Indian frontline equity indices are trading on a sanguine note in the Friday afternoon session of tread as they inch closer to the one percent gains mark as investors continued to pile up hefty positions across the board on the initial day of a new F&O series. The benchmarks are comfortably hovering over the psychological 5,400 and 18,200 levels as they largely got buoyed by sharp rally in rate sensitive banking counter and oil and gas stocks as heavyweights like ICICI Bank, SBI and ONGC zoomed in the range of 1.50% to 3.50%. While Index heavyweight Reliance Industries too made its presence felt as it amassed around one and half percent points after reports that DE Shaw & Co., the $20 billion hedge fund founded by David Shaw, may partner with the Mukesh Ambani-run company to offer investment banking, derivatives trading and alternate-asset management in India next year. Sesa Goa too surged to high point of the day after reports that iron ore export were set to resume from Karnataka while the all stocks from the ADAG pack bounced sharply in the session with Reliance Power surging by over four percent points after posting strong quarterly earnings numbers. However, the over six percent losses in auto index bellwether Tata Motors, the biggest truck-maker, despite posting earnings in line with expectations because margin for the three months ended March 31 narrowed from the quarter ended December because of higher raw-material costs. Leads from markets across the globe too remained encouraging as majority of Asian equity indices exhibited sanguine trends while the European counterparts too got off to an optimistic opening, capping the downside for the local bourses.
Back home, the broader markets too traded in the positive terrain as the midcap index gained by 0.91% and the smallcap index climbed 0.63% points. The market breadth on the BSE was in favor of advances in the ratio of 1541:920 while 113 scrips remained unchanged.
The BSE Sensex garnered 164.31 points or 0.91% at 18,208.95. The index touched a high and a low of 18,225.88 and 18,087.16 respectively.
The BSE Mid-cap index advanced 0.91% and Small-cap index climbed 0.63%.
On the BSE sectoral front, Bankex up 1.78%, Oil & Gas up 1.53%, Realty up 1.47%, Metal up 0.98% and PSU up 0.97% remained the major gainers.
While, Auto down 1.24% and Consumer Durables down 0.95% were the only laggards in the BSE sectoral space. The top gainers on the Sensex were Hindalco up 3.75%, ICICI Bank up 3.39%, ONGC up 2.93%, R Infra up 2.88% and R Com up 2.61%.
On the flip side Tata Motors down 6.14%, HUL down 1.13%, Hero Honda down 1.12%, Maruti Suzuki down 0.74% and Bajaj Auto down 0.03% were the major losers on the index.
Various industry bodies, such as Chambers of Commerce, and export promotion councils have asked the commerce secretary to once again take up the issue of continuation of popular export benefit -- Duty Entitlement Pass Book -- (DEPB) scheme to Finance minister. Representatives from FICCI, CII and export promotion council, especially from the engineering export promotion council met commerce secretary Rahul Khullar and urged him to again take up the issue of continuation of export benefit scheme DEPB with the Finance Ministry. The tax refund scheme is to end on June 30, 2011 and Finance ministry is against of any extension.
In DEPB government reimburses about $1.77 billion a year to exporters on paid taxes on imported supplies. Because of the huge incentives DEPB is very popular among the exporters, especially in the engineering including automobile sector. In past, this 14 years old, tax refund scheme has been extended many times on the recommendation of Commerce Ministry.
The Finance Ministry is against of giving any extension to DEPB scheme and earlier had rejected the Commerce Ministry's proposal of further extension of DEPB. However, government is considering to reintroduction of interest rate subsidy regime for small and labour-intensive exports, after in April it withdrew the interest rate subsidy with the intention of meeting its fiscal deficit target estimated at 4.6% of GDP in 2011-12. The Ministry of Commerce and Industry had been under severe pressure from the Finance Ministry as well as other countries to do away with the scheme, which had been extended several times due to demand by exporters.
Commerce Minister Anand Shrama had said, he will take up the issue with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on his return to New Delhi after an informal meeting of WTO in Paris. "Withdrawing such incentives will definitely hamper exports, hurt the economy and trade deficit will continue to widen. We must also keep in mind oil prices have risen to unprecedented levels, thus increased exports is the only solution," he added.
Experts too are of view that withdrawal of interest rate subsidy on whole will reduce the competitiveness of small and labour intensive sector exports in international market. The reduced competitiveness would affect the export and employment as it account for half of the nation's total export and directly contribute to over 60 million jobs. The S&P CNX Nifty amassed 43.35 points or 0.80% at 5,455.70. The index touched high and low of 5,462.90 and 5,413.60, respectively.
The top gainers on the Nifty were R Power up 4.27%, Hindalco up 3.94%, ICICI Bank up 3.58%, R Com up 3.55% and IDFC up 3.26%.
On the other hand, Tata Motors down 6.54%, Ambuja Cement down 2.27%, HUL down 1.90%, Hero Honda down 1.78% and GAIL down 1.76% were the major losers on the index.
On the Asian front, Hang Seng added 0.72%, Jakarta Composite climbed 0.24%, KLSE Composite gained 0.45%, Straits Times up 0.69%, Seoul Composite added 0.40% and Taiwan Weighted rose 0.25%.
On the flip side Shanghai Composite slipped by 0.60% and Nikkei 225 eased 0.42%.
The European markets have opened a sanguine note as the France's CAC 40 added 0.1.49%, Germany's DAX rose 1.01% and London's FTSE 100 gained 0.70%.
Unit-8, 3rd Floor, First Mall, The Mall, Ludhiana-141001, Punjab (INDIA).
| To unsubscribe or change subscriber options visit: http://www.aweber.com/z/r/?TJzsLEwstCyc7OysHMyctEa0nJwc7JycbA==  |
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.