Indian equities continue the consolidation mood

Local stock markets are trading on a quiet note though with a positive bias this afternoon as short covering in heavyweights like Hero Honda, RIL and ONGC is preventing the downside for the frontline indices, which of late have witnessed serious onslaught. While the trend reversal in India's weekly food inflation numbers which fell to 8.53% for the week ended April 23 after showing unexpected rise in the previous fortnight, seems to have calmed the ruthless selling pressure that marketmen have been exerting since last eight back to back sessions. On the BSE Sectoral front, buying was largely witnessed in consumer durables and oil and gas counters which surged 1.41% and 1.35% respectively however, investors showed no mercy on Power and Real Estate indices which slipped by 0.78% and 0.44% respectively. Meanwhile, markets from across the globe exhibited discouraging trends as most Asian markets witnessed hefty bouts of profit booking while the European counterparts began the session on a mixed note thereby giving no significant upside cues to the local bourses. The bounce back in international crude prices after sliding for three straight sessions also went largely unnoticed as the benchmarks moved only sideways in an extremely narrow band.

Meanwhile, the broader markets which have been reeleing under heavy selling pressure for last few sessions are seeing some buying interests from market participants and are outperforming their larger peers. The midcap index has added 0.38% while the smallcap index is trading with 0.53% gains. The market breadth on the BSE was strongly in favor of advances in the ratio of 1420:1009 while 125 scrips remained unchanged. 

The BSE Sensex added 38.74 points or 0.21% at 18,508.10. The index touched a high and a low of 18,569.21 and 18,414.69 respectively.

The BSE Mid-cap index gained 0.38% and Small-cap index climbed 0.53%.

On the BSE sectoral front, Consumer Durables up 1.41%, Oil & Gas up 1.35%, Auto up 1.04%, Metal up 0.45%, PSU up 0.42%.

On the flipside, Power down 0.78%, Realty down 0.44%, Healthcare down 0.41%, FMCG down 0.40% and Teck down 0.23% were the major laggards in the space.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Hero Honda up 6.24%, RIL up 1.68%, ONGC up 1.47%, Hindalco Industries up 1.09% and Jindal Steel up 1.08%.

On the flip side only Tata Power down 2.92%, R Infra down 2.60%, HUL down 1.24%, Cipla down 1.21% and HDFC Bank down 1.18% were the major losers on the index.

Meanwhile, at the Forty-second meeting of Public Private Partnership Appraisal Committee (PPPAC), a Finance Ministry panel granted a go ahead to seven projects of Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. The projects include widening of roads in five states and in total are anticipated to cost around Rs 7,553.83 crore under public private partnership mode.  In the meeting held on April 19, 2011, R Gopalan, Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance granted the approval for five projects related to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and the rest with Ministry of Home Affairs.

The Finance Ministry panel cleared development projects associated with Police Head Quarters for Delhi Police at Parliament Street, New Delhi at an estimated cost of Rs 202 crore along with a Police Housing Complex for Delhi Police personnel at Dheerpur at an estimated cost of Rs 790.58 crore.

The R Gopalan chaired panel also approved four laning of Jabalpur-Katni-Rewa Section of NH 7 in Madhya Pradesh at an estimated cost of Rs 1,906.83 crore while similar four laning projects of Obedullaganj-Budhni Betul section of NH 69 in Madhya Pradesh, four-laning of Orissa border to Aurang section of NH 6 in Chhattisgarh and four-laning of Meerut to Bulandshahar section of NH 235 in Uttar Pradesh were also given the green signal. In addition, six-laning of Icchapuram-Srikakulam-Anandpuram section of NH 5 in Andhra Pradesh that would cost Rs 1,764 crore was also approved by the panel.

Since its constitution in January 2006, PPPAC has granted approval to 219 projects, with an estimated project cost of Rs 213780.58 crore. These include National Highways, Ports, Airports, Housing, Tourism Infrastructure, Railways and Sports Stadia. 

The S&P CNX Nifty added by 0.45 points or 0.01% at 5,537.60. The index touched high and low of 5,560.30 and 5,520.20, respectively.

The top gainers on the Nifty were Hero Honda up 6.48%, GAIL up 2.02%, Reliance up 1.84%, IDFC up 0.1.56% and ONGC up 1.39%.

On the other hand, Ambuja Cement down 5.28%, Ranbaxy down 4.21%, Tata Power down 3.35%, ACC down 3.03% and Siemens down 2.83% were the major losers on the index.

On the Asian front only Shanghai Composite climbed 0.41% and Taiwan Weighted amassed 0.80%.On the other hand, Hang Seng eased 0.17%, Jakarta Composite declined 0.26%, KLSE Composite slipped 0.36% and Straits Times sank 0.45%.

Stock markets Japan and South Korea remained shut on account of public holiday.

The European markets have opened a mixed note as the France's CAC 40 fell 0.15%, Germany's DAX rose 0.36% and London's FTSE 100 added 0.12%.

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