Benchmarks continue to trade firm in afternoon session

Indian equity benchmarks continued to trade firm in the afternoon session on the back of buying witnessed in front line blue chip stocks amid firm global cues and a significant drop in country’s current account deficit (CAD) figure for Q3 FY14. Further, gains in the rupee value and high FIIs inflow in the previous session also added to optimistic sentiment. The foreign institutional investors bought shares worth Rs 737.29 crore on Wednesday. Some support also came in from Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia's statement that new government formed after the general elections will have to push infrastructure projects and revive investments within three months of being elected to bring economic growth back on track. Apart from blue chips, broad indices too equally participated in the rally. All sectoral indices on BSE were trading in green except FMCG. Realty was top gainer index on BSE up by around 2.27% followed by power and metal both up by over 1.20%.

Among stocks, SAIL, the country's second-biggest steelmaker, was up 2% after Chairman C S Verma announced that a consortium led by the company hopes to buy coal assets in Poland in the next few months. ALSTOM India, extending its previous day’s 7% rally, was trading up by around 3% at nearly Rs 360 after the company said that it has won a contract worth Rs 679 crore from BHEL to supply two 800MW supercritical boilers. On the other hand, AstraZeneca Pharma India was down almost 7% to around Rs 1,083 after the Indian arm of AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals AB, deferred its delisting from stock exchanges, which was proposed last week by its parent company.

On global front, Asian equity indices were trading in green with Nikkei 225 soared 1.59% and Hang Seng surged by 0.47% as diplomatic efforts moderate the crisis in Ukraine. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above their psychological 6,350 and 21,300 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was positive, out of 2,338 stocks traded, 1,378 stocks advanced, while 831 stocks declined on the BSE.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 21,362.18 up by 85.32 points or 0.40% after trading in a range of 21,398.56 and 21,329.88. There were 24 stocks advancing against 6 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.85%, while Small cap index up by 0.95%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 2.27%, Power up by 1.81%, Metal up by 1.23%, Oil and Gas up by 1.17%, and Capital Goods up by 0.90%. While, FMCG down by 0.24% was the only losing indices on BSE.   

The top gainers on the Sensex were Hero Motocorp up by 2.09%, Hindalco Inds up by 1.95%, Gail India up by 1.91%, SSLT up by 1.81% and BHEL up by 1.62%. On the flip side, Tata Motors down by 0.76%, Cipla down by 0.60%, ITC down by 0.51%, HUL down by 0.44% and TCS down by 0.23%.

Meanwhile, expressing need to revive investments in the country, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia has stated that the new government formed after the general elections will have to push infrastructure projects and revive investments within the three months of being elected to bring economic growth back on track. Ahluwalia added that if these problems are not solved within the first three months, India cannot get back to its potential annual average growth rate at around 8 percent.

During the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17), Planning Commission targeted an annual average economic growth of 8 per cent. However, it seems difficult to achieve the set growth target as Indian economy’s growth slowed down to a decade low at 4.5 percent in FY13 and 4.6 percent during the first half of FY14.

Ahluwalia further asserted that new government must consider the fact that large infrastructure projects in critical areas have got stuck and therefore retain the system of speedy clearance of big infrastructure projects by the Cabinet Committee on Investment (CCI). Infrastructure development is a most critical prerequisite for revival of economy’s growth of the country. Planning Commission has set the $1-trillion investment target for the infrastructure sector for the 12th Five Year Plan.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,356.30 up by 27.65 points or 0.44% after trading in a range of 6,363.95 and 6,339.70. There were only 42 stocks advancing against 8 declining on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were JP Associates up by 2.62%, DLF up by 2.35%, GAIL up by 2.12%, Hero Motocorp up by 1.97% and Ambuja Cement up by 1.95%. On the flip side, Tata Motors down by 0.88%, ITC down by 0.69%, Cipla down by 0.65%, Lupin down by 0.51% and HUL down by 0.44% were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in green; Nikkei 225 soared 237.19 points or 1.59% to 15,136.55, Hang Seng surged by 107.20 points or 0.47% to 22,686.98, Straits Times was up by 16.46 points or 0.52 to 3,133.87, Shanghai Composite up by 9.76 points or 0.50% to 2,062.67. Jakarta Composite rose by around 0.21%, Taiwan Weighted was up by 0.99% and KLSE Composite up by around 0.15%.