Firm trade continues over Dalal Street

A firm trade continued over the Dalal Street in early afternoon deals, with both Sensex and Nifty holding notable gains, amid broad based buying at Consumer Durables, Realty and Auto counters, despite negative cues from other Asian markets. Domestic sentiments remained optimistic, as credit rating agency, Crisil in its latest outlook report ‘Imports widen trade deficit’ has said that the near-term challenge to India’s exports owing to the geopolitical uncertainties seems to have been limited so far but remains a key monitorable. Besides, it underlined that the current account remains in a safe zone with robust services trade surplus and healthy remittances.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mixed, as China's industrial growth accelerated in April, while growth in retail sales softened unexpectedly. Industrial production registered an annual increase of 6.7 percent after rising 4.5 percent in March. This was also better than the expected growth of 5.5 percent. By contrast, retail sales growth decelerated to 2.3 percent from 3.1 percent a month ago and also remained weaker than the 3.8 percent expected rise.

Back home, metal industry stocks were in watch, amid reports that Steel Secretary Nagendra Nath Sinha said the ministry of steel is working on a policy with the mines and environment ministry to encourage the beneficiation of low grade iron ore.  The move aims to maximize the use of iron ore with less iron content in steel production.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 73964.04, up by 300.32 points or 0.41% after trading in a range of 73459.80 and 74004.69. There were 18 stocks advancing against 12 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose by 0.99%, while Small cap index was up by 1.10%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Consumer Durables up by 2.31%, Realty up by 1.72%, Auto up by 1.66%, Metal up by 1.54% and Consumer discretionary up by 1.44%, while IT down by 0.27%, TECK down by 0.07% and Healthcare down by 0.03% were the few losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Mahindra & Mahindra up by 6.32%, JSW Steel up by 2.67%, Ultratech Cement up by 1.90%, Kotak Mahindra Bank up by 1.29% and Tata Steel up by 1.24%. On the flip side, Nestle down by 0.77%, TCS down by 0.71%, Bajaj Finserv down by 0.60%, Wipro down by 0.54% and Asian Paints down by 0.53% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, rating agency ICRA in its latest report has said that air passenger traffic in India is expected to see a healthy growth of around 8-11 per cent year-on-year to around 407-418 million in FY2025, supported by strong pick-up in both leisure and business travel, improving connectivity to newer destinations in the domestic segment and the continued uptick in international travel.

According to the report, Indian airport operators' revenue is anticipated to grow 15-17 per cent on an annual basis in the current fiscal ending March 2025. It said surpassing the pre-Covid level by 10 per cent, the traffic reached 376.4 million in the fiscal ended March 2024.

The report further said the recovery in the Indian airport passenger traffic is one of the best compared to other major global counterparts. India accounted for 4.2 per cent of the global passenger traffic in CY2023, and its share in passenger traffic has improved from 3.8 per cent in CY2019. It noted that while the global passenger traffic recovered to just 96 per cent of global passenger traffic in CY2023, the Indian airport passenger traffic revived to 106 per cent of the pre-Covid level owing to strong economic growth as well as the addition of new airport routes. It added that the Indian air passenger traffic is expected to outperform the global trend.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 22474.35, up by 70.50 points or 0.31% after trading in a range of 22345.65 and 22490.80. There were 28 stocks advancing against 22 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Mahindra & Mahindra up by 6.54%, JSW Steel up by 2.74%, Ultratech Cement up by 1.82%, Grasim Industries up by 1.58% and BPCL up by 1.27%. On the flip side, Cipla down by 1.52%, Britannia down by 1.21%, Bajaj Auto down by 1.04%, Dr. Reddy's Lab down by 0.95% and Nestle down by 0.78% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mixed; Straits Times fell 6.36 points or 0.19% to 3,298.63, KOSPI dropped 28.38 points or 1.04% to 2,724.62, Nikkei 225 slipped 132.88 points or 0.34% to 38,787.38 and Taiwan Weighted lost 45.79 points or 0.22% to 21,258.47, while Hang Seng advanced 159.15 points or 0.82% to 19,535.68, Jakarta Composite gained 97.12 points or 1.34% to 7,343.82 and Shanghai Composite strengthened 31.63 points or 1.01% to 3,154.03.