STEADY

Indian equity markets hold early gains despite seeing some selling and remained fairly well placed in positive territory. A positive trend in global markets and some good results from India companies were supporting local shares. Nifty managing to stay above the 5,200 level since opening, while Sensex up 72 points from its previous close. Meanwhile April PMI manufacturing data will be watched for the further clues. On sectoral front, consumer durables, information technology, bank, FMCG and healthcare stocks were finding support. Metal, realty and capital goods stocks were trading mixed, while power, oil and automobile stocks are mostly subdued. On the global front, Asian shares rose and the dollar recovered against the yen on Wednesday after strong US factory activity data raised hopes that the world's biggest economy remained on a recovery track while growth in Asian manufacturing improved broader sentiment. Back home, the market breadth favoring positive trend; there were 1,378 shares on the gaining side against 1, 041 shares on the losing side while 113 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 17,392.02, up by 73.21 points or 0.42%. The index has touched a high and low of 17,432.33 and 17,367.00 respectively. There were 19 stocks advancing against 11 declines on the index.

Unlike benchmarks, broader indices have pruned their losses; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices surged 0.44% and 0.70% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, CD up by 1.98%, TECk up by 1.10%, IT up by 0.95%, Bankex up by 0.90% and FMCG up by 0.81%. While Auto down by 0.71%, Oil & Gas down by 0.30% and Power down by 0.23% were top losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were HUL up by 2.77%, Bharti Airtel up by 1.89%, TCS up by 1.72%, DLF up by 1.58% and HDFC Bank up by 1.33%.

On the flip side, Tata Motors down by 2.07%, Maruti Suzuki down by 1.74%, Bajaj Auto down by 1.15%, ONGC down by 1.02% and Coal India down by 0.92% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, growth in the eight core industries' slowed down to 2% in March as against 6.5% in the same month last year reflecting a slowdown in the economy. For the entire fiscal April- March 2012, the core industries grew by 4.3% compared to 6.6% in 2010-11. The numbers have confirmed everyone's worst fears and show that growth has not revived in the economy.

The eight industries - crude oil, petroleum refinery products, natural gas, fertilisers, coal, electricity, cement and finished steel - have a weightage of 37.9% in the overall Index of Industrial Production (IIP).

Crude oil and natural gas have been the worst performing sectors with production contracting by 2.9% and 10.1% in March, respectively. Crude oil production had grown by 12.1% while natural gas output had declined by 10.6% in March 2012.

Electricity, steel and fertiliser output slowed down by 2.1%, 2.3% and 1.5% respectively, in the month under review compared to 7.6%, 12% and 3.9% respectively in March 2011.

Petroleum refinery output too slowed down by 1.6% compared to 8.5% in March 2011. However, coal and cement output grew by 6.8% and 7.1%, respectively. In February, the eight infrastructure industries grew by 6.8% in February after a dismal performance of 0.5% a month ago.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,267.05, higher by 18.90 points or 0.36%. The index has touched a high and low of 5279.60 and 5254.30 respectively. There were 31 stocks advancing against 19 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were HUL up by 2.45%, SAIL up by 2.16%, HCL Tech up by 1.94%, Bharti Airtel up by 1.88% and DLF up by 1.71%.

On the flip side, Tata Motors down by 1.96%, Maruti Suzuki down by 1.94%, BPCL down by 1.44%, Bajaj Auto down by 1.14% and ONGC down by 1.09%, were the major losers on the index.

All the Asian equity indices were trading in the green; Shanghai Composite surged 1.79%, Hang Seng spurted 1.23%, Jakarta Composite added 0.39%, KLSE Composite rose 0.52%, Nikkei 225 gained 0.31%, Straits Times edged higher by 0.54%, KOSPI Composite climbed 0.86% and Taiwan Weighted accumulated 2.33%.