Benchmarks continue their northward journey on positive global cues

Benchmarks continued their northward journey in late morning trade following positive global cues. Sentiments remained boosted as the rupee was traded at 62.36 per dollar vs previous close of 62.38. Some support also came in on the buzz that the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) specified a circuit limit of up to 20% for all publicly traded stocks that are included in any index derivatives. The market regulator said the move is aimed at protecting stocks against excessive volatility risks. On the global front, Asian markets too were trading mostly higher at this point of time with the Japanese Nikkei taking the lead, up by around two percent after yen dropped against the dollar.

The market breadth on BSE remains positive with advances to declines in the ratio of 1170:594. BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty were comfortably trading near their psychological 20,300 and 6,050 levels respectively. The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 20390.71 up by 79.97 points or 0.39% after trading in a range of 20450.51 and 20363.58. There were 21 stocks advancing against 9 declines on the index. The broader indices were trading green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.66% and Small cap index gained 0.62%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Healthcare up by 1.46%, Realty up by 1.32%, Metal up by 1.25%, Capital Goods up by 0.60% and Oil & Gas up by 0.57%. While FMCG down by 0.26% was the only loser on the sectoral index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Steel up by 3.15%, Sun Pharma up by 2.48%, SSLT up by 2.40%, Dr Reddys Lab up by 1.53% and Tata Power up by 1.53%. On the flip side, Bharti Airtel was down by 1.51%, Coal India was down by 0.96%, Hindalco Industries was down by 0.80%, TCS was down by 0.53%, ITC was down by 0.49% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, Amid prevailing economic slowdown in the country, the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) has lowered its GDP forecast for the current fiscal to 4.7- 4.9 percent from 4.8 - 5.3 percent projected earlier. Presenting a somber picture of Indian economic outlook, NCAER noted that despite good farm production, high baseline oil price and rupee depreciation are the factors making significant dent to growth of GDP. Depreciation in the exchange rate likely to remain at 11 percent on y-o-y basis from 9.5 percent estimated earlier. NCAER has projected growth rate at 5.6 percent for the FY15. India's economic growth slowed down to a decade low of 5 percent in the previous fiscal and 4.6% in the first half of FY14.

Referring to industrial production, NCAER revised the FY14 growth projection for industry to 1.6 percent, while for FY15 it is projected an upward trend for industrial production to 3.8 percent. During the period April-November 2013-14, Indian industrial production stood at -0.2% from a year earlier. It further stated that services sector, which make up nearly 60% of country’ economics output, is struggling with slowdown. However, the sector’s growth gets some support from the rising Indian services exports mainly IT services. NCAER projected services sector growth at 5.6 percent for FY15.

Further, NCAER stated that WPI inflation is expected at 6.2 - 6.4 percent during the current fiscal. On fiscal deficit front, it estimated country’s fiscal deficit at 5.1 percent of GDP, which was higher than government's fiscal deficit target of 4.8 percent of GDP for 2013-14. In the first nine months of this fiscal, Indian fiscal deficit reached Rs 5,16,390 crore or 95.2 per cent of the Rs 5,42,499 crore fiscal target.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,061.85 up by 25.55 points or 0.42% after trading in a range of 6,079.95 and 6,051.05. There were 37 stocks advancing against 13 stock declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Ambuja Cements up by 3.56%, Tata Steel up by 3.39%, JP Associate up by 3.30%, Bank of Baroda up by 2.85%, and Sun Pharma up by 2.54%. On the flip side, Bharti Airtel down by 1.49%, Coal India down by 1.08%, Indusind BK down by 0.83%, Hindalco down by 0.71% and Ranbaxy down by 0.61% were the top losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in green; Hang Seng rose 166.79 points or 0.78% to 21,589.92, Jakarta Composite increased 39.56 points or 0.89% to 4,464.27, KLSE Composite jumped 6.86 points or 0.38% to 1,804.76, Nikkei 225 surged 271.19 points or 1.92% to 14,426.31, Straits Times strengthened 24.84 points or 0.83% to 3,013.11, Seoul Composite added 10.24 points or 0.54% to 1,918.13 and Taiwan Weighted was up by 86.77 points or 1.04% to 8,397.78. On the flip side, Shanghai Composite was down by 4.74 points or 0.23% to 2,028.35.