Markets pare early gains; hold their neck in green

Indian equity markets have pared some of their early gains on prevailing caution about ongoing national elections, with Mumbai set to go for polling on Thursday. Nevertheless, the momentum still remains on positive side as select buyers continue to add risky equities in their portfolio amidst hopes of stable government post-elections, which would help revive the sluggish growth of the economy. Holding their neck in green, while Sensex was trading below the psychological 22, 800 level, Nifty was holding the fort above crucial 6800 bastion. Broader indices too were surrendered some of their gains, but continuing outperforming peers. Much of the weakness crept into local markets after regional counterparts gave up almost all their gains. Asian counterparts edged lower despite strong close of Wall Street overnight which failed to translate into Asian pacific region. Closer home, while stocks from Oil & Gas, Capital Goods and Consumer Durables counters were supporting the uptrend of the markets, those from Metal, Auto and Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) were offsetting gains. Meanwhile, banking shares too edged lower ahead of the crucial HDFC Bank result later in the noon. On the flip side, gains of index heavyweight Reliance Industries lifted the entire Oil & Gas pivotal higher. The overall market breadth on BSE is in the favour of declines which thumped advances in the ratio of 1309:1107, while  shares remained unchanged The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 22788.70, up by 23.87 points or 0.10% after trading in a range of 22,853.03 and 22,754.51. There were 11 stocks advancing against 19 stocks declining on the index. The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.26%, while Small cap index up by 0.44%. The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Oil and Gas up by 1.48%, Capital Goods up by 1.32%, Consumer Durable up by 1.02%, Realty up by 0.60% and PSU up by 0.55%. While, Metal down by 0.98%, Auto down by 0.44%, FMCG down by 0.29%, TECK down by 0.18%, Power and IT down by 0.19% were the losing indices on BSE.    The top gainers on the Sensex were Gail India up by 2.24%, L&T up by 1.79%, ONGC up by 1.35%, RIL up by 1.31% and Coal India up by 1.30%. On the flip side, SSLT down by 2.95%, Hindalco Inds down by 1.99%, Wipro down by 1.21%, Tata Steel down by 0.92% and Tata Motors down by .75% were the top losers on the index. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has lifted an 18-month-old ban on iron ore mining in Goa and allowed industry to extract Iron ore with an annual cap of 20 million tonnes. However, the expert panel will give a final recommendation on annual cap on excavation of iron ore within six months. In addition to the lifting of the court’s ban, mining requires the approvals from the environment ministry and Goa state government. The Supreme Court notified there cannot be a deemed renewal of lease after 2007 of the existing lease deeds emanating from 1962 onwards. Further, there will be no grant of lease for mining around one km of national parks and wild life sanctuaries and directed the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) to identify eco-sensitive areas around national parks within six months. Supreme Court added that the government of Goa, India’s top exporting state of the raw ingredient for steel, will formulate a scheme within six months for utilising the funds generated by e-auction. Moreover, the workers on rolls of all mining firms will be paid 50 percent of the wage during the period for which they were out of work. Mining activities in Goa came to a grinding halt since the Supreme Court imposed mining ban in this region. Prior to the ban, Goa exported over 40 million tonnes of iron ore per year, accounting for about 70% of India's total iron ore exports. During the April-February 2014 period, India exported 14.01 million tonnes of iron ore compared to 17.36 million tonnes in the year-ago period, showing a decline of 19.3%. Low domestic production and sluggish demand from China were the leading factors that attributed to decline in shipments. The latest move also came in as a major relief to Indian steel industry facing huge shortage of iron ore, however prevailing slump in prices and slackening demand in China reflect that the period of high profits for iron ore industry is over. The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,821.45, up by 3.80 points or 0.06% after trading in a range of 6,838.00 and 6,813. There were 19 stocks advancing against 30 declining on the index, while 1 stock remained unchanged. The top gainers of the Nifty were BPCL up by 4.12%, GAIL up by 2.38%, L&T up by 2.05%, Lupin up 1.42% and Coal India up by 1.38%. On the flip side, SSLT down by 2.88%, Indusind Bank down by 1.97%, Hindalco down by 1.92%, Jindal Steel and PNB down by 1.77% were the major losers on the index. Most of Asian equity indices were trading in red; Nikkei 225 down by 0.85%, Jakarta Composite down by 0.54%, Hang Seng down by 0.33% and Shanghai Composite down by 0.24%. While, Straits Times was up by 0.54% and Taiwan Weighted gained 0.26%.