Markets trade steady; Capital Goods surge

Indian markets are moving steadily building up on their gains and shrugging off the mixed performance of their regional counterparts, as tensions in Ukraine kept investors cautious. There is no major trigger but the election euphoria is keeping the markets spirits high and the traders are going for value buying. Metal sector stocks, especially steel, were moving higher since beginning after a report stated that global steel demand is likely to grow at a faster pace of 3.3 per cent this year, driven by rising demand for the commodity from India, Brazil, Russia, West Asia and North Africa. The mining stocks too were buzzing, 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. On the sectoral front, banking stocks too have strengthened on bond rally after the RBI fully sold the Rs 20000 crore ($3.31 billion) worth of debt on offer on Thursday. Only IT, TECk and FMCG, sectoral indices on the BSE were trading in the red. The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 22692.27 up by 63.43 points or 0.28% 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 0.75%, while Small cap moved higher by 1.16%. The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Capital Goods up by 2.43%, Auto up by 1.28%, Metal up by 1.18%, Consumer Durables up by 0.89% and Bankex up by 0.57%. On the other hand FMCG was down by 0.80%, IT was down by 0.57% and Teck was down by 0.23%. The top gainers on the Sensex were M&M up by 3.91%, BHEL up by 3.62%, L&T up by 3.52%, SSLT up by 2.34% and Maruti Suzuki was up by 2.08%. On the flip side, Wipro down by 5.52%, HUL down by 1.75%, Cipla down by 0.77%, ITC down by 0.62% and Infosys down by 0.34% were the top losers on the index. Meanwhile, Fertiliser Ministry will soon be holding a meeting with the fertilizer firms selling phosphatic and potassic (P&K) fertilizers at higher prices and delaying reporting of their MRPs to the government. Under the nutrient based subsidy (NBS) scheme, fixed amount of subsidy is provided by the government on each grade of P&K fertilizers based on their nutrients content and companies have been allowed to fix maximum retail price (MRP) of subsidised P&K fertilisers at reasonable rates. P&K on non-urea fertilizers include complex NPK, DAP and MOP compounds. Fertiliser companies are required to report the MRPs of their products to the government for monitoring of prices in order ensure that the MRPs fixed are reasonable. Fertiliser Ministry has reported that delays in reporting of MRPs by companies, practice of reporting higher MRPs and absence of a proper mechanism to cross verify their authenticity are causing difficulties in monitoring MRPs to find out the reasonableness of the P&K fertilizers prices. In the previous year, Ministry has issued notice to fertiliser companies to reduce the price following the fall of prices in the international market. The Government has pegged subsidy provisioning at around Rs 68,000 crore for 2014-15 and has reduced potash subsidy by Rs 3.33 per kg. Meanwhile, the government has also notified that reduction in subsidy rates would not lead to an increase in retail prices of potash, as international market prices of potash have come down. Domestic farmers are presently using more nitrogenous fertilizers particularly urea as comparison to the P&K fertilizers because of their higher prices. Total domestic demand of both potash and phosphate stands at around 10 million tonnes per annum. The CNX Nifty is currently trading at  6,794.75, up by 15.35 points or 0.23% after trading in a range of 6,806.00 and 6,786.90. There were 30 stocks advancing against 20 declining ones on the index. The top gainers of the Nifty were M&M up by 3.85%, BHEL up by 3.64%, L&T up by 3.63%, SSLT up by 2.36% and PNB up by 2.17%. On the flip side, Wipro down by 5.57%, Cairn down by 2.51%, HUL down by 1.94%, DLF down by 1.75% and Asian Paints down by 1.56% were the major losers on the index. Asian equity indices were trading in green; Taiwan Weighted up by 0.23%, Jakarta Composite inched up by 0.30% and Hang Seng added 0.29%. While, Shanghai Composite slid by 0.21%, Nikkei 225 down by 0.15% and Straits Times was down by 0.01%.