FIRM TRADING

The Indian equity markets have made a positive start and are trading firm tracking supportive cues from global indices. The US markets closed in green overnight ahead of crucial jobs data while, most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the positive terrain at this point of time, indicating strong investors' sentiments. Moreover, increased buying by funds and retail investors too strengthened the sentiments. Back home, sustained buying in mostly all of the key heavyweights along with broader indices supported BSE's -- Sensex -- and NSE's -- Nifty -- to regain their crucial 18,800 and 5,650 mark respectively. Consumer durables witnessed the maximum gain in trade followed by fast moving consumer goods and realty while, there were no losers on the BSE sectoral space. Meanwhile, PSU oil marketing companies viz., BPCL, HPCL and IOC were trading higher in the trade on the buzz that the government will pay an additional Rs 30,000 crore than budgeted in 2011-12 to state refiners as compensation towards selling fuel at subsidized rate. Moreover, Birla Pacific Medspa and Rushil Decor, the new listings today got fabulous response from the investors and both were trading with a gain of over 25 and 15 percent, respectively. The broader indices were going neck to neck with benchmarks. The market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 1,070 shares on the gaining side against 458 shares on the losing side while 74 shares remained unchanged.
The BSE Sensex opened at 18,776.62; about 50 points higher compared to its previous closing of 18,726.97, and has touched a high and a low of 18,822.28 and 18,767.25 respectively.
The index is currently trading at 18,820.52, up by 93.55 points or 0.50%. There were 25 stocks advancing against just 5 declines on the index.
The overall market breadth has made a strong start with 66.79% stocks advancing against 28.59% declines. The broader indices were trading in line with benchmarks; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices rose 0.48% and 0.59% respectively.
The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, CD up by 1.30%, FMCG up by 1.06%, Realty up by 0.84%, Oil and Gas up by 0.72% and Metal was up by 0.62%. While, there were no losers on the index.
The top gainers on the Sensex were Bharti Airtel up by 1.24%, Jaiprakash Associates up by 1.24%, HUL up by 1.17%, Reliance Infra up by 1.17% and Jindal Steel was up by 1.13%.
On the flip side, Sterlite Industries was down by 0.93%, ICICI Bank was down by 0.66%, Hindalco was down by 0.24%, Tata Motors was down by 0.09% and Maruti Suzuki was down by 0.07% were the top losers on the Sensex.
Meanwhile, the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC), the state's nodal agency creating infrastructure for industry, had applied for permission to set up 30 Special Economic Zones (SEZs), when the policy was first announced. Over the years with changes in the tax structure governing SEZs having made them unattractive as investment destinations, mainly the imposition of minimum alternate tax and direct tax code, the MIDC is asking for permission that 24 of its proposed 30 SEZs should be cancelled.
As per the MIDC senior official, they had proposed these 30 SEZs in three models, around 16 SEZs where supposed to be developed by MIDC alone and the other two models were in a public private partnership (PPP), where it had 7 SEZs, and another seven in joint ventures. And of the 16 where MIDC was the sole developer, two are already operational, one at Hinjewadi near Pune and another at Shendra, near Aurangabad. Two more, one at Phaltan and another at Kesrudi-Khandala, will be operational in another six months," he further added that the MIDC's requests for cancellation of the balance 12 SEZs is at varying stages.
The Hinjewadi SEZ is in Phase III of the IT Park while the Phaltan SEZ has an anchor tenant - Cummins India. There are signs that Cummins India is looking for more land in the 100 hectare SEZ, expanding its presence there while the 110 hectare Kesurdi Khandala SEZ already has one tenant, Helvoet. The Phaltan, Kesurdi Khandala and Shendra SEZs are for the engineering sector while the Hinjewadi SEZ is earmarked for the IT sector.

'We had adopted three models for SEZ development, with 16 in which we were developers, seven were in a PPP mode while another seven were in joint ventures. Barring two JVs, one with Indiabulls, which has scaled back its SEZ to 1100 hectare and Bharat Forge which has retained its intention of a 4500 hectare SEZ, the others have all called off their plans. So also the SEZs that were to come up in the PPP model, all seven are seeking or have received permission for cancellation,' the official added.

The S&P CNX Nifty opened at 5,633.35; about 8 points higher compared to its previous closing of 5,625.45, and has touched a high and a low of 5,653.55 and 5,632.95 respectively.
The index is currently trading at 5,653.15, higher by27.70 points or 0.49%. There were 41 stocks advancing against 9 declines on the index.
The top gainers of the Nifty were IDFC up by 1.76%, HUL up by 1.59%, Sesa Goa up by 1.53%, Jindal Steel up by 1.27% and Bharti Airtel up by 1.24%.
On the flip side, Sterlite Industries down by 0.90%, ICICI Bank down by 0.53%, Wipro down by 0.44%, Power grid down by 0.37% and Hindalco down by 0.32%, were the major losers on the index.
Most of the Asian markets were trading in the green; Shanghai Composite was up 6.84 points or 0.24% to 2,817.32, Hang Seng was up 148.59 points or 0.66% to 22,666.14, Jakarta Composite was up 32.44 points or 0.83% to 3,941.40, Straits Times was up 16.21 points or 0.52% to 3,130.92 and Seoul Composite was up by 8.46 points or 0.39% to 2,179.65.
On the flip side, KLSE Composite was down 0.07 points to 1,591.27, Nikkei 225 was down 28.80 points or 0.29% to 10,053.68 and Taiwan Weighted was down by 66.52 points or 0.75% to 8,757.92