Benchmarks continue to trade in green in late morning session

Indian bourses continued to trade in green in late morning session on increased buying by funds and retail investors, mainly in IT, Teck and Healthcare sector. Consistent buying from the foreign institutional investors and optimism about reforms oriented decisions by the new government has encouraged the major indices to extend their gains. Sentiment on the street also improved on expectation of India's factory output to rise for the first time in April since January, to reflect healthy growth in core industries.  At present, Sensex and Nifty were trading above the crucial 25,650 and 7,650 levels respectively, with gains of over 0.20%.  Apart from blue chips, broader indices too were participating in the rally with both mid cap and small cap indices trading up by over 1.00%. However, gains remained capped as the World Bank lowered its global growth projections for this year, saying the Ukraine crisis, a harsh winter in the United States and political strife in several middle income countries had pulled down the outlook. Also, below normal monsoon forecast by the India Meteorological Department too dampened the investors' sentiment.

In scrip specific development, L&T Finance Holdings has dipped on promoter Larsen & Toubro’s share sale programme for diluting 0.95% stake commenced. On the other hand, JMT Auto surged after its Board of Directors approved the issue of bonus shares in the ratio of 5:2. Moreover, all three listed subsidiaries of State Bank of India (SBI) - State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur (SBBJ), State Bank of Mysore (SBM) and State Bank of Travancore (SBT) - have rallied on reports that SBI proposed to merge its five remaining subsidiaries with itself.

On global front, most of Asian equity indices were trading in red after the World Bank cut its global economic growth forecast. Further, US markets ended on a subdued note as a post-payrolls lull in US data release and a dearth of other market-moving news left stock markets largely unchanged. Back home, traders were seen piling positions in IT, and Teck stocks, while selling was witnessed in FMCG, Metal and Capital Goods sector stocks.The market breadth on BSE was positive, out of 2586 stocks traded, 1894 stocks advanced, while 635 stocks declined on the BSE.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 25652.89 up by 69.20 points or 0.27% after trading in a range of 25690.19 and 25575.23. There were 17 stocks advancing against 13 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 1.04%, while Small cap index gained 1.65%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, IT up by 2.81%, TECk up by 2.35%, Healthcare up by 1.04%, Realty up by 0.93% and PSU up by 0.83% while FMCG down by 0.92%, Metal down by 0.38%, Capital Goods down by 0.09% and Auto down by 0.01% was the top losers on the sectoral index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Infosys up by 4.88%, GAIL up by 2.25%, Wipro up by 2.22%, Cipla up by 1.88% and SBI up by 1.84%. On the flip side, SSLT was down by 2.08%, Hindustan Unilever was down by 1.46%, HDFC was down by 1.31%, ITC was down by 1.11% and L&T was down by 0.92% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, Taking another significant step towards the goal of downsizing the government, Prime Minister Narendra Modi scrapped four cabinet committees including the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). The other three cabinet committees were Cabinet Committee on Prices, the Cabinet Committee on Management of Natural Calamities and the Cabinet Committee on World Trade Organisation Matters.

The government’s notification said that UIDAI-related issues, functions of the Cabinet Committee on prices and world trade organisation matters will now be handled by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA). While, natural calamities related issues will be handled by the Committee under the Cabinet Secretary whenever natural calamities occur. Earlier, the new government had also disbanded all the Empowered Groups of Ministers (EGoMs) and Groups of Ministers (GoMs).

The move is a part of PM’s efforts to minimise decision-making processes. The previous government had twelve cabinet committees in place apart from dozens of groups of ministers and empowered groups of ministers. This complex ministerial structure had led to delay in taking decisions on policy matters across sectors and impeded the business sentiments in the country. 

In other development to expedite the decision making process, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has decided to reconstitute five top cabinet panels that deal with Security, Economic affairs, Political and Parliamentary affairs and appointments.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 7,675.80 up by 19.40 points or 0.25% after trading in a range of 7,678.05 and 7,636.50. There were 29 stocks advancing against 21 declining on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Infosys up by 4.53%, Gail up by 2.38%, Wipro up by 2.14%, SBI up by 1.92% and Tech Mahindra up by 1.88%. On the flip side, SSLT down by 2.23%, HUL down by 1.79%, HDFC down by 1.51%, ITC down by 1.23% and United Spirits down by 1.06% were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading mostly in the red; Hang Seng slipped 0.35%, Straits Times decreased by 0.23%, KOSPI Index down by 0.15%, Jakarta Composite down by 0.11%, Shanghai Composite declined 0.27% and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was down by 0.06%. On the flip side, Nikkei 225 spurted by 0.25%.