Sensex closes marginally higher

Tue, 8 Oct Closing

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Backed by positive trend right through the day, Indian equity markets closed higher today. The surprise announcement from the country's Central bank on Monday evening to improve liquidity conditions in the banking system helped boost the sentiments. Sectors such as metal , oil and gas and IT faced the maximum selling pressures while realty and capital goods fared well. Tata Power, Larsen & Toubro (L&T) and Bharti Airtel were the biggest gainers today. The BSE-Sensex closed higher by 89 points and the NSE-Nifty was up by 22 points. Also, the BSE Mid Cap and the BSE Small Cap closed on a positive note and were up by 0.5% and 0.2% respectively.

The global markets fared mixed with most of the Asian indices closing on a firm note whereas the European indices have opened on a weak note. The rupee was trading at Rs 61.90 to the dollar at the time of writing.

Except ADC India Comm, AGC Networks and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL), most of the Telecom shares closed the day on a firm note. Idea Cellular and Tata Comm were the top gainers. A leading financial daily states that the government is all set to issue detailed guidelines for sharing spectrum for the telecom sector. It is also likely to announce the in-principle approval for trading in airwaves before the next round of bandwidth auctions. This move is expected to bring a major relief to the debt-laden telecom sector.

This move will pave way for the operators to sell rights to unutilized spectrum and share airwaves with each other. This will enable spectral efficiency and in turn will improve the delivery of services over the networks of the operators. Moreover, trading in spectrum will also allow operators to exit the sector by selling spectrum. This move from the government is expected to transform the dynamics of the telecom industry. The telecom industry has been plagued by spectrum issues of sharing and trading for quite some time now. Also, this move would bring cheer to the foreign investors who have been demanding a road-map for consolidation. And finally, the guidelines on sharing spectrum are also expected to resolve the long-standing battle between the government and the telecom operators over the 3G intra-circle roaming arrangements.

Automobile shares today closed on a mixed note. While few stocks such as Tube Investments and Bajaj Auto closed in red, others such as Mah. Scooters and Escorts were the gainers today. As per a leading business daily, Tata Motors today launched the CNG variant of its small car - Nano. Delivery of these vehicles will start from tomorrow. It may be noted that this is the first gas run product of the company. This vehicle - termed as the Tata Nano CNG emax - runs on both CNG as well as petrol. As per reports, the car would be providing mileage of about 36 km per litre. This vehicle will now be available in the key CNG markets such as Delhi, Gujarat, Maharashtra as well as Lucknow. The vehicle is priced at Rs 2.52 lakhs (ex-showroom Mumbai). This would be a big step for the vehicle considering that a good chunk of the cars in India run on gas. It may be noted that the company sold 55,000 Nanos in FY13. In the first half of the current year, the company has sold 18,000 units.