MARKETS CONTINUE TO GAIN

Indian equity markets extended early gains in the late morning session on Wednesday, amid continued hopes that policymakers across the globe will soon decisively address the euro zone fiscal crisis and declining global growth. The BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty remained higher with marginal gains amid volatility since early trade on the back of some buying interest. In currency markets, Indian rupee depreciated against American currency on the back of increasing dollar demand from oil importers and banks. On sectoral front, few stocks from realty, capital goods and banking sectors retreated to lower levels on profit taking, while oil, power and healthcare stocks were also trading off their highs. Stocks from metal and automobile sectors continue to trade firm with most of their gains intact. In global markets, Asian shares extended gains to a third straight session on Wednesday. Back home, the market breadth favoring positive trend; there were 1,294 shares on the gaining side against 1,178 shares on the losing side while 119 shares remained unchanged.
The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 17,639.04 up by 37.26 points or 0.21% after touching a high of 17,679.37 and a low of 17,605.62. There were 21 stocks advancing against 9 declines on the index.
The broader indices were trading on a positive note; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.33% and Small cap index was up by 0.32%.
The top gainers on the BSE sectoral space, Metal up by 1.64%, Auto up by 1.02%, FMCG up by 0.45%, PSU up by 0.42% and IT up by 0.37%, while Realty down by 0.62%, CG down by 0.23%, TECk down by 0.11% and Bankex down by 0.01% were top losers on the sectoral space.
Jindal Steel up by 2.72%, Hindalco Industries up by 2.61%, Sterlite Industries up by 2.30%, Tata Motors up by 1.82%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.80% were the major gainers on the Sensex, while Bharti Airtel down by 2.81%, Gail India down by 2.23%, ONGC down by 1.70%, TCS down by 0.89% and Maruti Suzuki down by 0.68% were major losers on the index.
Meanwhile, the capital market regulator Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has approved the proposal for the launch of AMFI's mutual fund trading platform. This approval comes close on heels of the new Finance Minister's statement to unveil a slew of measures in next few weeks to attract more investments in mutual funds, insurance policies and other well-designed instruments.
This trading platform provides investors with a common account number (CAN) so that investors can invest across schemes and a web portal that will allow investors to purchase and redeem units across asset management companies (AMC).
The MF utility will be a single cheque payment system and common account statement for all the schemes that investors have invested in across AMC's, unlike the present system where investors need to have separate cheques for making investments in different scheme.
The trading platform, which is expected to be launched in the first half of 2013, will provide all the details right from transaction to account statement and other required information at one go.
The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,350.60, up by 13.90 points or 0.26% after trading in a range of 5,361.40 and 5,338.70. There were 32 stocks advancing against 18 declines on the index.
The top gainers on the Nifty were Jindal Steel up by 2.91%, Hindalco up by 2.44%, Sterlite Industries up by 2.30%, BPCL up by 2.18% and Sesa Goa up by 1.89%. While, Bharti Airtel down by 2.72%, Gail down by 2.59%, ONGC down by 1.75%, TCS down by 1.00% and Siemens down by 0.87% were the top losers on the index.

Most of the Asian indices were trading in green; Kospi Composite Index up 0.87%, Nikkei 225 up 0.88%, Jakarta Composite up by 0.15%, KLSE Composite up by 0.30%, Taiwan Weighted up by 0.33% and Shanghai Composite up by 0.16%, while Hang Seng index down by 0.24% and Straits Times down by 0.53%.