Markets after a flat start trade modestly in green

Indian markets extending their cautiousness have made a flat but positive start on Tuesday morning. Though there is not much movement but benchmarks are managing to hold their early gains tailing the good going in the Asian peers and the overnight positive close of the US markets. Traders remained concerned about the survey findings of Credit Suisse and Nielsen that said confidence among emerging market consumers has deteriorated during the last year and stated that optimism level in India has also slipped four percentage points over last year and India was ranked fifth in the list. Traders were also worried by the continued selling by the FIIs. Sectorally, IT sector was gaining the pack ahead of the growth forecast of software industry body Nasscom, which is widely expected to forecast a pick up in technology services exports in fiscal year 2014-15. However, the power stocks were still in somber mood despite the Union Power Ministry asking for a subsidy of Rs 5,000 crore over two years to support gas-based plants which would have to pay double for natural gas prices from April 1.  

The broader indices too were trading in-line with benchmarks, while the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 837 shares on the gaining side against 583 shares on the losing side while 83 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 20400.94; about 66 points higher compared to its previous closing of 20334.27, and touched a high and a low of 20443.35 and 20353.41 respectively. The index is currently trading at 20382.99, up by 48.72 points or 0.24%. There were 15 stocks advancing against 15 declines on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a strong start with 56.08% stocks advancing against 38.70% declines. The broader indices too were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index up was by 0.38% and Small cap gained 0.55%. 

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, IT up by 0.88%, Capital Goods up by 0.86%, Consumer Durables up by 0.84%, Auto up by 0.81% and Teck up by 0.68%, while Realty down by 0.31%, Power down by 0.28%, Oil & Gas down by 0.22%, Metal down by 0.19% and PSU down by 0.18% were the top losers on the sectoral index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Motors up by 2.97%, Tata Steel up by 1.28%, Sun Pharma up by 1.22%,  L&T up by 1.01% and TCS up by 0.89%. On the flip side, Bharti Airtel was down by 2.08%, Hindalco was down by 1.78%, Cipla was down by 1.43%, NTPC was down by 1.29% and  Coal India was down by 1.11% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, Finance Ministry expects that India’s current account deficit (CAD) will fall by almost 50% to around $45 billion in the current financial year, mainly on the back of declining gold imports and the narrowing trade deficit. India’s CAD widened to a record high of $88.2 billion or 4.8% of GDP in 2012-13, however during the first half of current fiscal, CAD has narrowed to $26.9 billion or 3.1% of GDP from 4.5% of GDP in the first half of 2012-13.

The ministry further stated that the country is witnessing significant improvement on trade deficit front on account of better performance of exports and contracting imports. During April-December’2013, value of exports increased by 5.94% to $230.34 billion as against $217.42 billion in the same period of previous year. India’s imports also declined by 6.55% to $340.38 billon during April-December’2013 as against $364.24 billion recorded in the same period of previous year. Further, Finance Ministry added that FII inflows remained quite robust during this fiscal and expressed confidence for accretion to foreign exchange reserves. As on January 31, 2014 India’s foreign exchange reserve stood at $291 billion. Besides, Foreign Institutional Investors investing Rs 56,560 crore in equities so far in the current fiscal. 

Referring to fiscal deficit front, Finance Ministry has asserted that country’s fiscal deficit is likely to be contained at 4.7% of GDP in 2013-14 because of better- than-expected response to the ongoing auction of telecom spectrum and other supportive measures taken by the government. So far the government has garnered around Rs 56,190 crore from the ongoing auction of 2G radiowaves and the figure is likely to go up further. 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 opened at 6,072.45; about 19 point higher as compared to its previous closing of 6,053.45, and has touched a high and a low of 6,080.05 and 6,053.25 respectively. The index is currently trading at 6,063.65, up by 10.20 points or 0.17%. There were 21 stocks advancing against 29 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Tata Motors up by 2.23%, HCL Tech up by 1.93%, Sun Pharma up by 1.41%, Tata Steel up by 1.23% and Ranbaxy up by 1.22%. On the flip side, Hindalco down by 1.73%, PNB down by 1.61%, Cipla down by 1.60%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.51% and Coal India down by 1.20% were the top losers on the index.

The Asian equity indices were trading in green; Shanghai Composite increased 7.51 points or 0.36% to 2,093.58, Hang Seng surged 343.88 points or 1.59% to 21,923.14, Jakarta Composite strengthened 19.72 points or 0.44% to 4,470.47, KLSE Composite rose 4.32 points or 0.24% to 1,820.46, Straits Times spurted 17.93 points or 0.59% to 3,035.13, Seoul Composite gained 9.94 points or 0.52% to 1,933.24 and Taiwan Weighted was up 37.91 points or 0.45% to 8,429.86.