MILD RECOVERY

Key domestic benchmarks made a slight recovery in early trade on Friday, after yesterday's steep fall, on the back of buying in stocks of consumer durables, capital goods, power and metal. Emergence of buying by funds in select stocks and covering-up of short positions by speculators, helped trading sentiments to improve but a weak trend in overseas markets restricted the gains. Overnight, in the US markets, stocks ended flat, giving up modest gains late in the session, denying the Dow a chance to inch closer to all-time highs. However, most of the Asian equity indices, after a negative start, have turned back into the green terrain on renewed confidence that major central banks will keep taking simulative steps to support their economies.

Back home, short covering in select stocks helped Sensex to recapture its crucial 18,900 mark. Some support also came in from buying in education stocks like Everonn Education, Zee Learn, Educomp Solutions and Edserv Softsystems after Finance Minister P Chidambaram in the Union Budget 2013-14 increased allocation to the education sector. On the sectoral front, capital goods witnessed the maximum gain in trade followed by metal and power while, realty, healthcare and oil and gas remained the few losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices too were trading in the green while, the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 938 shares on the gaining side against 872 shares on the losing side while 86 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 18,876.68; about 15 points higher compared to its previous closing of 18,861.54, and has touched a high and a low of 18,927.04 and 18,820.90 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 18,909.43, up by 47.89 points or 0.25%. There were 16 stocks advancing against 14 declines on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a weak start with 46.75% stocks advancing against 48.43% declines. The broader indices were trading in-line with benchmarks; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices rose by 0.36% and 0.04% respectively. 

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Capital Goods up by 1.80%, Metal up by 1.25%, Power up by 1.18%, Consumer Durables up by 0.92% and IT up by 0.71% while, Realty down by 1.16%, Health Care down by 0.81% and Oil & Gas down by 0.62% were the losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Jindal Steel up by 3.08%, L&T up by 2.57%, Maruti Suzuki up by 2.57%, Wipro up by 1.68% and Coal India up by 1.55%.

On the flip side, Hero MotoCorp  was down by 2.03%, Dr Reddys Lab was down by 1.73%, NTPC was down by 1.16%, ONGC was down by 1.04% and Bharti Airtel was down by 1.02% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, as per the latest Economic Survey, during the 11th Five Year Plan (2007-12), India witnessed a peak power shortage of 9% when over 50,000 MW new generation capacity was created during the same period. Peak power shortage is shortfall in generation capacity when electricity consumption is maximum.

The economic survey also noted that the resources currently allocated to energy supply are not sufficient for narrowing the gap between energy needs and energy availability. In India, electricity is produced with the help coal, crude oil, water and natural gas. As on March, 2011 country's estimated coal reserves were at about 286 billion tonnes, lignite at 81 billion tonnes, crude oil at 757 million tonnes and natural gas at 1,241 billion cubic metre (BCM). 

Further, the country's excessive reliance on imported crude oil make it imperative to have an optimal energy mix that will allow it to achieve its long-run goal of sustainable development. Import dependence on crude oil is projected at 78% while that in coal will be 22.4% by 2016-17, the survey said.

For the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17), the capacity addition is estimated at 88,537 MW comprising of 26,182 MW in the central sector, 15,530 MW in the state sector and 46,825 MW in the private sector respectively. The capacity addition target for the year 2012-13 was set at 17,956 MW. A capacity of 9,854 MW has been added till December 2012.

Meanwhile, electricity generation by power utilities during 2012-13 was targeted to go up by 6.05% to 930 billion units. The growth in power generation during April-December, 2012 was 4.55% as compared to about 9.33% during April-December, 2011.

The CNX Nifty opened at 5,702.45; about 9 points higher as compared to its previous closing of 5,693.05, and has touched a high and a low of 5,714.90 and 5,679.90 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 5,714.15, up by 21.10 points or 0.37%. There were 27 stocks advancing against 23 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Power Grid up by 3.74%, BPCL up by 3.47%, Jindal Steel up by 3.15%, JP Associate up by 3.09% and Maruti Suzuki up by 2.78%.

On the flip side, DLF down by 3.37%, Hero MotoCorp down by 2.20%, Cairn down by 2.18%, Lupin down by 1.91% and Dr Reddys Lab down by 1.49%, were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the green; Jakarta Composite rose 2.94 points or 0.06% to 4,798.73, KLSE Composite strengthened 2.23 points or 0.14% to 1,639.86, Nikkei 225 surged 43.07 points or 0.37% to 11,602.43, Straits Times added 1.28 points or 0.04% to 3,271.23 and Taiwan Weighted was up by 46.85 points or 0.59% to 7,944.83.

On the flip side, Shanghai Composite dropped 12.68 points or 0.54% to 2,352.92 and Hang Seng was down by 68.91 points or 0.30% to 22,951.36.

South Korean markets remained shut for the trade today.