Benchmarks trade higher in early deals

Erasing their initial losses, Indian equity benchmarks are trading higher in early deals on Friday as investors opted to buy beaten down but fundamental stocks after previous three sessions of drubbing. Sentiments also got some support from report that Asian Development Bank (ADB) has said the economy shows a new promise of turnaround after the election brought a stable government in May and has revised India’s GDP upwards by 0.3 percent to 6.3 percent in 2015. Also, assuring red carpet to investors, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said the government is fully committed to creating business- friendly environment to boost the manufacturing sector.

However, gains remained capped as global cues remained feeble with the US markets ending with sharp cuts in last session, which dragged all three major averages down to their lowest closing levels in over a month. While sell-off was mainly induced by profit taking, concerns of Federal Reserve poised to bring its asset purchase program to a close next month, too weighed on the sentiments. The Asian markets too were trading mostly in the red at this point of time tailing the plunge in the US markets, with Japanese shares retreating from a six-year high.

Back home, on the sectoral front, oil and gas, capital goods and metal witnessed the maximum gains in trade, while consumer durables, fast moving consumer goods and technology remained the top losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices too were trading in the green, while the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 1017 shares on the gaining side against 923 shares on the losing side while 48 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 26429.30; around 39 points lower as compared to its previous closing of 26468.36, and has touched a high and a low of 26578.55 and 26351.27 respectively. The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 26517.89, up by 49.53 points or 0.19%. There were 18 stocks advancing against 12 stocks declining on the index.

The overall market breadth remained in the favour of advances with 51.16% stocks advancing against 46.43% declines. The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.21%, while Small cap index up by 0.55%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Oil & Gas up by 1.20%, Capital Goods up by 1.14%, Metal up by 1.07%, PSU up by 0.94% and Realty up by 0.83% while, Consumer Durables down by 0.78%, FMCG down by 0.40%, TECK down by 0.20% and IT down by 0.02% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Hindalco up by 3.08%, ONGC up by 2.74%, Tata Steel up by 1.96%, Larsen & Toubro up by 1.80% and Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.57%. On the flip side, Sun Pharma down by 1.68%, HDFC down by 1.53%, ITC down by 0.90%, Hero MotoCorp down by 0.88% and Dr. Reddys Lab down by 0.67% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, just ahead of Reserve Bank of India's policy review on September 30, 2014, governor, Raghuram Rajan underscored that the back of inflation needs to be broken, since it remains persistently high and the Apex Bank would only be in comfortable position once the inflation is contained.

Further, noting that various economic data available in the country were not very comprehensive, Rajan pressed for an urgent need to improve them and pointed that there was requirement of improving the quantity, quality and scope of data, which the apex bank was working with.

Testifying his views, he underscored that India’s employment data, which forms the basis for number of decision on monetary policies in many countries, comes with a lag and was not comparable. He therefore highlighted the need to work on getting a timely and comprehensive employment data base, perhaps on the monthly basis.

The governor further announced that RBI was working with National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) to create a strong and reliable data base on employment and was also in the process of creating a proper producer price index.

The CNX Nifty opened at 7,885.85; around 26 points lower as compared to its previous closing of 7,911.85, and has touched a high and a low of 7,952.95 and 7,884.85 respectively.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 7926.85, up by 15.00 points or 0.19%. There were 33 stocks advancing against 17 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Hindalco up by 3.32%, ONGC up by 2.32%, Cairn India up by 1.97%, Larsen & Toubro up by 1.90% and NMDC up by 1.82%. On the flip side, Zee Entertainment down by 1.94%, HDFC down by 1.62%, Sun Pharma down by 1.07%, ITC down by 1.05% and Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 0.90% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading in the green; Nikkei 225 tumbled by 155.18 points or 0.95% to 16,218.96, Hang Seng declined 109.16 points or 0.46% to 23,658.97, KOSPI Index dipped by 5.50 points or 0.27% to 2,028.61, Straits Times dropped 3.71 points or 0.11% to 3,287.28, Jakarta Composite decreased by 74.98 points or 1.44% to 5,126.40, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI slipped 6.26 points or 0.34% to 1,836.85 and Taiwan Weighted was down by 48.70 points or 0.54% to 8,962.89.

On the flip side, Shanghai Composite was up by 0.77 points or 0.03% to 2,345.88.