Firm trade prevails; Nifty above 6800 mark

Indian equity benchmarks added gains to continue firm trade in the late afternoon session on account of buying in frontline blue chip counters. The market sentiment was boosted by data showing that foreign funds remained net buyers of Indian stocks on Thursday April 17, 2014. Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 433.40 crore on Thursday, as per provisional data from the stock exchanges. Investors were however worried that domestic market which has received the second highest FII inflows among emerging markets after Taiwan so far in 2014, may be showing signs of fatigue. Traders were seen piling positions in Capital Goods, Metal and PSU stocks while selling was witnessed in FMCG, IT and Realty sector stocks. Hectic activity was witnessed in the mining stocks, as the Supreme Court is likely to give its final order on the Goa mining ban today. The ban has been in progress since September 2012. In scrip specific development, Wipro was trading under pressure after India’s third-biggest IT services exporter gave muted revenue forecast for the June quarter. On the global front, most of the Asian markets were trading in red. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above their psychological 6,800 and 22,700 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was positive in the ratio of 1644:981 while 110 scrips remained unchanged. The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 22709.10 up by 80.26 points or 0.35% after trading in a range of 22726.86 and 22636.75. There were 20 stocks advancing against 10 declining ones on the index. The broader indices were trading with good gains; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.80%, while Small cap moved higher by 1.27%. The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Capital Goods up by 2.89%, Metal up by 1.28%, PSU up by 1.21%, Auto up by 1.12% and Bankex up by 0.94%. On the other hand FMCG was down by 0.63%, IT was down by 0.57%, Realty down by 0.39% and TECK was down by 0.28%. The top gainers on the Sensex were L&T up by 3.87%, M&M up by 3.57%, BHEL up by 3.34%, SSLT up by 2.65% and SBI was up by 2.45%. On the flip side, Wipro down by 5.43%, HUL down by 1.05%, ITC down by 0.64%, Cipla down by 0.52% and HDFC Bank down by 0.49% were the top losers on the index. Meanwhile, the inter-ministerial committee (IMC) will soon clarify concerns raised by bidders for three coal blocks put up for auction. Coal ministry has already held a meeting, headed by Coal Secretary S K Srivastava, to discuss coal bidders’ issues like whether a consortium can have more than four participating companies or not. The meeting also discussed whether bidders should be allowed to take sample of coal from Central Coalfields (CCL) to perform the yield analysis. In February, the government had started the auction process of two Jharkhand mines - Jhirki & Jhirki (West) of East Bokaro Coalfield and Tokisud-II of South Karanpura Coalfield and Andal Babuisol of Raniganj Coalfield in West Bengal on block. These three mines have an estimated 500 million tonnes of reserves, for captive use of steel, cement and sponge iron firms. The move came after the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) criticized the government for delaying the auction process at a time when the country is facing acute shortage of coal. India, despite being world's fifth largest in terms of reserves, the third-largest producer of coal has failed to keep pace with increasing domestic demand. Indian domestic coal demand is around 35 percent higher than domestic supply, resulting into a high deficit of which a huge part is being met by costly imports from Indonesia, South Africa and Australia. Presently, Coal India (CIL) is the only producer of domestic coal accounting for around 80 percent of the domestic production. CIL is currently also struggling to meet domestic coal requirement. Acute coal shortages in the country have become primary reason for power deficit as coal-fired plants account for 68% of India's installed electricity capacity. Meanwhile, in order to meet India’s growing coal demand, the government has planned to invite bids from private players to start coal mining in a public-private partnership (PPP) mode in the country, which would also end the monopoly of public sector unit Coal India. The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,800.05, up by 20.65 points or 0.30% after trading in a range of 6,806.10 and 6,786.90. There were 29 stocks advancing against 21 declining ones on the index. The top gainers of the Nifty were L&T up by 4.02%, M&M up by 3.65%, BHEL up by 3.17%, PNB up by 3.10% and BPCL up by 2.93%. On the flip side, Wipro down by 5.55%, Cairn down by 1.88%, DLF down by 1.50%, Asian Paints down by 1.24% and HUL down by 1.06% were the major losers on the index. Asian equity indices were trading mostly in red; Shanghai Composite slid by 1.52%, Nikkei 225 down by 0.03%, Taiwan Weighted dropped by 0.17% and Jakarta Composite inched lower by 0.8% while, Straits Times was up by 0.08% and Hang Seng added 0.28%. The European markets were closed for trading on account of Easter holiday.