Stock markets in India have come off a great deal from high point of the day with the frontline equity indices paring their gains in Friday afternoon trades. The markets which resiliently weathered the disappointing start of the earnings season for fourth quarter post the discouraging earnings and guidance by index bellwether Infosys, have flattened out completely. The key gauges could not capitalize further on the momentum since sentiments in the local markets got influenced by the weak European market opening. The major equity indices in Euro-zone resumed their decline after gains in last two sessions as weaker than forecasted Chinese economic growth numbers casted shadow over the global growth engine's growth prospects. However, the downside in domestic bourses was capped as most Asian markets exhibited optimistic trends with the benchmarks in Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea trading with gains of over a percent each following overnight rally on Wall Street and reports from South Korea and Japan indicating that North Korea's rocket launch failed, raising investors' appetite for riskier asset like equities. On the domestic front, investors showed buying in rate sensitive counters like Auto, Banking and Realty amid hopes of an imminent interest rate cut and start of a monetary easing cycle by India's central bank Annual after Monetary and Credit Policy meet on April 17. The power sector shares too surged higher after reports showed power generation has expanded by 6% in the month of March even as 25 thermal power stations operated with coal stock of less than four days. However, the software and technology counters suffered brutal assault in the session amid expectations that the upcoming results season, which got kicked off by technology giant Infosys' gloomy guidance, may not bring the much-needed cheer to the IT sector amid uncertainty in the business environment for Indian outsourcing companies.
Moreover, the broader markets traded on an optimistic note with smart gains of around a percent, outperforming their larger peers by a fat margin. The bourses traded on good volumes of over Rs 0.6 lakh crore while the market breadth on BSE was in favor of advances in the ratio of 1618:914 while 131 scrips remained unchanged.
The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 17,300 down by 31 points after trading as high as 17,398.22 and as low as 17,192.55. There were 26 stocks advancing against 4 declines on the index.
The broader indices were trading on a strong note; the BSE Mid cap index surged 0.94% and Small cap soared 0.81%.
On the BSE sectoral space, Auto up 2.20%, Healthcare up 1.74%, Oil & Gas up 1.62%, Capital Goods up 1.57% and Bankex up 1.43% were the major gainers, while IT down 6.52% and TECk down 4.78% were the only laggards in the space.
Hero Moto up 2.94%, Tata Motors up 2.65%, Sterlite up 2.64%, Sun Pharma up 2.64% and Maruti up 2.55% were the major gainers on the Sensex, while Infosys down 9.13%, TCS down 4.85% and Wipro down 3.94% and Jindal Steel down 0.63% were the only losers in the index.
Meanwhile, power generation has expanded by 6% in the month of March. The increase has come despite 25 thermal power stations are operating with coal stock of less than four days.
As per Central Electricity Authority data, power generation in March increased by 6.39% to 2,550 million units as against the programmed 2,397 million units. Thermal power generation alone witnessed a rise of 6.7% at 2,211 million units against the programmed 2,072 million units. On the other hand, the fuel stock position at the thermal power stations remained strained with less than four days of reserves at 25 plants and less than seven days stock at 30 power stations.
As per the government officials coal stock is not the only reason effecting power supply. There are many more factors contributing to the increase in power, coal supply being one of them. Moreover it isn't that power companies do not have coal. The lesser supply is affecting the utilization capacity of the plant however is not shutting it down.
The Power Ministry has set a target of generating 9,20,000 million units of electricity this year, of which over 1,50,000 million units is expected to come from the private sector alone. It has plans to add over 7,60,000 million units of coal-based power during 2012-13. The government would add over 1,22,000 million units of hydel power during 2012-13, of which nearly 60,000 million units would come from the northern part of the country. It would also import over 5,000 million units of hydro power from Bhutan to bridge the shortfall.
The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,272, lower by 3 points after trading as high as 5,306.75 and as low as 5,240.30. There were 45 stocks advancing against 5 declines on the index.
The top gainers on the Nifty were R Infra up 3.12%, Hero Moto up 3.06%, Bajaj Auto up 2.63%, Maruti up 2.63% and Sun Pharma up 2.58%.
Infosys down 9.17%, TCS down 4.69%, Wipro down 4.09%, HCL Tech down 2.25% and Jindal Steel down 0.88% were the major losers on the index.
In the Asian space, Shanghai Composite advanced 0.35%, Hang Seng soared 1.72%, Jakarta Composite added 0.26%, Nikkei 225 surged 1.19%, Straits Times climbed 0.68%, Seoul Composite rose 1.12% and Taiwan Weighted jumped 1.64%.
The European markets were trading in red as France's CAC 40 declined 0.47%, Germany's DAX slipped 0.29% and Britain's FTSE 100 fell 0.21%.
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