Indian equities add strength; trades near highest point of the day

Indian equities added gains to continue its firm trade hovering near the highest point of the day in the late afternoon session as investors started expecting that leading companies may come out with encouraging first quarter earnings. The sentiment was also buoyed by data showing that foreign institutional investors (FIIs) remained buyers of Indian stocks yesterday. Traders were seen piling up position in Auto, Bankex and Capital Goods sector. The markets seem to be making most out of Industry body’s SIAM recommendation of Re 1 per litre hike in diesel prices to the Government, which has sent Auto stocks spiraling higher among the 13 sectoral indices. Besides, the forthcoming data to be released will determine the new course of direction for the markets. On macro front, the government will announce data on industrial production (IIP) for May 2012 on July 12, 2012. Besides, China is due to release Q2 June 2012 GDP growth data, along with industrial output and other June metrics, on July 13, 2012. In the scrip specific development, Tata Power was seen trading under pressure after global rating agency, S&P has downgraded the credit rating outlook of the company to ‘negative’ from ‘stable’ due to high debt and rising expenditure at the 4,000 mw ultra mega project at Mundra.

On the global front, the Asian markets were trading on a mixed note while the European markets were too trading mixed. European markets were cautious as efforts by the region’s governments to support Spanish banks were weighed against worse-than-expected Chinese imports to some extent. Euro zone ministers had agreed to grant Spain an extra year until 2014 to reach its deficit reduction targets in exchange for further budget savings and set the parameters of an aid package for Madrid's ailing banks. On the home turf, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above their psychological 5,300 and 17,500 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was positive in the ratio of 1565:1139 while 125 scrips remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 17,545.93, up by 153.95 points or 0.89% after trading as high as 17,547.13 and as low as 17,424.29. There were 24 stocks advancing against 6 declines on the index.

The broader indices were trading on a firm note; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices were trading higher by 0.88% and 0.69% respectively.

On the BSE sectoral space, Auto up by 1.59%, Bankex up 1.20%, Capital Goods up 1.18%, Consumer Durables up 1.10% and Health Care up 0.79% were the top gainers. On the flip side, there were no losers.

Tata Motors up by 2.89%, Maruti Suzuki up 2.23%, Jindal Steel up 1.84%, L&T up 1.52% and Bajaj Auto up by 1.45% were the top gainers on the Sensex, while NTPC down by 1.00%, Tata Power down by 0.39%, HUL down by 0.36%, Tata Steel down by 0.24% and Sun Pharma down by 0.02% were the prominent losers on the index.

Meanwhile, the domestic car sales has expanded by 8.28 percent to 1,55,763 units in June as against 1,43,851 units in the same month last year while, the sales of trucks and buses rose 4.7 percent in June to 64,926 vehicles.

Motorcycle sales grew 6.58 percent during the month to 879,713 units from 825,388 units in the same month last year while, total two-wheeler sales in June this year 9.2 percent to 1,169,733 units from 1,071,161 units in the same month last year, according to figures released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM).

Meanwhile, sales of commercial vehicles grew 4.71 percent to 64,926 units in June from 62,007 units in the year-ago period.

Overall domestic sales of automobiles across categories in June 2012 was 14,85,744 vehicles as against 13,62,495 in June 2011, indicating an increase of 9.05 percent year on year.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,324.75, higher by 49.60 points or 0.94% after trading as high as 5,324.75 and as low as 5,284.55. There were 43 stocks advancing against 7 declining ones on the index.

The top gainers on the Nifty were JP Associates up by 3.14%, Axis Bank up by 3.13%, Reliance Infrastructure up by 3.12%, Tata Motors up by 2.78%, and Maruti Suzuki up by 2.40%.

NTPC down by 1.28%, ACC down by 1.20%, IDFC down by 0.50%, Tata Power down by 0.49% and HUL down by 0.42% were the major losers on the index.

The Asian equity indices were trading on a mixed note; Shanghai Composite pummeled by 0.29%, Hang Seng index shrank 0.16%, Nikkei 225 dropped 0.445, Kospi Composite Index plunged by 0.36%, and Taiwan Weighted declined by 0.80%.

On the flip side, Jakarta Composite inched higher 0.15%, KLSE Composite added 0.11% and Strait Times ascended by 0.64%.

The European markets were trading on a mixed note with, France’s CAC 40 added 0.86%, Germany’s DAX dropped 0.03% and the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 soared 0.17%.