Benchmarks continue to trade in green in late morning

After a firm start, Indian equity benchmarks have pared initial gains, though continued to trade above neutral line in late morning deals as the Banking stocks off day's high. Sentiments remained up-beat on report that foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 1,362.87 crore on Friday, as per provisional data from the National Stock Exchange. 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.

On the global front, the Asian markets too were trading mostly higher. 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, traders were buying, Consumer Durables, Metal and Realty stocks, while selling was seen in IT, Teck and Power.

The market breadth on BSE remains positive with advances to declines in the ratio of 1310:626. BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty were comfortably trading near their psychological 22,400 and 6,700 levels respectively. The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 22408.97 up by 69.00 points or 0.31% after trading in a range of 22467.21 and 22378.35. There were 21 stocks advancing against 9 declines on the index. The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.71% and Small cap index up by 0.84%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Consumer Durables up by 2.77%, Metal up by 1.23%, Realty up by 0.95%, Auto up by 0.91% and Capital Goods up by 0.79%, while IT down by 0.75%, Teck down by 0.36% and Power down by 0.05% were the only losers on the sectoral index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Hindalco up by 1.80%, Bharti Airtel up by 1.78%, Tata Steel up by 1.44%, Sun Pharma up by 1.22% and Maruti Suzuki up by 1.19%. On the flip side, Tata Power was down by 1.50%, Dr Reddys Lab was down by 1.28%, Wipro was down by 1.25%, Infosys was down by 0.58% and TCS was down by 0.57% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, after securing approval from Election Commission and Cabinet on Re-promulgation of the SEBI ordinance and importantly the president, capital market regulator- Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), has yet again got back the power for acting against ponzi schemes, illegal deposit schemes and assess call data records in securities-related offences, besides others.

SEBI’s Ordinance lapsed on January 17 after the Government failed in securing the Securities (laws) Amendment Bill passed in the monsoon, winter and extended winter session of the 15th Lok Sabha, which was adjourned sine die on February 21 and finally prorogued.

Besides keeping in force the amendments that gave legal backing to Sebi to tackle critical issues, including powers to respond to the growing menace of illegal deposit taking and pyramid schemes, the ordinance mandates that an authorized officer may requisition the services of a police officer or any officer of the central government to assist in search and seizure. However, the re-promulgated Securities Laws (Amendment) Ordinance, 2014 provides that the SEBI chairman shall record the reasons in writing while issuing an order for search and seizure.

Further, it also empowers market regulator's board to recall and enhance the penalty imposed by the adjudicating officer. With this, market watchdog could seek information, such as telephone call records, from any persons or entities with respect to any securities transaction being investigated.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,701.80 up by 5.90 points or 0.09% after trading in a range of 6,730.05 and 6,700.70. There were 27 stocks advancing against 21 declines while 2 stocks remained unchanged on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Jindal Steel up by 2.16%, Bharti Airtel up by 1.70%, NMDC up by 1.66%, Maruti up by 1.39% and Sun Pharma up by 1.38%. On the flip side, Tech Mahindra down by 1.99%, Tata Power down by 1.56%, Wipro down by 1.46%, Dr. Reddy's Laboratories down by 1.44%, and IDFC down by 1.27% were the top losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in green Hang Seng increased by 46.43 points or0.21% to22, 111.96, Jakarta Composite jumped 45.22 points or 0.96% to 4,768.28, Nikkei 225 soared 92.29 points or0.63% to 14,788.32 and Straits Times gained by 14.06 points or 0.44% to 3,186.23. On the flip side, Shanghai Composite  down by 2.46 points or 0.12% to 2,039.25, KLSE Composite tumbled by 2.50 points or 0.14% to 1,848.23 and Taiwan Weighted was down by 37.87  points or 0.43% to 8,812.51.