Nifty hovers around 8400, Midcap outperforms; Reliance, ITC slip

Moneycontrol Bureau12:59 pm Market Update: Benchmark indices were moderately higher. The Sensex gained 44.07 points at 27282.13 and the Nifty rose 10.05 points to 8410.40.The market breadth was positive as about 1489 shares advanced against 1018 declining shares on the BSE.12:55 pm Fuel consumption: India's fuel consumption is likely to hit 200 million tonnes in 2016/17, an oil ministry executive said on Monday, in what would be the highest such level in at least 16 years.

"Demand for petroleum products is increasing as the economy grows. India has the best growth amongst the large economies in the world ... we have massive hunger for petroleum products," said oil ministry Additional Secretay A K Sawhney.

India's fuel consumption surged 10.9 percent to 183.5 million tonnes in 2015/16.

A level of 200 million tones would compare to over 750 million tonnes in the United States last year and 500 million tonnes in China.12:40 pm NHAI FY17 target: National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) plans to award 10-15 percent more projects this year compared to FY16, said Yudhvir Singh Malik, Chairman of NHAI. Speaking to CNBC-TV18 Malik said they look to award closer to 5,000-5,200 kilometres of projects by the end of the fiscal year.In April 2016, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways had announced an ambitious target of awarding 25,000 kilometres of road projects in FY17. Of this, 15,000 would fall under NHAI and 10,000 under the Ministry and National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation (NHIDCL).Malik agreed land acquisition posed the biggest challenge in achieving the target. To counter this roadblock in future, he said, NHAI plans to avoid any project awards unless 80 percent of the land is in possession and statutory clearances received. He said availability of funds is not an issue in achieving the target.12:20 pm FII View: Ridham Desai of Morgan Stanley says there is a high level of uncertainty caused by the currency exchange, the upcoming Union Budget, general anti-avoidance rule (GAAR) and GST implementation, impending state elections, and flux in US policy.

However, valuations are attractive and set the case in favour of stocks, he feels.

He is overweight on consumer discretionary, financials, and technology and underweight on consumer staples, energy, materials and telecom.

In focus list, Desai says he is replacing LIC Housing Finance with analysts' favoured non-banking finance stock, Bajaj Finance.12:05 pm Inflation: India's wholesale prices rose 3.39 percent year-on-year in December, their fastest pace in two months, government data showed on Monday.

The data compared with a 3.50 percent annual rise forecast by economists in a Reuters poll. In November, prices rose a provisional 3.15 percent.

Last month, wholesale food prices fell 0.70 percent year-on-year, compared with a provisional 1.54 percent gain in November.Also read - See 10-12% FY18 earnings growth, FY17 may be hit: Credit Suisse12:00 pm Market Check

Benchmark indices remained volatile with the Nifty hovering around 8400 level ahead of December quarter earnings. Globally investors await more detail on the UK's Brexit plan and the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump in the US later this week.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 24.28 points at 27262.34 and the 50-share NSE Nifty gained 1.80 points at 8402.15 after nearly 2 percent rally last week.

The broader markets continued to outperform benchmarks with the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices rising 0.3 percent and 0.5 percent, respectively. About 1421 shares advanced against 979 declining shares on the BSE.

HDFC, Tata Motors, HDFC Bank, Adani Ports and SBI were leading contributors to Sensex's gains, up 0.5-2 percent. Tata Steel surged over 2 percent while Infosys and Reliance Industries fell over a percent followed by ITC and ONGC.Asian markets were lower with Japan's Nikkei and Hong Kong's Hang Seng falling 1 percent each followed by China's Shanghai and South Korea's Kospi.