WEAK TRADE

Indian benchmarks- Sensex, Nifty were trading in red in the late morning session amid sluggish Asian trend. Sentiments got dampened by squaring-up of positions by participants as today being the last session of current month expiry in the derivatives segment. On the global front, most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the red at this point of time with Japanese Nikkei losing the most after the country's industrial production rose less than expectation, suggesting that a recovery in the nation's manufacturing sector is lagging. Back home, the traders were seen piling up position in Realty, PSU and Consumer Durables while selling was seen in Metal, IT and Bankex sectors. In scrip specific development, Power Finance Corp gained after reporting a sharp improvement in margins in the October-December quarter earnings. Gujarat NRE Coke surged on report that Jindal steel has offered to buy its Austarlian arm. Suzlon Energy soared on bagging a 350 mega tonne RE power project; the stock was the biggest gainer on the index. State Bank of India shares edged higher after the lender cut its base rate by 5 basis points. Colgate Palmolive India slipped on reporting lower-than-expected volume growth at 8 percent, the lowest in the past 15 quarters. Oil India dropped on report that the Government of India will sell 6.01 crore shares of the company via Offer for Sale through the stock exchanges mechanism on February 01, 2013. The NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were managing to hold their psychological 6,000 and 19000 levels respectively.

The market breadth on BSE was positive; advances: declines in the ratio of 1032:914.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 19969.79 down by 35.21 points or 0.18% after trading in a range of 20008.83 and 19938.94. There were 10 stocks advancing against 20 declines on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.17% and Small cap index was up by 0.05%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Realty up by 0.81%, PSU up by 0.56%, Consumer Durables up by 0.55%, Power up by 0.34%, FMCG up by 0.17% and while, Metal down by 0.34%, IT down by 0.20%, Bankex down by 0.08% and Capital Goods down by 0.07% were the only losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were BHEL up by 1.89%, Bajaj Auto up by 1.71%, ONGC up by 1.36%, ITC up by 0.63% and Maruti Suzuki up by 0.45%.

On the flip side, RIL was down by 1.31%, Sterlite Inds was down by 1.09%, Tata Motors was down by 1.00%, Tata Power was down by 0.97% and Hindustan Unilever was down by 0.92% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, in a move to contain the surging current account deficit (CAD), Finance Minister P Chidambaram said that the government is looking at more steps to curb gold import, which has led to widening of the CAD. To check the gold imports, the government last week hiked duty on gold to 6% from 4% and also linked gold exchange traded fund (ETF) schemes offered by mutual funds to gold deposit schemes of banks with a view to increase availability of physical gold in the market.

As per the finance minister, these two schemes will unfreeze 15, 20 tonnes of gold, idle gold, and will bring it into the market to moderate imports. Even the Reserve Bank in its policy review on January on 29 raised concerns over the high gold import and widening CAD.

Moreover, the gold import was only second to oil and contributed to the CAD, which has widened to a record high of 5.4 per cent of GDP in the July-September quarter. Till December, India has imported gold worth $38 billion. In the last fiscal year, the gold import was at $56 billion.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,051.60 down by 4.15 points or 0.07% after trading in a range of 6,058.05 and 6,042.30. There were 24 stocks advancing against 26 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were BPCL up by 2.47%, BHEL up by 2.41%, Bajaj-Auto up by 1.86%, HCL Tech up by 1.73% and DLF up by 1.71%.

On the flip side, Sesa Goa down by 1.63%, Reliance Industries down by 1.38%, Tata Motors down by 0.99%, Tata Power down by 0.97% and Hindustan Unilever down by 0.90% were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the red; Hang Seng lost 118.24 points or 0.50% to 23,703.82, Jakarta Composite declined 17.72 points or 0.40% to 4,435.26, KLSE Composite slipped 0.96 points or 0.06% to 1,626.77, Nikkei 225 dropped 78.95 points or 0.71% to 11,035.81, Straits Times dipped 1.34 points or 0.04% to 3,284.42, KOSPI Composite decreased 8.61 points or 0.44% to 1,955.82 and Taiwan Weighted was down by 12.43 points or 0.16% to 7,820.55. 

Shanghai Composite was up by 2.40 points or 0.10% to 2,384.87.