Indian equities recover from day’s lows on Friday afternoon trades

Indian benchmarks have rebounded after hitting intraday lows in early moments of afternoon session as market-men regained conviction amid increasing hopes that the key interest rates have peaked and the Indian central bank will abstain from any more rate hikes after doing so for thirteen times since March 2010. Concerned over economic slowdown, the Reserve Bank kept CRR, repo and reverse repo rates unchanged and indicated that it could cut key policy rates from now onwards to arrest falling growth while keeping a close vigil on inflation. The rate sensitive counters like Automobile, Bankex and Realty continued to trade in the positive territory but came off the highs of the day after the RBI policy announcement. The selling pressure in capital goods counter too limited the upside chances for the domestic equity indices. The frontline indices traded under the psychological 16,000 (Sensex) and 4,800 (Nifty) levels but looked firm as sentiments also got support from the optimistic global markets. Sanguine sentiments prevailed across the Asian region while the European futures too showed that the markets there will open higher following the supportive leads from the US were encouraging jobs and manufacturing reports countered worries over the prospects for global economic growth. Back home, on the BSE sectoral space, the badly beaten down Consumer Durables counter surged close to two percent and was the top gainer in the space followed by the rate sensitive Automobile pocket which traded with around one and half a percent gains. The Capital Goods counter remained the only chink in the armor with moderate cuts.

Moreover, the broader markets too traded on a positive note with over half a percent gains, performing in tandem with their larger peers. The bourses gained on strong volumes of over Rs 0.60 lakh core. The market breadth on BSE was in favor of advances in the ratio of 1439:981 while 112 scrips remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 15,934.90 up by 98.43 points or 0.62% after trading as high as 16,053.64 and as low as 15,866.63. There were 21 stocks advancing against 9 declines on the index.

The broader indices were trading on an optimistic note; the BSE Mid cap index gained 0.46% and Small cap advanced 0.55%.

On the BSE sectoral space, Consumer Durables up 1.69%, Auto up 1.54%, FMCG up 1.15%, Oil & Gas up 0.87% and Power up 0.80% were the major gainers while Capital Goods down 0.78%, Metal down 0.08% were the only losers in the space.

Bharti Airtel up 3.07%, Tata Motors up 2.32%, Tata Power up 2.21%, Bajaj Auto up 2.04% and ONGC up 2.03% were the major gainers on the Sensex, while TCS down 1.40%, L&T down 1.26%, Wipro down 1.15%, Jindal Steel down 0.84% and SBI down 0.45% were the major losers in the index.

Meanwhile, the government owned oil marketing companies (OMCs) after the three successive price hikes, reduced the Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF) or jet fuel by 1.3%. The decline in ATF prices has come following the decline in commodity’s international price.

Earlier, on December 1, the OMCs increased the ATF prices by 3.7%. Prior to this, the OMCs have increased the jet fuel prices by Rs 1,195 per KL from November 16, and by 3.8% or Rs 2,845 per KL from November 1.

The jet fuel price was cut by Rs 833 per kilolitre (KL) or 1.3% to Rs 63.739 per KL in Delhi. After the cut, the ATF in Mumbai will cost Rs 64,730 per KL compared to Rs 65,650.27 per KL, it decreased by Rs 920 per liter.

The cut in ATF prices is expected to provide some relief to the domestic airlines, which accounts for 40% of an airlines’ operating cost. Currently, domestic airlines are suffering from the financial losses. The OMCs review ATF prices on 1st and 16th of every month, based on the average international price in the preceding fortnight. 

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 4,773.60, higher by 27.25 points or 0.57% after trading as high as 4,815.75 and as low as 4,752.50. There were 35 stocks advancing against 15 declines on the index.

The top gainers on the Nifty were Bharti Airtel up 3.07%, Dr Reddy’s up 2.80%, GAIL up 2.62%, RPower up 2.38% and Bajaj Auto up 2.35%.

Wipro down 1.62%, TCS down 1.56%, L&T down 1.33%, Jindal Steel down 1.11% and Tata Steel down 0.95% were the major losers on the index.

Asian markets traded on an optimistic note, Shanghai Composite surged 1.55%, Hang Seng soared 1.34%, Jakarta Composite jumped 1.72%, Nikkei 225 added 0.29%, Straits Times climbed 0.69%, Seoul Composite climbed 1.15% and Taiwan Weighted rose 0.30%.