Trade remains lackluster; realty outperforms

Indian markets are not showing any movement in the noon trade, continuing their sluggishness since morning. New Year day is witnessing lack of traders’ participation and the volumes too remains on lower side. Market men are a bit cautious with India's fiscal deficit in the April-November period reaching 94% of the targeted budgetary estimate of Rs 5.42 lakh crore. However, there was some solace with the output of eight core sector industries growing by 2.5 per cent during April-November, after shrinking 0.6 per cent in October. The Auto sales numbers for the month of December have started trickling in, and despite the weak initial data the auto sector stocks are mostly trading firm. Maruti Suzuki India today reported 4.4 percent decline in its total sales at 90,924 units in December 2013 as against 95,145 units in the same month previous year. On the sectoral front, realty, consumer durables, healthcare, auto and FMCG were showing green ticks; on the other hand IT and Tech trading in red were restricting the markets to move higher. The broader markets are however outperforming the benchmarks with a good margin.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 21189.21, up by 18.53 points or 0.09% after trading in a range of 21244.35 and 21161.68. There were 22 stocks advancing against 8 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were outperforming the benchmarks; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.57%, while Small cap index gained 1.09 %.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 2.08%, Consumer Durables up by 0.86%, healthcare up by 0.64%, Auto up by 0.54% and metal was up by 0.44%. While, IT down by 0.43% and Teck down by 0.10% were the only losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bharti Airtel up by 1.57%, Cipla up by 0.99%, Coal India up by 0.93%, Hero Moto Corp 0.76% and Gail India up by 0.63%. On the flip side,Wipro down by 0.87%, TCS down by 0.51%, HDFC down by 0.44%, RIL down by 0.31% and Axis bank down by 0.28% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, disappointed over the slowdown in the highway projects, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has blamed abnormal delays in getting environment and forest clearances. The NHAI has noted that ministry of environment and forests (MoEF), through its recently changed policy, has created hurdles for environment and forest clearances, which have affected highway projects worth about Rs 20,000 crore and forced the NHAI to approach Supreme Court.

The NHAI highlighted that over the past two years, the highway sector is struggling with slowdown as around 40 highway projects have failed to commence or be completed. In the current fiscal, NHAI has managed to give just 479 km of road projects against its target of 3,000 km by September. In the previous financial year, only 1,116 km of projects were awarded against a target of 9,500 km. Furthermore, NHAI has stressed that it could have terminated the contracts and blacklisted developers for not fulfilling their contractual obligation however that would have meant annoying a large number of private operators.

Meanwhile, Road and Highway ministry has been taking measures to speed up the implementation of road projects. Recently, in order to attract road developers and to revive country’s highway sector, the ministry had approved a policy that allows infrastructure developers to exit highway projects by divesting their entire stake. New policy will help to expedite implementation of road infrastructure in the country and insulate the highways authority from heavy financial claims and unnecessary disputes. Further, the ministry would like to make provisions in the public-private partnerships (PPPs) contracts that allow re-negotiations as PPPs are long-term partnerships spread over 20-25 years.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,313.00, up by 9.00 points or 0.14% after trading in a range of 6,327.20 and 6,301.65. There were 37 stocks advancing against 13 declining ones on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Asian Paints up by 2.55%, Ranbaxy up by 2.20%,DLF up by 2.10%, Bharti Airtel up 1.67% and Lupin was up by 1.62% . On the flip side, Wipro down by 0.97%, Powergrid down by 0.55%, Tata Power down by 0.55%, TCS down by 0.49% and BHEL down by 0.48% were the major losers on the index.

All the major Asian equity indices are not trading today.