Benchmark indices trade near their days high

The benchmark equity indices are trading near their days high on the back of sustained buying and also their isn't any negative news flow on either from the domestic or international front. While other Asian market closed in the mixed, major European markets are trading marginally lower. Back home the Sensex was trading firm above 20,500 mark and the Nifty was trading above 6,100 level. Reliance Communications was the top gainer amongst the Sensex stocks up 4.63% and other ADAG stock Relaince Infra up 3.07%, after news of a rebranding initiative at the ADAG companies. The Realty space continues to hog the limelight in trade today. Banking, Consumer Durables, auto and power counters were also buzzing at this point of time. On the flip side, Information Technology stocks were witnessing some profit booking in trade. The broader market is outperforming the frontline counters and the market breadth on the BSE is extremely positive; there were 2002 shares on the gaining side against 907 shares on the losing side, while 99 shares were unchanged. 

The BSE Sensex increased 146.04 points or 0.72% at 20,535.11. The index touched a high and a low of 20,537.78 and 20,412.76, respectively.

The BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices rose 1.13% and 1.23%, respectively.

The main gainers in the BSE sectoral space were Realty up 2.59%, Bankex up 1.49%, Consumer Durables (CD) up 1%, Auto up (CG) up 0.85% and Power up 0.73%.

On the oher hand, Information Technology (IT) down 0.09% was the only loser in the BSE sectoral space.

The major gainers on the Sensex were RCom up 4.63%, Jaiprakash Associates  up 3.26%,Bajaj Auto up 3.18%, Reliance Infra up 3.07% and HDFC Bank up 2.40%.

On the flip side, NTPC down 0.87%, Sterlite Inds down 0.74%,  HDFC down 0.69%  Jindal Steel down  0.43% BHEL  down 0.33% and Infosys down 0.10% were the major losers in the BSE sectoral space. 

The S&P CNX Nifty surged 36.90 points or 0.60% to 6138.75. The index touched a high and a low of 6,147.30 and 6,103.55, respectively. 

Whether the diesel prices are hiked or not, the under-recoveries of the oil marketing companies (OMCs) will be fully taken care of, said the government on Thursday. The oil and gas ministry said on Thursday that the finance ministry was equally worried about the health of government controlled OMCs and had assured the petroleum ministry of adequate compensation.

In a press conference the oil secretary S Sundareshan said that oil and finance ministries have been in consultations over the issue of under-recoveries and in no case the financial health of the oil companies will be allowed to be affected. He also cleared that compensation will be provided to OMCs in line with the subsidy sharing formula. The finance ministry which had earlier refused to bear more than 33% of the under-recoveries is now likely to let its share hike. 

The remarks from the secretary came just amidst the cancellation of a meeting of the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on fuel prices. The panel was to take up the issue of hiking prices of diesel and LPG gas. The indefinite postponement of the meeting was taken as government's unwillingness to hike the administered prices of the fuels. This however can have significant impact on financial health of the OMCs whose under-recoveries may cross earlier estimates of Rs 66,000 crore by a significant margin.

The EGoM has been considering a price hike of Rs 2 per litre on diesel and Rs 30-40 per LPG cylinder. OMCs currently sell diesel at a loss of Rs 6.09 per litre and cooking at Rs 272.19 per cylinder.  Sundareshan while refused to comment on the reason for the cancellation of the meeting of fuel EGoM, said that it will have no bearing on the issue of compensation of the OMCs which will be addressed by the finance ministry.

'An impression seems to have been generated that since the EGoM has been postponed, and the under-recoveries will be left unattended. This is totally incorrect,' he said. Sundareshan also categorically stated that in no case the upstream companies will bear more than 33% of the under-recoveries and only a very small amount can be left to be absorbed by the downstream companies, which means the finance ministry will have to increase its share of subsidy burden. 

The top gainers on the Nifty were RCom up 4.48%, Bajaj Auto up 3.12%, RPower up 3.11%, Jaiprakash Associates up 3.06% and Reliance Infra up 3.04%.

The top losers on the index were  Jindal Steel down 1.14%,HDFC down 0.97%, Dr Reddy down 0.83%, Sterlite down 0.77% and HCL Tech was down by 0.60%.

Other Asian markets settled on mixed note. Hang Seng advanced 0.16% and Taiwan Weighted jumped 0.73%, while Straits Times was down by 0.70%.

Majority of the  European markets were trading marginally negative. CAC-40 trimmed 0.40% and FTSE 100 shed 0.06%.

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