Benchmarks continue their northward journey in late morning

Benchmarks equity indices continued their northward journey in late morning on fresh buying mainly in rate sensitives’ like banking and auto with hopes of demand increase, as Finance Minister P Chidambaram reduced excise duty on small cars and motorcycles, sport utility vehicles and mid and large-sized cars, quiet considerably. Investor’s sentiments remained upbeat on report that the FII bought shares worth a net Rs 522.82 crore on Monday, 17 February 2014, as per provisional data from the stock exchanges. On the global front, Asian equity indices were exhibiting mixed trade with investors mostly treading cautiously and tracking regional news for direction following a holiday on Wall Street on Monday. Japanese stocks rose as the yen held yesterday’s losses before the Bank of Japan’s policy statement.

Back home, traders were buying, Banking, Metal and Capital Goods stocks, while selling was seen in Consumer Durables. The market breadth on BSE remains positive with advances to declines in the ratio of 1085:591. BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty were comfortably trading near their psychological 20,600 and 6,100 levels respectively.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 20605.87 up by 141.81 points or 0.69% after trading in a range of 20613.79 and 20436.48. There were 24 stocks advancing against 6 declines on the index. The broader indices were trading green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.56% and Small cap index gained 0.49%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Bankex up by 1.67%, Metal up by 0.85%, Capital Goods up by 0.59%, Auto up by 0.59%, and Health Care up by 0.50%, while Consumer Durables down by 0.12% was only the losers on the sectoral space.

The top gainers on the Sensex were HDFC up by 2.06%, Axis Bank up by 1.79%, ICICI Bank up by 1.78% Tata Steel up by 1.77%, and SBI up by 1.58%. On the flip side, Tata Power was down by 1.16%, Bharti Airtel was down by 0.69%, Gail India was down by 0.55%, Coal India was down by 0.41%, and ITC was down by 0.14% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, marking tenth consecutive month of decline, Indian exports of gold jewellery dropped in January, with outbound shipments declining by 23 per cent to Rs 2,993 crore. Cumulatively, gold jewellery exports from April to January fell 44.42 per cent to Rs 33,178 crore from Rs 59,693 crore in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal. However, in the first two months of the current fiscal, gold imports had crossed 300 tonne. Nevertheless, exports are expected to further fall due to no sign of any government incentives to revive the sagging shipments.

India has imposed a lot of restriction to bring down the imports of the yellow metal, which is the second biggest import item by value after oil. These measures include a rule that 20 percent of all gold shipped to be re-exported as jewellery, which makes it difficult for domestic jewellers and even exporters to get supplies despite high premiums. Besides the 80/20 import rule, the government has raised the customs duty thrice to 10 per cent in 2013.

However, in a development which has raised the hopes of improvement in imports of gold, finance ministry has said that India will review the curbs by the end of March, which coincides with the end of India's fiscal year.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,112.80 up by 39.50 points or 0.65% after trading in a range of 6,120.05 and 6,066.80. There were 40 stocks advancing against 10 decliners on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were HDFC up by 2.17%, PNB up by 1.94%, AXIS Bank up by 1.72%, Kotak Bank up by 1.67% and Tata Steel up by 1.62%. On the flip side, Tata Power down by 1.36%, Gail down by 0.91%, DLF down by 0.84%, HCL Tech down by 0.79%, and Bharti Airtel down by 0.48% were the top losers on the index.

The Asian equity indices were trading mixed; Hang Seng added 1.33 points or 0.01% to 22,537.27, Jakarta Composite strengthened by 9.80 points or 0.22% to 4,565.17, Nikkei 225 surged by 403.16 points or 2.80% to 14,795.97 and Taiwan Weighted was up by 12.99 points or 0.15% to 8,532.54.

On the flip side, Shanghai Composite declined by 10.41 points or 0.49% to 2,125.01, KLSE Composite contracted 2.61 points or 0.14% to 1,824.87, Straits Times was marginally in red by 0.12 points to 3,069.16 and KOSPI Composite was down by 6.40 points or 0.33% to 1,939.96.