Markets Close Positive, Key US Data Awaited

The Indian markets pared their early losses and moved into being positive a couple of hours after trading began. This upward move was led by the Consumer Durables, Auto and Realty indices. This upward move was not hindered by the mixed global cues. While Europe has been trading flat to positive, the Asian markets ended the day with healthy gains. The Sensex closed the day higher by 56.32 points or 0.30% at 18561.70 and Nifty closed higher by 22.40 points or 0.40% at 5642.10.

The Consumer Durables index, which gained by 5.57% today, was pushed heavily upwards by Titan Industries. Having announced its Q2FY13 results post market hours yesterday, Titan posted a net profit growth of 0.34% YoY to Rs 180.14 crore. Its revenues during the same period saw a growth of 9%, with revenues touching Rs 2276 crore in Q2FY13. All the businesses in the company (watches, jewellery, eyewear and precision engineering) saw good growth. It also plans to launch new products and stores in Q3FY13. This resulted in an upward move of 9.83% in the scrip.

Today being the first day of Nov, automobile manufacturers came out with their monthly sales figures for Oct 2012. Robust sales numbers by Maruti Suzuki and Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) indicated a good month for the automobile industry. The total sales of Maruti Suzuki in Oct grew by 85.50% on a YoY basis. The company’s stock prices are trading at a 52-week high on the back of its Q2FY13 results and the monthly sales figures. M&M too had a robust month, with its total sales growing by 28.75% YoY. The stock prices of Maruti Suzuki and M&M closed higher by 1.32% and 1.66% respectively.

Overall, though the broader indices gained around 0.40%, midcaps and smallcaps saw more strength, with a growth of 0.85% and 0.75% respectively. The market breadth too seemed skewed slightly to the positive, with 1673 advances and 1162 declines. Only 2 of the 13 sectoral indices saw selling today. Oil & Gas and FMCG closed the day negative, having lost 0.28% and 0.86% respectively.

The global markets have been on the positive today due to an improvement seen in data from China. The official Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) figure for Oct 2012 came in at 50.2 as against 49.8 in Sept. It has been the highest recording of the official PMI in several months. This saw the Hang Seng and Shanghai Composite ending higher by 0.83% and 1.70% respectively. The European markets too have been supported by this data.

Investors are now closely eyeing key data from the US to be released shortly. This includes the jobs report by the Labor Department, the survey of US manufacturers by the Institute of Supply Management, monthly auto sales, monthly employment growth by ADP, Conference Board’s index of consumer confidence and Markit’s final manufacturing PMI, among others. How investors interpret the data and what they make out of economic scenario would define the directional movement worldwide.