POSITIVE TERRITORY

After suffering a setback in opening trade, benchmarks have smartly rebounded in positive territory and currently trading at high point of the day on strong buying in some blue chip counters. The BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty went up by over 0.5%. On sectoral front modest gains was posted by some front line capital goods stocks and a few stocks from information technology, metal and banking sectors. Shares from automobile and PSU sectors were a bit subdued. Oil, FMCG and healthcare stocks were mostly trading flat in positive territory. However Larsen & Toubro rules firm with a handsome gain of nearly 5%, mainly due to impressive quarterly results. In currency markets the rupee recovered some lost ground against the US dollar, after central bank sold dollar via PSU banks. On global front Asian shares were trading mixed. Back home, the market breadth was favoring negative trend; there were 1067 shares on the gaining side against 1092 shares on the losing side while 143 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 16,339.41, up by 123.57 points or 0.76%. The index has touched a high and low of 16,345.85 and 16,123.04 respectively.   There were 20 stocks advancing against 10 declines on the index.

The broader indices were exhibiting mixed trend; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.26% and Small cap index was down by 0.03%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, CG up by 3.02%, IT up by 0.80%, Bankex up by 0.78%, Metal up by 0.59% and TECk up by 0.58%. While, Auto down by 0.25% and PSU down by 0.09% were the top losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were L&T up by 5.02%, Hero MotoCorp up by 2.04%, Cipla up by 2.03%, Sun Pharma up by 1.84% and DLF up by 1.51%.

On the flip side, Maruti Suzuki down by 1.60%, NTPC down by 1.59%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 0.86%, Coal India down by 0.79% and ONGC down by 0.58% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, in the forthcoming foreign trade policy (FTP), which is slated to be declared in the first week of June, is likely to have some incentives for export sectors to support them from the slowdown in international market.

Commerce and Industry Minister, Anand Sharma said, 'slowdown in exports growth in April in the backdrop of the economic crisis in the Euro Zone is also a worrisome development. I will be undertaking a stock-taking exercise with all Export Promotion Councils on May 17, and a meeting of the Board of Trade will be convened on June 01, 2012. After the stock taking exercise is complete, the government will intervene in sectors which require support.'

In April, India's exports sector witnessed a growth of 3.2% after being in negative zone in March. Few of the labour-intensive sectors like gems and jewellery contracted by 25.7%, and ready-made garments contracted by 9% in the overseas shipment. Further, sectors like engineering goods, electronic products and textiles posted high growth in the initial months of 2011-12, but subsequently slowed down. The textiles sector posted negative growth in April. For 2011-12, exports clocked 21% growth at Rs 14.5 lakh crore.

While giving reactions to the IIP data, Sharma stated that the slowdown, mainly in manufacturing and capital goods sector was causing worry. By adding further he said there is a huge social dimension attached with the manufacturing sector since it supports millions of jobs and recommended the Reserve Bank for differential rate of credit for manufacturing.

The industrial output registered a growth of just 2.8% in 2011-12 compared to 8.2% expansion in previous fiscal. On the other hand, trade deficit in 2011-12 was about 10.3% of GDP, while current account deficit was about 4% of GDP.

Earlier this year, the government did not seem leaning to give concession to exporters as it was mainly focusing on controlling ballooning fiscal deficit. In fact, the Budget for 2012-13 totally ignored the exports sector and concessions worth about Rs 1,700 crore given in October 2011 were allowed to lapse.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 4,941.05, up by 33.25 points or 0.68%. The index has touched a high and low of 4,941.20 and 4,868.55 respectively. There were 36 stocks advancing against 13 declines on the index, while 1 stocks remained unchanged.

The top gainers of the Nifty were L&T up by 5.14%, Hero MotoCorp up by 2.15%, Cipla up by 2.04%, Sesa Goa up by 1.80% and Sun Pharma up by 1.65%.

On the flip side, Maruti Suzuki down by 1.71%, Dr Reddy down by 1.65% NTPC down by 1.53%, IDFC down by 1.06% and Coal India down by 0.98%, were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the red; Shanghai Composite declined 0.79%, Jakarta Composite slid 0.98%, KLSE Composite descended 0.86%, Nikkei 225 shed 0.81%, KOSPI Composite skid 0.77%

On the flip side, Hang Seng was up by 0.57%, Straits Times added 0.62% and Taiwan Weighted added 0.25%.