NIFTY HOLDS ON TO 4800

The trade remained rangebound in the Indian markets after a dismal start on the back of disappointing revenue guidance by the IT bellwether Infosys. Though, the numbers of the company were good in the rupee term but it gave a tepid kind of guidance for the fiscal that made the traders apprehensive about the good performance of the sector in particular. But amid the gloom the unexpectedly high IIP numbers have made the indices shoot up near the neutral line. The IIP for November grew at 5.9% to 167.4, as compared to 158.1 in the month of November 2010. The capital goods sector was first to respond and has surged to take the lead in the sectoral gauges.
The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 16169.26, down by 6.60 points or 0.04%. The index has touched a high and a low of 16170.80 and 16040.35 respectively. There were 25 stocks advancing against 5 declines on the index.
The broader indices continue to remain in fine shape outperforming the benchmarks; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.86% while the small cap index was trading up by 0.41%.
Most of the sectoral indices on the BSE were in green, the top performers were Capital Goods up by 1.96%, Bankex up by 1.76%, Power up by 1.65%, Realty up by 1.52% and Consumer Durables up by 1.30%.
On the flip side IT has plunged by 4.64% and TECk was down by 3.2%.
The top gainers of the Sensex were SBI up by 2.56%, Hindalco up by 2.46%, Sterlite Industries up by 2.39%, BHEL up by 2.23% and DLF was up by 1.99%.
On the other hand the top losers were Infosys down by 6.58%, TCS down by 4.10%, Wipro down by 1.88%, HUL down by 0.28% and Hero MotoCorp was down by 0.14%.
Meanwhile, the issue of worsening banks' asset quality has emerged as a serious cause of concern for the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). According to its recent financial stability report, bank's non-performing assets (NPA) have risen at the rate of 30.5 percent as at end September 2011 year on year, which is higher than the credit growth of 19.2 percent. The priority sector like retail, real estate and infrastructure remained the major culprits which contributed heavily in the rising NPA trend as the gross NPA ratio rose to 2.8 percent from 2.3 percent between March-September 2011.
According to the latest RBI release on sectoral deployment of credit, banks' priority sector lending has risen slightly to Rs 12,53,947 crore as on November 18, 2011, against Rs 12,39,386 crore as at March-end 2011.
The annual credit growth rate stayed within the RBI target of 17 percent for the year as banks lend around Rs 1 lakh crore during the last fortnight of calendar year 2011. During the quarter ended December 30, credit off-take was around Rs 2.7 lakh crore while on a year on year basis, loans grew by 16.1 percent, well below the RBI's comfort level of 17 percent for the year.

As per the RBI data, total bank credit grew by Rs 98,661 crore to Rs 43.65 lakh crore as on December 30, over the levels seen in previous fortnight. While the bank loans registered 10.8 percent growth to Rs 4.27 lakh crore in the April-December 2011 period against 16 percent growth in the corresponding period last year.

While the apex bank had revised year-end credit growth projection from 19 percent to 18 percent in its second-quarterly monetary and credit policy review, it is widely speculated that the RBI may slash the credit growth projections further in the third quarter review of monetary and credit policy scheduled on January 24.
The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 4,859.20, down by 1.75 points or 0.04%. The index has touched a high and a low of 4,867.75 and 4,820.10 respectively.  There were 43 stocks advancing against 7 declines on the index.
The top gainers of the Nifty were Siemens up by 4.61%, IDFC up by 3.61%, RPower up by 2.59%, Axis bank up by 2.59% and Ranbaxy was up by 2.57%.
On the other hand, Infosys down by 6.7%, TCS down by 4.27%, Cairn India down by 2.1%, Wipro down by 1.64% and HCL Technology down by 1.54% were the top losers on the index.
Most of the Asian markets were trading down; Shanghai Composite was down by 0.41%, Jakarta Composite was down by 0.17%, Nikkei 225 was down by 0.72%, Hang Seng was down by 0.06% and Taiwan Weighted was marginally down by 0.02%.
On the other hand, Straits Times was up 0.39% and Seoul Composite was up by 0.62%.