Indian benchmark indices staged a lackadaisical performance in today's volatile trading session after remaining in a narrow band to finally settle in the flat and snap the second successive day below the crucial support levels of 5,400 and 18,000. The tepid close looked shoddier because of the fact that markets across the globe displayed energetic performance and rallied as Japan made progress in cooling nuclear reactors at a crippled plant, while energy stocks benefited from higher oil and commodity prices on escalating geopolitical tensions in the Libya and neighboring nations. Spiraling crude oil prices continued to play spoilsport for the local markets as intensifying air attack in Libya by the US and Allied forces and pro-democracy protests and clashes in Syria with government forces stoked the oil prices to uncomfortable levels. Massive selling by FIIs in the past couple of trading sessions along with risks of towering inflation and solidifying interest rates capped the upside chances for the frontline indices. The NSE's 50-share broadly followed index Nifty, lingered well below the crucial 5,400 support level while Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensitive Index, Sensex drifted around the psychological 17,800 mark after taking around a quarter percentage point cut. The broader markets too mirrored their larger peers as the BSE's midcap index went home with losses of 0.27% while the smallcap index shed 0.29% points. On the sectoral front, the BSE Realty index plunged 0.92% as heavy position squaring in stocks like HDIL and Unitech which fell 2.61% and 2.43% respectively dragged the index to the bottom of the table. The other laggard in the space remained IT pocket which shaved off 0.73% points on the back of heavy selling in bellwether stocks like Wipro which plummeted 1.90% and TCS which slipped 0.97% in the session. On the other hand selective buying in Healthcare stocks like Opto Circuits up 4.20% and Lupin up 3.22% helped the index top the BSE sectoral space with marginal gains of 0.15%. However, Ranbaxy Labs was the top loser in the Healthcare space with 6.81% loss as Mylan is sought to block Lipitor generic in US. Lipitor was estimated to add $500-$600 million to Ranbaxy's sales.
On the global front, majority of Asian equity indices finished in the positive terrain led by Hong Kong's benchmark which garnered over one and half a percent points. Chinese stocks settled with marginal gains after the central bank there opined late on Friday that it would raise lenders' required reserves by 50 basis points, the third time this year and the sixth since November. The European markets too mirrored the sanguine Asian cues as France's CAC, Germany's DAX and Britain's FTSE traded with strong gains of around two percent. On the other hand, the screen trading for US index futures also indicated that the Dow could open with gains of around a percent point.
Earlier on Dalal Street, the benchmark ricocheted by over 100 points in the opening trade on emergence of buying in fundamentally strong shares at lower levels, driven by a firming trend in other Asian bourses. However, the frontline indices immediately erased all the opening session gains and drifted into the red to touch the low point of the day. Selective buying in some undervalued shares thereafter helped the index claw back in to the green territory in the late morning session. After gyrating in a narrow band and trading in the green for some time, the frontline indices slipped back into the red as investors took profits off the table in the dying hours. Eventually, bourses settled below the crucial support levels for the second straight day and settled with marginal losses of less than a quarter percent. The markets registered volumes of over Rs 1.27 lakh crore while the turnover for NSE F&O segment too remained on the lower side compared to Friday at over Rs 1.15 lakh crore. Market breadth remained negative as there were 1173 shares on the gaining side against 1688 shares on the losing side while 113 shares remained unchanged.
Finally, the BSE Sensex lost 39.76 points or 0.22% to settle at 17839.05 while the S&P CNX Nifty fell by 8.95 points or 0.17% to end at 5,364.75.
The BSE Sensex touched a high and a low of 18,007.73 and 17,792.17respectively. The BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices declined 0.27% and 0.29%, respectively.
Jindal Steel up 1.95%, Mahindra & Mahindra up 1.39%, Sterlite Industries up 1.07%, HDFC up 0.92% and Tata Steel up 0.87% were the major gainers on the Sensex.
On the flip side, Hindalco Industries down 3.12%, Hero Honda down 2.74%, Maruti Suzuki down 2.33%, Cipla down 2.11% and Wipro down 1.90% were the major losers on the index.
Three persons, including two former directors of Society for Applied Microwave Electronics Engineering and Research (SAMEER), a central government undertaking, have been arrested on charges of irregularities in the supply of modems to the Rs 1,000-crore Akash missile project.
