Benchmarks add gains; Sensex above 22000 mark

Indian equities added gains to continue their firm trade in the late afternoon session on account of buying in frontline counters and taking cues from Asian counterparts. Investors have started eyeing the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) policy review scheduled on April 1. RBI will presumably take many variables into account in its April policy, including the direction of food prices, which has been responsible for driving up WPI and CPI in past. Traders were seen piling positions in Bankex, Oil & Gas and PSU stocks, while selling was witnessed in HealthCare, Consumer Durables and IT sector stocks. On the global front, the Asian markets were trading in green, while the European markets were trading on pessimistic note. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above their psychological 6,550 and 22,000 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was negative in the ratio of 1270:1394 while 148 scrips remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 22061.20, up by 305.88 points or 1.41% after trading in a range of 22074.34 and 21827.50. There were 25 stocks advancing against 5 declining ones on the index.

The broader indices too were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.21%, while the Small cap index has gained 0.29%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on BSE were, Bankex up by 2.64%, Oil& Gas up by 2.42%, PSU up by 2.27%, Realty was up by 1.31% and Metal was up by 1.20%. On the other hand HealthCare down by 0.34%, Consumer durables down by 0.12% and IT down by 0.05% were the losers on the sectoral front.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Gail India up by 4.68%, ONGC up by 3.93%, ICICI Bank up by 3.53%, Coal India up by 3.11% and HDFC Bank up by 2.14%. On the flip side, Dr. Reddy’s Lab down by 0.90%, NTPC down by 0.83%, Infosys down by 0.59%, Sun Pharma down by 0.50% and Wipro down by 0.39% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, projects awarded to road developers to build 2,500 km of highways have been cancelled amid concerns over land acquisition delays, environmental clearances and non-payment of performance guarantee. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), which awarded most of these 23 projects during 2011-12, mentioned that owing to the prevailing economic slowdown, firms did not respond to many bids floated by it. NHAI reported that fresh bids for such projects can be invited only after a public-private partnership appraisal committee revises the costs upwards considering the inflation since the time when these projects were awarded.

NHAI further added that more road projects are expected to get cancelled as many road developers who have not yet started working on the projects awarded two-three years ago are yet to take a clear stance on whether they will continue or surrender the projects after evaluating the premium re-scheduling proposal, which was approved recently. The proposal permitting premium deferment will mainly help projects on which work has already started. As per the premium deferment proposal, 75 percent of the premium amount payable by the road developers to the government will be restructured in the first three years of the contract.

Over the past few years, Indian highway sector has been facing issues like financial stress, land acquisition delays and environmental clearances, enhanced construction risk. So far this fiscal, NHAI has managed to give just 479 km of road projects against its target of 3,000 km by September. In the previous financial year, only 1,116 km of projects were awarded against a target of 9,500 km.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,586.45, up by 91.55 points or 1.41%, after trading in a range of 6,591.50 and 6,510.50. There were 43 stocks advancing against 7 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were GAIL India up by 4.97%, IndusInd Bank up by 4.48%, ONGC up by 4.08%, NMDC was up by 3.77% and ICICI Bank up by 3.54%. On the flip side, HCL Tech down by 1.35%, NTPC down by 0.92%, Dr. Reddy’s Lab down by 0.63%, Infosys down by 0.61% and Sun Pharma down by 0.60% were the top losers on the index.

All the major Asian indices were trading in green; Shanghai Composite was up by 0.91%, Hang Seng gained 1.91%, Jakarta Composite was up by 0.50%, KLSE Composite added 0.72%, Nikkei 225 was up by 1.77%, Straits Times was gained 1.36%, Seoul Composite was up by 0.55% and Taiwan Weighted gained 0.33%.

The European markets were trading in red; France’s CAC 40 was down 0.42%, Germany’s DAX lost 0.41% and UK’s FTSE 100 dropped 0.34%.