Indian equities continue firm trade in narrow range

Indian equities continued its firm trade in a narrow range in the late afternoon session on back of buying in frontline counters. Investors have started eyeing Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) Second Quarter Review of Monetary Policy - 2012-13 which is scheduled on October 30, 2012, and will provide further direction to the market. Traders were seen piling position in Capital Goods, IT and TECk sector while selling was witnessed in FMCG, Consumer Durable and Realty sector. In the scrip specific development, IT major TCS was seen trading firm following the company posting 49% jump in net profit for the July-September quarter and on giving an optimistic growth outlook. Kingfisher Airline was locked in lower circuit limit as the airline company was suspended after it failed to address the regulator DGCA’s concerns about its operations, forcing the debt-laden carrier to stop taking bookings. On the global front, Asian markets were trading mixed while the European markets were too trading on a mixed note. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above their psychological 5,700 and 18,700 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was neutral in the ratio of 1343:1353 while 119 scrips remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 18,789.58, up by 107.27 points or 0.57%. There were 19 stocks advancing against 11 declines on the index.

The BSE Mid cap indices was trading down 0.02% and Small cap indices were trading up by 0.22%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Capital Goods up by 1.23%, IT up by 1.18%, TECk up by 0.97%, Bankex up by 0.86% and Health Care up by 0.85%. On the other hand, FMCG down by 0.82%, Consumer Durable down by 0.31%, Realty down by 0.25% and Metal down by 0.12% were the only losers.

The top gainers on the Sensex were TCS up by 3.13%, L&T up by 2.09%, ICICI Bank up by 1.73%, Bharti Airtel up by 1.63% and NTPC up by 1.53%.

On the flip side, Jindal Steel down by 1.73%, ITC down by 1.48%, Sterlite Industries down by 0.95%, Tata Motors down by 0.87% and HDFC down by 0.68% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, sectoral tribunal, the Telecom Disputes Settlement & Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT), ahead of the much awaited roll out of cable TV digitization has allowed Multi-System Operators (MSOs) to charge placement fee, setting aside the restrictions of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on placement fee, number of channels and carriage fee. Comparing cable with DTH, the tribunal observed that MSOs can charge placement fee from broadcasters for keeping their channels in a particular slot and TRAI’s regulation to curb it was “bad in law”. Cable services in the country’s four metros are slated to go completely digital by November 1.

The TDSAT bench headed by Justice S B Sinha has further said that placement charges, if any, will depend upon the mutual agreement between the broadcasters and the MSO. The direction that the MSOs must set up head-ends having carrying capacity of 500 channels too has been set aside, keeping in view that the market forces play an important and significant role in the matter of carrying capacity of the MSO, hence it should not be regulated.

However, TDSAT has upheld certain broadcast regulatory clauses allowing customers to select a combination of 100 free-to-air channels for basic plan. The tribunal also largely consented with the tariff order and regulation of TRAI and gave a go-ahead to TRAI’s revenue sharing mechanism between the local cable operators and the MSOs.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,710.85, up by 26.60 points or 0.47%. There were 29 stocks advancing against 21 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were TCS up by 3.18%, L&T up by 2.23%, JP Associates up by 1.98%, ICICI Bank up by 1.71% and M&M up by 1.61%. On the flip side, Ambuja Cement down by 1.72%, Bank of Baroda down by 1.61%, Jindal Steel down by 1.55%, ITC down by 1.43% and HDFC down by 0.78% were the major losers on the index.

Asian markets were trading mixed, Hang Seng was up 0.68%, Shanghai Composite up by 0.21%, Nikkei 225 was up by 0.09% and Straits Times added 0.01%. On the other hand, Jakarta Composite declined 0.23% KLSE Composite was lower by 0.32%, Kospi Composite lost 0.12% and Taiwan Weighted descended 0.48%.

The European markets were trading on a mixed note with, France’s CAC 40 added 0.11%, Germany’s DAX descended 0.20% and the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 lost 0.14%.