NORTHWARD JOURNEY CONTINUES

Northward journey continued for fourth consecutive session on Friday with both the key domestic indices re-conquering their crucial 5,900 (Nifty) and 19,550 (Sensex) levels. Sentiments remained jubilant tailing firm close in US markets overnight on getting an upbeat weekly jobless claims report and ahead of the widely-watched monthly government jobs data.  Meanwhile, jobless claims, declining for the second straight week, fell 7,000 to a seasonally adjusted 340,000. Asian markets too were trading in fine fettle at this point of time led by over two percent surge in Japanese market as revised fourth-quarter gross domestic product figures of the country showed the economy returned to growth.

Back home, sentiments got buttressed after Moody's Analytics, an arm of the global ratings agency Moody's forecasted that India's economic growth in 2013 will be 6.2% from 5.1% in 2012. It said that the worst may be over for the Indian economy with the December quarter likely the bottom of the economic cycle. Banking sector continued to remain on buyers' radar on hopes that the Reserve Bank of India may announce a rate cut in its policy review later this month.

On the sectoral front, oil and gas witnessed the maximum gain in trade followed by public sector undertaking and consumer durables while, software and technology remained the only losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices too were going neck-to-neck with benchmarks while, the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 1,339 shares on the gaining side against 590 shares on the losing side while 69 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 19,478.67; about 65 points higher compared to its previous closing of 19,413.54, and has touched a high and a low of 19,581.95 and 19,477.61 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 19,558.94, up by 145.40 points or 0.75%. There were 26 stocks advancing against 4 declines on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a strong start with 66.74% stocks advancing against 29.67% declines. The broader indices were trading in-line with benchmarks; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices rose by 0.72% and 0.90% respectively. 

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Oil & Gas up by 1.41%, PSU up by 1.17%, Consumer Durables up by 0.98%, FMCG up by 0.96% and Bankex up by 0.89% while, IT down by 0.34% and Teck down by 0.13% were the only losers on the sectoral index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Hero MotoCorp up by 2.40%, ONGC up by 2.23%, Jindal Steel up by 2.23%, HDFC up by 2.19% and Gail India up by 1.90%.

On the flip side, Infosys was down by 0.99%, Dr Reddys Lab was down by 0.84%, Tata Motors was down by 0.31% and TCS was down by 0.31% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, the government is expected to get around Rs 23,000 crore by levying one-time spectrum fee on existing operators for holding radiowaves beyond a prescribed limit. The government had issued notices to telecom companies including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and BSNL, MTNL and Idea Cellular for the excess spectrum they hold beyond the prescribed limit. The operators were given the option to give up spectrum beyond 4.4 MHz if they did not wish to pay the charges.

State-owned BSNL will have to pay around Rs 6,912 crore, Bharti Airtel - Rs 5,201 crore, Vodafone - Rs 3,599 crore, MTNL - Rs 3,205 crore and Idea Cellular - Rs 1,882 crore. To be more precise, the government is likely to get Rs 4,251.83 crore from retrospective charges, Rs 18,925.82 crore from prospective charges. In all Rs 23,177.65 crore is expected from levy of one-time spectrum fee.

Earlier, for pan-India operations, telecom firms were given 4.4 MHz spectrum with license for Rs 1,658 crore and later were permitted to get another 1.8 MHz on fulfillment of certain subscriber-base criteria. However, in November, the government decided that the telecom operators will have to pay charges for holding spectrum above 6.2 MHz retrospectively, for the period of July 2008 to January 1, 2013. For spectrum above 4.4 MHz, they would have to pay for the remaining period of their licences starting January 1, 2013.

There is no respite for the telecom operators, being under the anvil from time and again. However given the option to forfeit the spectrum beyond 4.4 MHz if they did not wish to pay the charges, the operators have reluctantly agreed to pay.

The CNX Nifty opened at 5,883.65; about 20 points higher as compared to its previous closing of 5,863.30, and has touched a high and a low of 5,914.15 and 5,883.00 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 5,909.30, up by 46.00 points or 0.78%. There were 44 stocks advancing against 6 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were BPCL up by 2.98%, Hero MotoCorp up by 2.35%, Jindal Steel & Power up by 2.27%, ONGC up by 2.26% and HDFC up by 2.22%.

On the flip side, DLF down by 0.98%, Infosys down by 0.94%, Dr Reddy's Laboratories down by 0.77%, Tata Motors down by 0.23% and TCS down by 0.22%, were the major losers on the index.

All Asian equity indices were trading in the green; Hang Seng surged 262.61 points or 1.15% to 23,034.05, Jakarta Composite strengthened 31.13 points or 0.64% to 4,879.43, KLSE Composite rose 1.61 points or 0.10% to 1,652.54, Nikkei 225 soared 253.46 points or 2.12% to 12,221.54 and Taiwan Weighted was up by 55.55 points or 0.70% to 8,016.06.

On the flip side, Shanghai Composite declined 4.29 points or 0.18% to 2,320.00, Straits Times slipped 5.92 points or 0.18% to 3,292.62 and KOSPI Composite was down by 2.87 points or 0.14% to 2,001.53.