Markets trade near day’s high; Nifty hovers around 5,600 mark

The Indian equity markets continued to trade in green with consistent buying in several blue chip stocks in the late morning session. The markets are on an upswing with the Sensex at a day's high and the Nifty hovering over the crucial 5,600 mark. On the sectoral front all sectors are trading in green with FMCG, Power and IT stocks supporting the markets to continue to trade higher. Metal stocks are trading with notable gains on the back of surge in global metal prices. Sugar stocks are also attracting buyers on reports that the government has issued a formal order for exports of an additional 5 lakh tones of sugars. On the global front, world markets are advancing on hope that Greece would avert Eurozone's first ever sovereign default. All eyes are on the two-day parliament debate and vote on the unpopular austerity measures in Greece. Back home, market breadth continues to remain strong; there were 1,713 shares on the gaining side against 784 shares on the losing side while 92 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 18,655.29, up by 162.84 points or 0.88%. The index has touched a high and low of 18,691.67 and 18,552.19 respectively. There were 26 stocks advancing against just 4 declines on the index.

The broader indices are outperforming the index; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices were up by 0.71% and 1.01% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were FMCG up by 1.49%, Metal up by 1.31%, Power up by 1.19%, IT up by 0.92% and Auto up by 0.87%, while there were no loser.

The top gainer on the Sensex were Reliance Infra up by 2.70%, Tata Motors up by 2.40%, BHEL up by 2.12%, Sterlite Inds up by 2.12% and TCS was up by 1.75%.

The losers on the Sensex were Bajaj Auto down by 0.83%, ONGC down by 0.39%, JP Associate down by 0.38% and L&T down by 0.10%.

Despite the recent indication of slowdown in economic expansion because of inflation and increased interest rates by  the Reserve Bank of India to curb inflation, Indian economy is expected to grow by 9 to 9.5% in the next five year plan. The Planning commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said India is in a strong position to achieve 9-9.5 per cent growth during the 12th Five-Year Plan (2012-17).

M S Ahluwalia said "Although the global situation is difficult, we should be able to achieve average 9 per cent growth during 12th Plan if tough policy decisions are taken in critical areas." The planning commission is presently giving the finale outline to the 12th five year plan approach paper and it is expected to finish the process in few days.

Ahluwalia said, "Achieving even 9 per cent growth rate is not easy. It requires lot of tough decisions. Over a five-year period, we should be able to take these decisions." He is hopeful for better performance of the economy in the next five year plan, supported by the policy actions. "We can do even better than 9 per cent provided we are able to take difficult decisions in the areas, including management of energy prices, infrastructure management and management of water resources. We must pay attention to ground water recharge and scientific watershed management," he added.

Stressing on the need for fiscal consolidation for better performance on economic growth, planning commission deputy chairman said, "It will also be necessary to make genuine progress towards fiscal consolidation, which depends mainly on reducing untargeted subsidies." Adding further he said "None of this is easy but possible. If we do all of this, we can achieve average growth of 9 per cent in the 12th Plan."

Ahluwalia, however, cautioned that unrealistic expectations on growth should not be raised. "I am not in favour of encouraging unrealistic expectations about growth. We have to wake up and smell the coffee," he said.

During the present 11th five year plan, Indian economy grew on an average over 8%, below the target of 9%. However, the GDP growth is outstanding given the global economic downturn and deficient monsoon during the 11th five year plan period. In 10th five year plan, India's average gross domestic product (GDP) growth was around 7.7%.

In the full planning commission meeting headed by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on April 21, planning commission in its presentation on the 12th five year plan expectation pointed out that a growth of 9 to 9.5% for the plan period could be directed. "Realistically, even 9 per cent will need strong policy action," the plan body said in its presentation.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,591.30, up by 46.00 points or 0.83%. The index has touched a high and low of 5,602.45 and 5,566.50 respectively. There were 40 stocks advancing against 9 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Reliance Infra up by 2.91%, IDFC up by 2.77%, Sterlite Inds up by 2.37%, Tata Motors up by 2.27% and BHEL up by 2.02%.

On the other hand, RPower down by 0.91%, Cairn down by 0.63%, JP Associate down by 0.51%, HCL Tech down by 0.38% and ONGC down by 0.35% were the top losers.

All the Asian equity indices except for Shanghai Composite which was down by 0.19% were trading in the green; Hang Seng was up 0.41%, KLSE Composite was up 0.18%, Nikkei 225 was up by 1.36%, Straits Times was up 0.52%, Seoul Composite gained 1.64% and Taiwan Weighted was higher by 1.11% 

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