Benchmarks trade slightly in the green in early deals

Indian equity benchmarks are trading slightly in the green in early deals on Wednesday tracking firm global cues. Overnight, US stocks rallied, with the S&P 500 closing at a record high as Russia and Ukraine concerns eased, and the markets recovered all the previous session’s hefty losses. Asian markets too were trading mostly higher at this point of time tailing the surge in US markets and most of the indices are showing good gains in early trade.

Back home, stocks related to infra space remained higher, as the government has cleared a long pending bailout policy for financially-stressed highway developers which would allow them to defer the premium that they have committed to pay the government. Banking stocks too remained on buyers’ radar, as the Finance Minister P Chidambaram will meet chief executives of public sector banks for a quarterly performance review. In the meeting, besides capital adequacy, Chidambaram is expected to discuss the NPA situation and recovery measures taken by banks, status of stalled projects as well as credit flow to new projects.

On the sectoral front, healthcare, technology and software witnessed the maximum gain in trade, while consumer durables, power and oil and gas remained the top losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices, however, were outperforming benchmarks, while the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 1171 shares on the gaining side against 510 shares on the losing side while 68 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 21280.36; about 70 points higher compared to its previous closing of 21209.73, and touched a high and a low of 21333.20 and 21221.87 respectively. The index is currently trading at 21261.90, up by 52.17 points or 0.25%. There were 19 stocks advancing against 11 declines on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a strong start with 65.21% stocks advancing against 30.47% declines. The broader indices too were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index up was by 0.76% and Small cap gained 0.55%. 

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Metal up by 1.17%, Healthcare up by 1.07%, Teck up by 0.80%, IT up by 0.78% and Realty up by 0.74%, while Consumer Durables down by 1.41%, Power down by 0.19% and Oil & Gas down by 0.02% were the top losers on the sectoral index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Steel up by 2.08%, Dr Reddys Lab up by 1.62%,  Coal India up by 1.58%, ONGC up by 1.08% and Cipla up by 0.99%. On the flip side, Tata Power was down by 1.25%, NTPC was down by 0.83%, HDFC was down by 0.80%, Bharti Airtel was down by 0.70% and BHEL was down by 0.60% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, with an aim to contain the rising inflation in the country, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) launched the 35th round of the quarterly survey of inflation expectations for the next three months, which are based on subjective assessments of about 5,000 households across 16 cities. The RBI notification has stated that the survey seeks qualitative responses from households on price changes (general prices as well as prices of specific product groups) for the next three months and for next one year. The results of this survey are being used by central bank as one of the important inputs to the monetary policy formulation.

RBI has appointed Mumbai-based market research agency Hansa Research Group for conducting the current round of the surveys. RBI further noted that though the agency will approach select households seeking responses, other individuals not approached by the agency can also participate in the survey by downloading the survey schedule from the RBI web site.

The RBI had highlighted that prevailing high inflation in the country continued to pose challenges to economic growth over the medium-term by impacting people's savings. Therefore, in order to check inflation, the central bank, in its third quarter review of monetary policy 2013-14, increased the repo rate by 25 basis points to 8%. WPI inflation eased to eight month low at 5.05% in January as compared to 6.16% in December and 7.31% during the corresponding month of the previous.

The CNX Nifty opened at 6,328.45; about 30 point higher as compared to its previous closing of 6,297.95, and has touched a high and a low of 6,333.90 and 6,299.75 respectively. The index is currently trading at 6,311.80, up by 13.85 points or 0.22%. There were 29 stocks advancing against 21 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were IDFC up by 2.26%, TATA Steel up by 2.22%, Coal India up by 1.64%, DLF up by 1.61% and Dr. Reddy's Laboratories up by 1.60%. On the flip side, Ambuja Cements down by 2.32%, Tata Power down by 1.44%, NTPC down by 0.88%, ACC down by 0.84% and BHEL down by 0.75% were the top losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in green; Hang Seng increased 53.68 points or 0.24% to 22,711.31, Jakarta Composite rose by 43.53 points or 0.95% to 4,644.82, KLSE Composite strengthened by 3.10 points or 0.17% to 1,829.56, Nikkei 225 surged by 220.68 points or 1.50% to 14,942.16, Straits Times gained 5.27 points or 0.17% to 3,109.98, KOSPI Composite jumped 18.13 points or 0.93% to 1,972.24 and Taiwan Weighted was up by 91.32 points or 1.07% to 8,645.86.

On the flip side, Shanghai Composite was down by 4.06 points or 0.20% to 2,067.41.