March 4: mid-session report

The Indian markets after three straight days of gains, lost some ground in the early part of trade as they were trading in a  range bound manner with a negative bias. The market is trying to consolidate at 7450 levels after a rise of almost 10 per cent in the past 3 trading sessions. Whereas, Asian peers continued their good run by closing with gains.

Nifty was trading up by 5 points at 7482; and Sensex by 32 points at 24638. Both the leading indicators were trading up with gains of 0.08 and 0.13 per cent respectively.

The advance-decline ratio showed a positive trend as most of the stocks were trading in green. 1437 scrips were trading in the positive territory; 867 scrips were in red; however 120 stocks remained unchanged on the NSE.

Top Nifty Gainers:   Vedanta is leading the gainers list as it was trading up by close to 5.36 per cent followed by BHEL, PNB, ONGC and Cipla which were up 3.82; 3.35; 2.90; and 2.70 per cent respectively.

Top Nifty Losers: HCL Technologies is leading the losers list down more than 2.75 per cent, followed by Idea Cellular, Tech Mahindra, Maruti Suzuki and Asian Paints which are down anywhere between 2.2 per cent to 1.32 per cent.

All the major sectors were trading in green except for BSE IT and BSE FMCG Index which are trading with losses. BSE Metal Index was leading the way with gains of 1.70 per cent, followed by CNX PSU Bank and CNX Auto which are trading up by 1.35 and 0.40 per cent respectively. BSE Small-Caps index also saw heavy buying as it was trading up by 0.80 per cent. However, BSE Mid -Cap index was trading with gains of 1.05 per cent.

Asian shares scaled higher in trade as all major indices closed with gains going into the long weekend. Chinese benchmark index CSI ended the day with gains of 1.16 per cent. Japanese Nikkei also surged in late trade and closed the day with gains of 0.32 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was also trading up by more than 1 per cent in trade. However, Korean KOSPI was trading flat for the day.

In commodities, Brent futures LCOC1 touched a two-month high of $37.40 per barrel on Wednesday. They were back up to that level on Friday, heading for a gain of 6.6 percent this week.

Buzzer: - Just Dial was buzzing in trade as it was trading up by 13.5 per cent quoting Rs 747 attributed to buyback developments.

European stock markets are likely to open with minor gains. Britain's FTSE 100, Germany's DAX and France's CAC are expected to open with the gains of 0.5 per cent.