STRONG BUYING

The Indian equity markets were trading with substantial gains on strong buying in several blue chip stocks across various sectors. Sensex moved up by 1%, while Nifty holding 5,300 level. Investors were quite relieved on a firm trend in global markets amid renewed optimism about the European economy following the Greek government deciding to scrap the referendum move is aiding the rally. On sectoral front, all sectors were trading in green. Metal and realty stocks were among the most prominent gainers. Stocks from capital goods, consumer durables, banking, automobile and power sectors too were up with strong gains. Information technology stocks were edging higher after a somewhat subdued start. Pharmaceuticals and oil stocks too were finding fairly good support. Bharti Airtel went up nearly 1% post management comments over its second quarter numbers. Country's largest telecom service provider - Bharti Airtel's net profit slipped marginally to Rs 1,207 crore against Rs 1,215.2 crore. On the global front, Asian markets were too trading firm. Back home, the market breadth favoring the positive trend; there were 1,632 shares on the gaining side against 801 shares on the losing side while 106 shares remained unchanged.
The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 17,666.72, up by 184.79 points or 1.06%. The index has touched a high and low of 17,702.26 and 17,597.05 respectively. There were 28 stocks advancing against just 2 declines on the index.
The broader indices were outperforming benchmarks; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices surged 1.13% and 1.00% respectively.
Buying was witnessed across the board so there was no looser on the BSE sectoral space.  However, the top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Metal up by 2.23%, Realty up by 1.96%, CG up by 1.64%, CD up by 1.26% and Bankex up by 1.24%.
The top gainers on the Sensex were Sterlite Industries up by 3.22%, Tata Steel up by 2.71%, JP Associate up by 2.56%, Hindalco Industries up by 2.47% and BHEL up by 2.38%. On the flip side, Tata Power down by 0.71% and Hindustan Unilever down by 0.50% were losers on the index.
Meanwhile, the government owned oil marketing companies (OMCs) have increased petrol prices by Rs 1.80 per liter to wipe off their losses on the decontrolled fuel. This is the 4th hike in the current financial year, because of recent deprecation in rupee, which increased the cost of imported crude oil. Prices at Indian Oil outlets, country's largest oil marketer has already increased, whereas other two OMCs i.e. Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum will increase prices from today midnight.
After the hike, petrol will cost around Rs 68.64 per liter in Delhi, Rs 73.81 in Mumbai, Rs 73.15 Kolkata and Rs 72.73 in Chennai. The hike has been implemented to pass on the impact of a depreciating rupee that has resulted in a higher cost. The last time petrol price was hiked was on September 15, when companies raised prices by a steep Rs 3.14 per liter.
'We were losing around Rs 1.50 liter. The increase of up to Rs 1.91 has been done after factoring the local levies. The increase takes care of the entire loss on petrol,' an Indian Oil official said.
In September, rupee has depreciated by 3.34%, which pushed OMCs to go for another hike in petrol price. From the time of deregulation of petrol prices 17 months ago, petrol prices have increased by 43% to Rs 68.64 per liter in Delhi. In the same period of time, the diesel prices, which is still under government control has increased by only 8.37% to Rs 41.29 per liter on national capital.
However, the petrol price were decontrolled in line with the Kirit Parikh panel report, the government is yet to take decision on its suggestion of decontrolling diesel prices. Presently, the OMCs are losing around Rs 8.58 on a liter of diesel, Rs 25.66 on per liter kerosene and Rs 260.50 on a domestic LPG cylinder.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,316.15, higher by 50.40 points or 0.96%. The index has touched a high and low of 5,326.45 and 5,293.85 respectively. There were 46 stocks advancing against just 4 declining ones on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Sterlite Industries up by 3.35%, JP Associate up by 2.81%, Tata Steel up by 2.65%, Axis Bank up by 2.45% and BHEL up by 2.43%. On the flip side, Ranbaxy down by 1.05%, Tata Power down by 0.76%, HUL down by 0.47% and GAIL down by 0.17% were the top losers on the index.
All the Asian markets were trading in the green; Shanghai Composite gained 0.60%, Hang Seng surged 3.37%, Jakarta Composite added 2.34%, KLSE Composite rose 0.55%, Nikkei 225 expanded 0.61%, Straits Times zoomed 1.78%, Seoul Composite spiked up by 3.09% and Taiwan Weighted up by 1.92%.