Indian equities continue firm trade; all sectoral indices on BSE in green

Indian equities continued its firm trade in the late afternoon session on back of buying in frontline counters and taking clues from European counterparts with all 13 sectoral indices on the BSE seen trading in green. The market sentiment was also boosted by provisional data from the stock exchanges showing that FIIs were net buyers of Indian stocks on Thursday i.e. on September 06, 2012. Traders were seen piling up position in Capital Goods, Metal and Realty sector. PSU OMCs HPCL, BPCL and IOC were seen trading in red after Oil Minister S Jaipal Reddy denied reports about oil price rise in the near future stating that there is no immediate plan to raise domestic fuel prices. In the scrip specific development, Reliance Industries was trading firm after CLSA in its note stated that the company is likely to double its profits as it completes its downstream expansion by 2015-16, with government approvals helping it upgrade reserves and raise production and gas price. The stock market will remain open for short duration of one and half hour on Saturday i.e. September 08, 2012, as BSE is testing its disaster recovery site. The trading will begin at 11:15 IST and end at 12:45 IST.

On the global front, the Asian markets were trading in green while the European markets were trading on optimistic note. The ECB President Mario Draghi stated that policy makers agreed to unlimited bond purchases as the central bank looked to gain the upper hand on borrowing costs in debt-stricken euro nations. Draghi reiterated that central bank is prepared to buy government bonds in unlimited quantities in order to eliminate harmful distortions in financial markets fueled by fears of a euro breakup, voicing that participating countries must promise to abide by strict conditions. On the home turf, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above their psychological 5,300 and 17,600 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was positive in the ratio of 1716:971 while 145 scrips remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 17,668.05, up by 321.78 points or 1.86% after touching a high of 17,686.99 and low of 17,575.79. All the 30 stocks on the Sensex were on advancing side.

The broader indices too climbed higher; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices were trading higher by 1.18% and 0.89% respectively.

On the BSE sectoral space, broad-based buying was witnessed, with Capital Goods up by 2.34%, Metal up by 2.32%, Realty up by 2.25%, Bankex up by 2.17% and Oil & Gas up by 1.98% were the prominent gainers while there were no losers.

Since all the 30 stocks were advancing side, there were no losers, however, top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Steel up by 4.79%, ICICI Bank up by 4.34%, Tata Motors up by 4.29%, RIL up by 3.44% and L&T up by 2.79%.

Meanwhile, with struggling Indian economy amid global sluggishness, the Planning Commission of India has decided to lower the annual average economic growth rate to 8.2% in the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17) from the earlier envisaged 9% and to achieve 9% GDP in the terminal year (2016-17) of the 12th Plan. The proposal is expected to be discussed at the meeting of the full Planning Commission chaired by the Prime Minister, on September 15.

Subject to the approval of full Planning Commission on growth target, Union Cabinet will closely examine the matter and would be brought to National Development Council (NDC) for final approval. The main factors for considering the trim in target are uncertain global environment and ailing performance of domestic manufacturing sector.

The economic growth rate in 2011-12, the terminal year of 11th Plan, dipped to nine-year low of 6.5%. While, India's economy in the April-June quarter grew by 5.5%, mainly on account of poor performance of manufacturing, mining and farm sectors.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,333.75, up by 95.35 points or 1.82% after trading in a range of 5,337.45 and 5,309.20. There were 48 stocks advancing against 2 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were DLF up by 5.04%, Tata Steel up by 4.77%, Tata Motors up by 4.31%, ICICI Bank up by 4.30% and JP Associates up by 3.99%. On the flip side, BPCL down by 0.96% and Ambuja Cement down by 0.24% were the only losers on the index.

All the Asian indices were trading  in green; Nikkei 225 spurted by 2.20%, Hang Seng jumped higher by 3.09%, Taiwan Weighted gained 1.34%, Straits Times rose 0.99% ,KLSE Composite added 0.19%, Shanghai Composite soared 3.70%, Kospi Composite Index notched up by 2.57% and Jakarta Composite advanced 0.77%.

The European markets were trading in green with, France’s CAC 40 ascended 1.25%, Germany’s DAX added 0.66% and the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 gained 0.02%.