Benchmarks trade higher in early deals on Thursday

Resuming the northward journey, Indian equity benchmarks have made a positive start and are trading in fine fettle in early deals on Thursday. Some support came in from currency front, where the rupee firmed up against the dollar and was quoting at Rs 59.56 compared to Tuesday’s close of Rs 59.68. However, up-side remained capped as investors opted to remain on sidelines ahead of final results of elections on May 16 and markets seem to have more or less priced in the exit poll prediction of a majority for the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the Lok Sabha. On the global front, the US markets ended considerably lower as selling picked up after the troubling inflation data, however it was mainly profit taking that dragged the major averages firmly into negative territory. Asian markets were trading mixed at this point of time with shares in Japan witnessing profit taking and gains in the yen weighing on investor sentiment. Back home, on the sectoral front, consumer durables, power and realty witnessed the maximum gain in trade, while metal, technology and software remained the top losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices too were trading in line with benchmarks, while the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 961 shares on the gaining side against 681 shares on the losing side while 92 shares remain unchanged. The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 23887.97, up by 72.85 points or 0.31% after trading in a range of 23971.78 and 23803.71. There were 23 stocks advancing against 7 declines on the index. The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.31% and Small cap index gained 0.32%. The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Consumer Durables up by 1.55%, Realty up by 1.03%, Power up by 0.86%, Health Care up by 0.82% and FMCG up by 0.47%, while Metal down by 0.27%, TECK down by 0.10% and IT down by 0.06% were the top losers. The top gainers on the Sensex were Gail India up by 2.43%, NTPC up by 2.07%, Sun Pharma up by 1.83%, Tata Power up by 1.71% and BHEL up by 1.43%. On the flip side, Coal India was down by 1.22%,ICICI Bank was down by 1.06%, TCS was down by 0.42%, Wipro was down by 0.11% and Bharti Airtel down by 0.06% were the top losers on the Sensex. Meanwhile, India is likely to overtake Japan to become the world's third largest oil consumer behind the US and China by 2025, according to the report of the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). The US EIA, in its Annual Energy Outlook report highlighted that India's oil consumption is expected to rise from 3.68 million barrels per day (173.5 million tonnes) in 2012 to 5.19 million bpd in 2025, overtaking Japan's 4.38 million bpd consumption.  The report further added that during the period 2012-2040, India's oil consumption growth rate will be highest in the world with around 3 percent compounded annual growth rate to 8.33 million bpd in 2040. On global front, the US EIA report highlighted that China's oil consumption is projected to rise from 10.36 million barrels per day in 2012 to 15.70 million bpd in 2025 and 20.48 million bpd in 2040, posting a compounded annual growth rate of 2.5 percent during 2012-2040. The US will continue to be the world's biggest oil consumer but with almost no demand growth. The US consumed 18.21 million bpd of oil in 2012 which is projected to increase 18.97 million bpd in 2025 and to 18.42 million bpd in 2040. Japan consumed 4.75 million bpd of oil in 2012. India currently is the fourth largest oil consumer in the world behind the US, China and Japan, and imports around 80 percent of its oil needs. In the previous year 2013, India had overtaken Japan as the world's third-biggest crude oil importer. It imported 3.86 million bpd of crude oil in 2013, nearly 6 percent higher than Japan's customs-cleared imports of 3,648,372 bpd. The US EIA report estimates that India will become the world's largest oil importer by 2020. Meanwhile, the Government of India (GoI) has formulated a roadmap for cutting India's dependence on imports to meet its oil needs. The Government wants country’s oil imports dependence to be cut to 50 percent by 2020 and by 25 percent in 2025 through intensive exploration and exploitation of untapped reserves. Presently, only 0.93 million sq km area in India is held under exploration and production in 19 basins as compared to total estimated sedimentary area of 3.14 million square kilometres, comprising 26 sedimentary basins. The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 7,124.75 up by 16.00 points or 0.23% after trading in a range of 7,152.55 and 7,109.30. There were 35 stocks advancing against 13 declines while 2 stocks remains unchanged on the index. The top gainers of the Nifty were GAIL up by 2.45%, NTPC up by 2.35%, DLF up by 2.24%, Sun Pharma up by 1.77% and Tata Power up by 1.59%. On the flip side, Asian Paint down by 3.08%, Bank Baroda down by 1.52%, Coal India down by 1.41%, ICICI Bank down by 1.06% and NMDC down by 0.85% were the top losers on the index. Most of Asian equity indices were trading in red; Shanghai Composite declined 15.12 points or 0.74% to 2,032.79, KLSE Composite slipped by 1.03 points or 0.05% to 1,878.17, Nikkei 225 tumbled by 114.91 points or 0.80% to 14,290.85, Seoul Composite dipped 2.80 points or 0.14% to 2,008.03 and Taiwan Weighted was down by 18.25 points or 0.21% to 8,856.91. On the flip side, Hang Seng added 55.75 points or 0.25% to 22,638.52, Jakarta Composite soared 70.24 points or 1.43% to 4,991.64 and Straits Times was up by 6.78 points or 0.21% to 3,265.87.