Benchmark equity indices continued to hover around the neutral line with negative bias in trade at this point of time despite easing of crude prices and the political situation at the Centre. Though the regional counterparts were trading mostly in the green at this juncture, the US index futures were a bit under the weather. Back home, gains in consumer durables, realty, oil & gas, auto and public sector undertakings counter kept the bulls active on the street; while healthcare, information technology, metal and fast moving consumer goods space, continued to bleed. Healthcare stocks are reeling under pressure after service tax was imposed on healthcare services in the Union Budget for 2011-12. Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee had proposed to levy a 10% service tax, with an abatement of 50%, on treatment carried out at hospitals with 25 or more beds with central air conditioning and diagnostic test services. Midcap and small cap stocks are trading in the positive as well, with the BSE Midcap and BSE Small cap indices advancing 0.48% and 0.70%, respectively. The market breadth on the BSE, however, remained in favour of advances; there were 1502 shares on the gaining side against 1128 shares on the losing side while 103 shares were unchanged. Meanwhile, the government has slashed the minimum export price (MEP) for onion, for the second time this month, to $350 per tonne from $450 per tonne earlier.
Index heavyweight Reliance Industries (RIL), which was trading in the negative zone since morning has bounced back and is trading up by one and half-a-percent after the director general of hydrocarbons (DGH) said that gas production from Reliance operated KG-D6 Basin is likely to go up after witnessing a sharp dip in the past few months. He said that RIL may raise the gas output to 67 million standard cubic meters of natural gas per day (mmscmd) in April 2011 from the KG Basin. The current gas output from the KG basin is at 53 million units.
The BSE Sensex was down by 12.35 points or 0.07% at 18,427.30. The index touched a high and a low of 18,583.30 and 18,303.80, respectively.
The BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices advanced 0.48% and 0.70%, respectively.
In the BSE sectoral space, Consumer Durables up 1.08%, Realty up 1.02%, Oil & Gas up 0.76%, Auto up 0.53% and Public Sector Undertakings (PSU) up 0.19% were the major gainers.
On the flip side, Healthcare (HC) down 0.67%, Information Technology (IT) down 0.55%, TECk down 0.53%, Metal down 0.29% and Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) down 0.23% were the only losers in the BSE sectoral space.
Meanwhile, India's leading telecommunications company, Bharti Airtel has added about 6 lakh 3G subscribers, which offer higher average revenues, since the launch of the next generation telephony service in January-end. 3G offers better bandwidth that allows heavy data transfer. Mobile firms have paid heavy fees in an auction to secure the spectrum for rollout of the services.
Recently, the company had unveiled its 3G services in Mumbai. Mumbai is the 11th city where Airtel launched its services and the company is targeting a rollout in 40 cities across 13 telecom circles where it has secured a 3G license by March-end. For the Mumbai circle, the company has invested in erecting 1,300 3G sites or towers which are over and above 3,100 2G sites it has.
The company already launched 3G services in Bengaluru, Chennai, Coimbatore, Mysore, Manipal, Udupi, Jaipur and Delhi NCR. It will be launching its 3G services in all 13 circles where it has obtained licenses by March 2011.
The top gainers on the Sensex were DLF up 1.60%, RIL up 1.59%, Bajaj Auto up 1.28%, ICICI Bank up 0.85% and RCom up 0.83%.
On the other hand, Sterlite Inds down 1.51%, Jindal Steel down 1.27%, Bharti Airtel down 1.11%, HDFC down 1.07% and Infosys down 1.02% were the major losers on the index.
On the occasion of International Women's Day on March 8, 2011, speaker Meira Kumar has decided to call a meeting of all political parties to debate the legislation, giving 33% reservation to women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies. Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj and Congress leader Girija Vyas also agreed that a resolve be made on International Women's Day to evolve a consensus on the legislation soon.
The Speaker has promised to take a fresh initiative to evolve a consensus on the issue after the Assembly elections in April-May this year. The Rajya Sabha has passed the bill but the government has dithered on introducing the legislation in the Lok Sabha because of stiff resistance from Opposition leaders like Sharad Yadav, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Lalu Prasad.
With 10.8% women representation in Lok Sabha and 10.3% in Rajya Sabha, the world's biggest democracy India is ranked 98th for empowering women through legislative participation in the world. India is ranked 47 places below its neighbour Pakistan and 80 places below Nepal along with Benin and Jordan.
The S&P CNX Nifty was flat and was down by 7.25 points or 0.13% at 5513.55. The index touched high of 5563.30 and a low of 5477.45 respectively.
The top gainers on the Nifty were SAIL up 1.91%, Kotak Bank up 1.89%, Rel Capital up 1.71%, RIL up 1.61% and DLF up 1.53%.
On the other hand, Sun Pharma down 2.48%, Cairn India down 2.12%, Sterlite Inds down 1.63%, Jindal Steel down 1.39% and Infosys down 1.13% were the major losers on the index
The other Asian markets were trading mostly in the green; Hang Seng surged 0.35%, Jakarta Composite added 0.12%, KLSE Composite rose 0.47%, Nikkei 225 gained 0.61%, Seoul Composite added 0.26% and Taiwan Weighted grew 0.03%; while Shanghai Composite dipped 0.06% and Straits Times dropped 0.46%.
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