MARKETS GIVE UP GAINS

Following a firm start and a subsequent retreat, Indian equity markets gave up early gains and trading flat in the late morning trade. Moreover, Nifty subsequently drifted down into negative territory amid alternate bouts of buying and selling in blue chip stocks. Meanwhile, January contract closed with bears choosing not to roll over short positions. FIIs were net buyers while domestic mutual funds being net sellers. In currency markets, Indian rupee depreciated against dollar on Friday due to fresh dollar demand from oil importers. On sectoral front, realty stocks, which posted some strong gains in recent sessions, were among the prominent losers, while bank and FMCG stocks were trading off their highs. Metal, oil, healthcare and consumer durables stocks were trading higher. In global markets, Asian shares were trading mixed on Friday as a tepid Chinese manufacturing report dented sentiment, leaving investors on tenterhooks ahead of US nonfarm payroll data. Back home, the market breadth favoring positive trend; there were 1,277 shares on the gaining side against 1,035 shares on the losing side while 114 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 19,898.97 up by 3.99 points or 0.02% after trading in a range of 19,966.69 and 19,879.38. There were 17 stocks advancing against 13 declines on the index. The broader indices were also trading in green; the BSE Mid cap was up by 0.45% and Small cap indices up by 0.37% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Consumer Durables up by 1.92%, Health Care up by 0.74%, Oil & Gas up by 0.68%, Metal up by 0.42% and Power up by 0.30% while, Realty down by 1.00%, FMCG down 0.26% and Bankex down 0.13% were the top losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Maruti Suzuki up by 1.48%, Cipla up by 1.41%, Bajaj Auto up by 1.24%, RIL up by 0.79% and Tata Steel up by 0.78%.

On the flip side, Hindustan Unilever was down by 1.65%, Hero MotoCorp was down by 1.28%, Tata Motors was down by 0.84%, HDFC was down by 0.67% and Mahindra & Mahindra was down by 0.65% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, the government has revised downward the economic growth for fiscal 2011-12 to 6.2 percent from the earlier estimate of 6.5 percent. The Central Statistics Office (CSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation has released the revised estimate for 2011-12, along with second revised estimates for the year 2010-11 and third revised estimates for 2009-10.  

As per the first revised estimates of National Income, Consumption Expenditure, Saving and Capital Formation, the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) for the fiscal 2010-11 has been revised upwards to 9.3 percent from 8.4 percent. The new revised estimate shows 'GDP at factor cost at constant (2004-05) prices in 2011-12 is estimated at Rs 52,43,582 crore as against Rs 49,37,006 crore in 2010-11, registering a growth of 6.2 percent during the year as against a growth of 9.3 percent in the year 2010-11'.

Further, the data shows that the growth in the GDP during 2011-12 has been achieved due to expansion in financing, insurance and real estate sector. Other sectors like business services (11.7 percent), transport, storage and communication (8.4 percent), electricity, gas and water supply (6.5 percent) and trade, hotels and restaurants (6.2 percent) also contributed to the economy growth in 2011-12.

Regarding Gross National Income, CSO data revealed that at constant (2004-05) prices, the Gross National Income (GNI) at factor cost in 2011-12 is estimated at Rs 51,96,848 crore as against Rs 48,82,249 crore in 2010-11, showing a rise of 6.4 percent during the year. However, the increase was 8.8 percent in the previous year.

The press release of CSO said that the per capita income in real terms (at 2004-05 prices), is estimated at Rs 38,037 for 2011-12 as against Rs 36,342 in 2010-11, registering an increase of 4.7 percent during the year, as against an increase of 7.2 percent during the previous year.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,033.85 down by 0.90 points or 0.01% after trading in a range of 6,052.95 and 6,029.75. There were 27 stocks advancing against 22 declines on the index and one remains unchanged.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Lupin up by 1.98%, BPCL up by 1.83%, Maruti Suzuki up by 1.54%, Cipla up by 1.52% and Bajaj-Auto up by 1.48%.

On the flip side, Jaiprakash Associates down by 3.68%, DLF down by 3.67%, HUL down by 1.83%, Hero MotoCorp down by 1.25% and PNB down by 1.24%, were the major losers on the index.

Asian equity indices were trading mixed; Shanghai Composite gained by 0.50%, Jakarta Composite rose by 1.44%, Nikkei 225 up by 0.47%, Straits Times up by 0.05% and Taiwan Weighted up by 0.08%.

On the other hand Hang Seng down by 0.11% and KOSPI Composite down by 0.21%. KLSE Composite remained closed for trade today.