Benchmarks trim gains; trade continues in green

Indian equities trimmed gains but continued to trade in green in the late afternoon session on account of profit booking in frontline blue chip counters. Investors were taking cautious approach ahead of release of key economic data, viz IIP and CPI, scheduled later in the evening. The street expects that consumer inflation and industrial output data will likely offer little evidence of a respite from high inflation and weak economic growth before a general election that begins next month. Traders were seen piling positions in HealthCare, Consumer Durables and FMCG stocks while selling was witnessed in PSU, Oil & Gas and Auto sector stocks. In scrip specific development, Budget carrier SpiceJet was trading in green on placing an order for 42 737 MAX jets with the US aircraft maker Boeing for $4.4 billion amounting Rs 26,000 crore. L&T Finance Holdings and Just Dial were too trading in green on inclusion in the Futures and Options (F&O) segment on the NSE Nifty. Havells India was trading firm on reports which indicated that the company is planning to list Sylvania Global on the London Stock Exchange.

On the global front, the Asian markets were trading in red, while the European markets were too trading on pessimistic note. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above their psychological 6,500 and 21,800 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was negative in the ratio of 1230:1410 while 125 scrips remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 21860.70, up by 34.28 points or 0.16% after trading in a range of 21,965.95 and 21768.14. There were 15 stocks advancing against 15 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were too trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.16%, while Small cap index was up by 0.18%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were HealthCare up by 1.51%, Consumer Durables up by 1.29%, FMCG up by 1.16%, Metal up by 0.39% and Realty up by 0.31%. While, PSU down by 0.80%, Oil & Gas down by 0.66%, Auto down by 0.56%, Capital Goods down by 0.51% and Power down by 0.48%.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Sun Pharma up by 3.94%, Hero MotoCorp up by 2.07%, ITC up by 1.84%, Wipro up by 1.34% and Coal India up by 1.25%.

On the flip side, Tata Motors down by 2.03%, BHEL down by 1.80%, ONGC down by 1.67%, SBI down by 1.56% and Hindalco Industries down by 1.53% were the top losers on the index.

Meanwhile, India has to cut its oil imports from Iran by nearly two-thirds from the first quarter of 2014 after the United States (US) asked the country to hold the shipments at end-2013 levels. The US told that it currently examines Tehran's resolve to cooperate with world powers on its controversial nuclear programme and India has to cut its purchases of the crude to about 110,000 barrels per day (bpd) from its intake average to 195,000 barrel for the six months to July 20. Further, the US insisting on keeping the 11 million tonnes (MT) quota for the 2014 calendar would mean that India could buy a total oil of not more than 5.5-6 MT during January-June ’2014 period.  

In November, the US and six other world powers attained a historic accord with Iran, allowing easing of some sanctions against the Islamic regime in exchange for halting its programme to attain nuclear weapon capability. According to the agreement, the world powers allowed Iran to maintain its oil exports at 1 million barrels a day to key buyers India, China, Japan and South Korea.

India is the world’s fourth-largest oil importer and a major customer of Iran’s 1.7 million barrels per day of oil exports. During April-December’2013, India had imported 6.74 MT of oil from Iran and planned to buy over 4.2 MT in the last quarter of current financial year. Earlier, six years ago, the international authorities had initiated a programme to halt Iran’s most sensitive nuclear work and targeted Iran’s financial and oil sectors, a main source of revenue for the country. Afterwards, the European Union (EU) had banned oil imports from Iran. In order to comply with international sanctions, Indian government had drastically cut its energy imports from Iran, which has been replaced by Iraq as the second-largest supplier of fuel to India, after Saudi Arabia.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,517.10, up by 5.20 points or 0.08% after trading in a range of 6,546.15 and 6,487.30. There were 22 stocks advancing against 27 declining ones while 1 stock remained unchanged on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Sun Pharma up by 4.47%, NMDC up by 2.12%, Hero MotoCorp up by 1.96%, Asian Paints up by 1.91% and ITC up by 1.78%.

On the flip side, IDFC down by 2.55%, PNB down by 2.07%, BHEL down by 2.03%, Tata Motors down by 2.00% and Bank of Baroda down by 1.98% were the major losers on the index.

Asian equity indices were trading in red; Nikkei 225 plunged by 2.59%, Hang Seng plummeted 1.65%, Straits Times declined by 0.91%, Shanghai Composite descended by 0.17% , Jakarta Composite lost 0.31%, KLSE Composite dropped 0.43%, Seoul Composite inched lower by 1.60% and Taiwan Weighted declined by 0.20%.

The European markets were trading in red; France’s CAC 40 was down 1.03%, Germany’s DAX dropped 0.86% and UK’s FTSE 100 inched lower by 0.74%.