UPWARD JOURNEY CONTINUES

Prolonging their previous session's jubilation, Indian equity benchmarks have made a gap-up start with both the frontline indices re-capturing their crucial 5,800 (Nifty) and 19,200 (Sensex) levels buoyed by firm global cues. Global investor sentiment improved after US service-industry growth gained momentum, while China maintained its economic-growth target at 7.5 per cent for 2013. Meanwhile speculation that the US Federal Reserve will continue its accommodative monetary policy stance in the wake of sluggish growth in the US fuelled buying into the riskier assets.

Back home, the traders' confidence got some boost with Chief economic adviser to the government Raghuram Rajan's statement that there are signs of economic recovery as inflation is on the decline and exports are looking up. The strength in the market also came in on the buzz that Securities and Exchange Board of India has formed a panel to review insider trading rules to curb the rising menace of the illegal practice. Meanwhile, Mauritius has promised to address India's concerns on possible misuse of tax avoidance treaty between the two countries, while ensuring its commercial viability, on mutually acceptable terms. Telecom stocks like Idea cellular, Bharti Airtel and Tata Communication all edged higher as the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) headed by Finance Minister P Chidambaram is scheduled to meet today to discuss the third round of spectrum auction. Most of the sectoral indices opened higher with the realty and capital goods leading the opening gains with over 1 to 2 per cent. Public sector undertaking, software, technology, metal, oil and gas and power indices were the other notable index movers in the opening trades while, fast moving consumer goods and consumer durables remained the only losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices were out performing benchmarks while, the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 1,299 shares on the gaining side against 607 shares on the losing side while 81 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 19,254.20; about 111 points higher compared to its previous closing of 19,143.17, and has touched a high and a low of 19,271.58 and 19,195.47 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 19,209.14, up by 65.97 points or 0.34%. There were 18 stocks advancing against 12 declines on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a strong start with 66.40% stocks advancing against 28.92% declines. The broader indices were trading in-line with benchmarks; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices rose by 0.83% and 0.74% respectively. 

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Realty up by 2.48%, Capital Goods up by 1.50%, PSU up by 0.99%, IT up by 0.95% and TECK up by 0.77% while, FMCG down by 0.45% and Consumer Durables down by 0.02% were the only losers on the sectoral index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Wipro up by 2.18%, L&T up by 2.17%, ONGC up by 1.57%, Tata Motors up by 1.46% and Infosys up by 1.20%.

On the flip side, Hindustan Unilever was down by 1.49%, Maruti Suzuki  was down by 1.28%, Mahindra & Mahindra  was down by 1.14%, Gail India was down by 1.11% and Cipla was down by 0.93% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, optimistic about India's export performance, Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma said, India would touch the $300 billion-mark in exports for this fiscal, as shipments for February and March are expected to be in the positive zone, though it remains a challenge for the country. As part of the pre-Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) stakeholder consultations, the minister met members of industry body CII.

In January, after a gap of eight months, India's exports made a marginal recovery and entered the positive zone, recording a growth of 0.82 percent to $25.58 billion. Though, trade deficit widened to $20 billion in January, the second highest figure ever in a month due to huge increase in import. However, during the April-January period, overseas shipments shrunk by 4.86 percent to $239.6 billion.  

By adding further, Sharma said the government and the export promotion councils are putting all efforts to reach the $300 billion-export mark against the $360 billion target set for 2012-13. On the forthcoming FTP, he said 'the government will formulate a policy this time, which can boost exports and bring down the transactions cost and also improve the access to credit and the cost to credit.'

In the pre-FTP meeting, CII President Adi Godrej also suggested the government to take steps including extension of 2 percent interest subvention to all sector and expressed the need to make overall environment more conducive to boost exports. On long-term strategy, he added that there is a need to reduce time in taking decisions and getting approvals. Further, to push services exports, India should look for investment led services exports in sectors like financial services, health, education and telecommunication as this could be a part of India's strategy to capture newer markets in the South.

The CNX Nifty opened at 5,816.40; about 32 points higher as compared to its previous closing of 5,784.25, and has touched a high and a low of 5,821.00 and 5,795.05 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 5,800.50, up by 16.25 points or 0.28%. There were 29 stocks advancing against 21 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Wipro up by 2.23%, L&T up by 2.05%, Bank of Baroda up by 2.01%, JP Associate up by 1.63% and Reliance Infrastructure up by 1.60%.

On the flip side, Hindustan Unilever down by 1.62%, Ambuja Cements down by 1.57%, Gail down by 1.29%, Maruti Suzuki down by 1.22% and M&M down by 1.18%, were the major losers on the index.

All Asian equity indices were trading in the green; Shanghai Composite rose 8.03 points or 0.35% to 2,334.34, Hang Seng surged 195.64 points or 0.87% to 22,756.14, Jakarta Composite strengthened 49.98 points or 1.05% to 4,801.68, KLSE Composite jumped 7.37 points or 0.45% to 1,649.45, Nikkei 225 soared 203.05 points or 1.74% to 11,886.50, Straits Times increased 28.30 points or 0.87% to 3,276.56, KOSPI Composite added 8.75 points or 0.43% to 2,025.36 and Taiwan Weighted was up by 30.36 points or 0.38% to 7,963.07.