Markets pare gains ahead of WPI data

IT shares hold on to gains while power, metals lag

Markets continued to trade on a firm note in late-noon deals with buying interest seen in  IT and auto shares. The Sensex, after touching a high of 19,723 pared some gains and ended up 47 points at 19,608. Nifty ended up 10 points at 5,932. Investors would be looking at the January WPI data which is scheduled to come out tomorrow. This is likely to decide the stance of RBI's monetary policy on March 19.

"The Nifty faces key resistance at the 6000 mark. Any move towards 6000 can be used as an opportunity to initiate short positions. We expect a fall to 5750 / 5700 levels over the next 3 to 5 weeks," said Shardul Kulkarni, Sr. Technical Analyst, Angel Securities.

Meanwhile, after contracting for eight straight months, India's exports grew by a meagre 0.82% in January to $25.58 billion. Exports had stood at $25.37 billion in January 2012. Imports rose by 6.12% to $45.5 billion in the month under review, widening the trade deficit to $20 billion.

Overnight, the yen rallied on Wednesday after an official with the Group of Seven said it is worried about excess moves in the Japanese currency. Japan's Nikkei share average lost ground as the yen jerked higher, triggering profit-taking on exporters, while social gaming company Gree Inc suffered a steep fall after cutting its annual profit forecast. Nikkei has slipped 1% at 11,251. Kospi composite and Straits Times were up around 1% each.

Foreign Institutional Investors remained buyers on Tuesday, 12 February 2013 and bought shares worth net Rs 604.16 crore.

Broader markets underperformed the benchmark, with the BSE mid-cap index slipping  0.28% at 6,704. Small cap index was down 0.5% at 6,708.

IT stocks rose after the National Association of Software and Services on Tuesday, 12 February 2013, projected up to 14% growth in revenue from software exports at between $84 billion to $87 billion for the year ending 31 March 2014 (FY 2014). BSE IT index was up 1.3% at 6,498.

Auto shares rallied on the back of gains in Tata Motors. BSE auto index was up 0.3% at 10,953. Reliance took the BSE oil & gas index higher by 0.2%. However, weakness was noticed in the BSE metal index which was down 1.2% at 9,912. Power, FMCG and capital goods also declined 0.4-1.6% each.

Tata Motors jumped 2.1% at Rs 305 after its British luxury car unit - Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) - after trading hours in India on Tuesday, 12 February 2013, said JLR's sales jumped 32% to 34,877 vehicles in January 2013 over January 2012.

National ICT Australia (NICTA) and Infosys today signed a joint research collaboration agreement to modernise aging technology systems for cloud computing. Some of the work will that they will do together will be in areas like optimising infrastructure and disaster management, logistics and smart grids as well as other emerging technologies. Infosys was up 1.3% at Rs 2789.

RIL advanced 0.3% at Rs 878 after saying earlier in the week that it has scheduled a planned maintenance turnaround of one crude distillation unit of its SEZ refinery at Jamnagar complex in Gujarat for a period of approximately 4 weeks starting from 18 February 2013.

Among other gainers were HDFC, TCS and Mahindra & Mahindra. On the other hand, weakness was noticed in Bajaj AUto and Sterlite. Tata Steel declined 2% at Rs 376 ahead of its results later today. Hindalco, SBI and Cipla were also in red. In the capital goods sector, majors like L&T and BHEL slipped between 1-1.5% after recent data showed contraction in industrial output.