Cabinet approval.

As per the Rangarajan panel report, 75 percent of the premium amount payable by the road developers to the government will be restructured in the first three years of the contract. Currently, developers pay some portion of premium to the government in the first year of the project which keeps increasing in the subsequent years. Companies make payment to the the National Highways Authority of India under the build, operate and transfer (BOT) mode. The move is likely to provide relief to a large number of players such as GMR, GVK and Ashoka Buildcon, whose projects have been facing delays on account of high premium.

The development of infrastructure is a most critical prerequisite to boost the economy’s growth and the ministry of road transport and highways is taking measures to revive the growth in highway road projects in the country. The government has also entered into the 'Public Private Partnership (PPP)' programme in order to bring adequate resources for setting up of a sound and efficient infrastructural base. Meanwhile, it has set the $1-trillion investment target for the infrastructure sector for the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17). The CNX Nifty opened at 6,296.45; about 11 points higher as compared to its previous closing of 6,284.50, and has touched a high and a low of 6,301.50 and 6,278.15 respectively. The index is currently trading at 6,288.60, up by 4.10 points or 0.07%. There were 27 stocks advancing against 23 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Ambuja Cements up by 2.17%, Ranbaxy up by 2.15%, BPCL up by 2.10%, ACC up by 1.98% and UltraTech Cement up by 1.56%. On the flip side, SSLT down by 2.23%, Tata Power down by 2.13%, NMDC down by 1.15%, Kotak Bank down by 1.13% and PNB down by 0.99% were the top losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in green; Shanghai Composite rose 14.89 points or 0.71% to 2,104.59, Hang Seng increased 257.99 points or 1.13% to 23,179.55, KLSE Composite jumped 4.36 points or 0.24% to 1,837.22, Nikkei 225 surged 113.51 points or 0.72% to 15,983.93, Straits Times strengthened 12.72 points or 0.41% to 3,128.94, Seoul Composite added 8.55 points or 0.43% to 2,005.44 and Taiwan Weighted was up by 10.75 points or 0.13% to 8,467.21.

On the flip side, Jakarta Composite was up by 11.89 points or 0.28% to 4,177.72.