Cases were filed on March 18, 2011 under different sections against former directors of SAMEER, S Karunakaran and KR Kini, after the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) had filed cases under different sections of IPC and Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA). P Rathinavel, director, Sam Shin Precision, Chennai and Bangalore-based Wave Tech Electronics, has been arrested.
SAMEER is an autonomous institution for Research and Development under the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, Government of India, fully funded by the Ministry and deals with sensitive defence related and other projects.
As per the case, Karunakaran had abused his official position during 2005-2009 and showed undue favour to Sam Shin Precision, and awarded the contract of mass production of Integrated Radio Line Modems (IRLMs) to be used in Akash Missile Programme by Ministry of Defence, eliminating the other eligible government and reputed private companies.
Akash is India's medium range surface-to-air missile developed by the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) and the Bharat Electronics (BEL). Akash has certain unique features like mobility, all-the-way-powered flight till target interception, multiple target handling, digitally-coded command guidance and fully automatic operation.
Health Care (HC) up 0.15%, Bankex up 0.04%, FMCG up 0.01 were the only gainers in the BSE sectoral spaceOn the other side Realty down 0.92%, IT down 0.73%, TECk down 0.63%, Consumer Durables down 0.43% and Capital Goods down 0.32% were the major losers in the BSE sectoral space.
The government has cleared 77 projects of Coal India (CIL) having a production capacity of almost 184.78 million tonnes (MT). These 77 projects, under different phases of completion, are among 142 projects identified by CIL which are to be taken for the XI plan period (2007-2012). According to the Outcome Budget 2011-12, the remaining 65 projects have a capacity of 195.44 million tonnes and are under different phases of approval.
Earlier in March, Coal Ministry had stated that 46 projects of CIL were delayed due to various reasons including environmental hurdles. Out of these, 11 projects of CIL are behind schedule because of the unavailability of both forestry and environmental clearances, while 14 projects of CIL got delayed due to land acquisition, relief and rehabilitation (R&R) issues.
CIL has taken various measures to combat the issues that are delaying the projects. It has undertaken vigorous follow up action with land acquisition officials to fast-track acquisition proceedings. It has also held regular meetings with state authorities to solve acute problems.
Recently, CIL was negotiating 10-year contracts with overseas suppliers in an attempt to protect Indian consumers from any volatility in global coal prices. The company is in advanced talks with suppliers in Australia, Indonesia, South Africa and the US for securing coal at 10% discount to the global benchmark price.
The S&P CNX Nifty touched a high and a low of 5,413.30 and 5,348.20 respectively.
The top gainers on the Nifty were SAIL up 2.40%, Jindal Steel up 2.28%, Sun Pharma up 2.12%, Mahindra & Mahindra up 2.01% and Suzlon up 1.65%.
The top losers on the index were Ranbaxy down 6.81%, Hindalco down 3.00%, Ambuja Cement down 2.91%, Reliance power down 2.47% and Maruti down 2.30%.
In order to meet the natural gas requirements for its markets, Gujarat Gas Company has entered into an agreement with BG India Energy Solutions (BGIESPL), for the purchase on a firm basis of re-gasified LNG (RLNG) of 0.7 Million Metric Standard Cubic Meter Per Day (mmscmd) for the period from April 01, 2011 to June 30, 2011 and 1.0 mmscmd for the period from July 01, 2011 to December 31, 2011.
The said agreement is expected to make available higher quantities of RLNG to maintain supplies to the company's markets. The volumes from this agreement will also backfill the reduction in quantity under the existing 39 months firm RLNG contract with BGIESPL, from 0.5 mmscmd to 0.2 mmscmd effective July 01, 2011 in accordance with the contractual terms therein.
Gujarat Gas Company reported an increase of 78.48% in its net profit for the quarter ended December 31, 2010 which stood at Rs 82.51 crore against Rs 46.23 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2009. The company reported net sales / income from operations of Rs 504.33 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2010 against Rs 377.79 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2009.
European markets were trading in green on Monday. France's CAC 40 gained 1.91%, Germany's DAX increased 1.95% and Britain's FTSE 100 was up by 1.16%.
All the Asian equity indices finished the Monday's trade in the positive terrain after Japan made progress in cooling nuclear reactors at a crippled plant, while energy stocks benefited from higher oil and commodity prices on heightened geopolitical concerns in the Middle East and North Africa. Hong Kong shares ended with a gain of more than one and a half percent as dealers picked up bargains after last week's heavy losses caused by the Japanese nuclear crisis, while Japanese Nikkei remained closed for trade today on account of Vernal Equinox Day.
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