Jubilation continues on D-Street in early deals; Nifty surpasses 6,700 mark

Extending their bull run, Indian equity benchmarks once again made a firm start with frontline gauges surpassing their crucial 6,700 (Nifty) and 22,400 (Sensex) bastions on the back of continued buying interest of the foreign investors in the Indian equities. Some support also came in on Economic Outlook Survey by FICCI, which pegged India’s economic growth to pick up and reach 5.5 percent in 2014-15, as industrial output will recover to expand at 3.3 percent. The industry body has also pegged the agriculture and services sector growth in the next financial year, at 3.3 percent and 7 percent respectively.

Global cues too supported the sentiments with the US markets ending marginally higher in the last trading session on getting report of rise in consumer spending in February at the fastest rate since November. The Asian markets too were trading mostly higher at this point of time. The Japanese market was leading the pack on weakening yen and despite the industrial production unexpectedly falling 2.3 percent in February from January.

Back home, sentiments also remained up-beat as shares of public sector banks (PSB) continued their upward march on the bourses after Reserve Bank of India has relaxed the Basel III norms by a year. On the sectoral front, consumer durables, metal and oil and gas witnessed the maximum gain in trade, while software and technology remained the only losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices too were trading with significant gains, while the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 1,236 shares on the gaining side against 428 shares on the losing side while 81 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 22,423.14; about 83 points higher compared to its previous closing of 22,339.97, and touched a high and a low of 22,467.21 and 22419.90 respectively. The index is currently trading at 22,435.85, up by 95.88 points or 0.43%. There were 24 stocks advancing against 6 declines on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a strong start with 70.83% stocks advancing against 24.53% declines. The broader indices too were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index up was by 1.14% and Small cap gained 1.08%. 

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Consumer Durables up by 3.32%, Metal up by 1.74%, PSU up by 1.58%, Oil & Gas up by 1.18% and Realty up by 1.06%, while IT down by 0.93% and Teck down by 0.39% were the top losers on the sectoral index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Hindalco up by 2.34%, Tata Steel up by 2.07%, Bharti Airtel up by 2.05%, NTPC up by 1.57% and SBI up by 1.56%. On the flip side, Wipro was down by 1.50%, Dr Reddys Lab was down by 1.11%, TCS was down by 0.98%, Infosys was down by 0.60% and ITC was down by 0.47% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, in order to give more operational flexibility to country’s exporters and importers, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) relaxed some restrictions relating to hedging of currency risk of probable exposures of exporters and importers.

The RBI notified that importers and exporters can cancel up to 75 percent of their hedged forex exposures, as against 25 percent earlier. The profit or loss from these cancellations will be borne by the importer/exporter instead of passing it on to the customers as was mandated earlier. Further, the notification added that the contracts in excess of 75 per cent of the eligible limit shall be on deliverable basis and cannot be cancelled.

Regarding the procedure for determination of eligible limit, the central bank noted that eligible limit in the case of exporters is computed as the average of the previous three financial years’ (April to March) actual export turnover or the previous year’s actual export turnover, whichever is higher. In the case of importers, the eligible limit is calculated as 25 percent of the average of the previous three financial years’ actual import turnover or the previous year’s actual import turnover, whichever is higher.

The CNX Nifty opened at 6,723.15; about 27 point higher as compared to its previous closing of 6,695.90, and has touched a high and a low of 6,730.05 and 6,713.55 respectively. The index is currently trading at 6,722.65, up by 26.75 points or 0.40%. There were 40 stocks advancing against 9 declines and one stock remains unchanged on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were PNB up by 2.83%, Bank of Baroda up by 2.61%, Bharti Airtel up by 2.39%, NTPC up by 2.23% and BPCL up by 2.18%. On the flip side, Tech Mahindra down by 2.00%, Wipro down by 1.20%, Dr. Reddy's Laboratories down by 1.17%, TCS down by 0.81% and Infosys down by 0.76% were the top losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in green; Shanghai Composite rose 1.70 points or 0.08% to 2,043.41, Hang Seng increased by 61.72 points or 0.28% to 22,127.25, Jakarta Composite jumped 45.22 points or 0.96% to 4,768.28, Nikkei 225 soared 87.28 points or 0.59% to 14,783.31 and Straits Times gained by 14.63 points or 0.46% to 3,186.80.

On the flip side, KLSE Composite tumbled by 2.50 points or 0.14% to 1,848.23 and Taiwan Weighted was down by 20.47 points or 0.23% to 8,795.11.