Benchmarks trade flat ahead of RBI policy

Indian equity benchmarks are trading flat with positive bias as investors opted to remain on sidelines ahead of Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) fourth bimonthly policy review. Though, the RBI is widely expected to keep interest rates on hold as Governor Raghuram Rajan pursues his quest to conquer inflation. Some support came in from Finance Secretary Arvind Mayaram’s statement that the economic conditions were becoming favourable for cut in interest rates.

However, gains remained capped as global cues remained somber with the US markets once again ending in red in last session, although the major averages made substantial recovery from their initial fall but remained concerned about the impact of protests by pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong. The Asian markets were trading mostly lower at this point of time with leaders of Hong Kong’s protests setting an October 1 deadline for their demands to be met and Chinese manufacturing gauge missing estimates.

Back home, on the sectoral front, consumer durables, capital goods and healthcare witnessed the maximum gains in trade, while software, metal and technology remained the few losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices were trading with tracttion, while the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 1162 shares on the gaining side against 704 shares on the losing side while 71 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 26610.71; around 13 points higher as compared to its previous closing of 26597.11, and has touched a high and a low of 26633.27 and 26547.44 respectively. The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 26615.98, up by 18.87 points or 0.07%. There were 16 stocks advancing against 14 stocks declining on the index.

The overall market breadth remained in the favour of advances with 59.99% stocks advancing against 36.34% declines. The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.54%, while Small cap index up by 0.55%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Consumer Durables up by 1.12%, Capital Goods up by 0.71%, Healthcare up by 0.70%, Auto up by 0.53% and Infrastructure up by 0.26% while, IT down by 0.46%, Metal down by 0.36%, TECK down by 0.27% and Oil & Gas down by 0.08% were the few losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were HDFC up by 1.67%, Tata Power up by 1.19%, Dr. Reddys Lab up by 1.02%, Maruti Suzuki up by 0.86% and Larsen & Toubro up by 0.85%. On the flip side, Hindalco down by 1.32%, TCS down by 1.04%, Axis Bank down by 1.04%, GAIL India down by 0.70% and Coal India down by 0.69% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, A day after addressing UN General Assembly, Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Madison Square Garden assured the Indian-American community that his government was determined to put the economy on an upward trajectory and create the country as magnet of investment. He also stressed the growing importance of trade and commerce which led to international relation and drove the economies. Further, he underscored that for growth to pick up it was important for the economy to focus on key sectors like agriculture, manufacturing and services and pointed that the decline of growth of even one of the sector would impact the country’s economy immensely. Nevertheless, he also cautioned that the economy would not be able to burn the brunt of even slight disruptions if it were to wholly rest on one of the sector.

Additionally, Prime Minister also emphasized upon the need to develop country’s tourism sector, adding that India had not taken the advantage of the huge potential that tourism holds and has not even scratched the surface in achieving its potential in the tourism sector. He also asserted that the country could become the centre of attraction for the world if it moved in the direction of economic development and growth, in the direction of providing more and more people with employment.

The guests on the Prime Minister's table were Representative Ed Royce, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Nooyi, Asia Scholar Visakha Desai, the Indian ambassador. The other eminent guests included Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Nisha Desai Biswal; Director General of the US and Foreign Commercial Service Arun Kumar; American physician nominated by U S President Barack Obama to serve as the 19th Surgeon General of the United States Vivek Murthy, New President of Indian-American Doctors' Association Ravi Jahagirdar, Chairman of the Mississippi Board of Mental Health Sampat Shivangi and Former Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President, AppNet Ken Bajaj.

The CNX Nifty opened at 7,948.80; around 10 points lower as compared to its previous closing of 7,958.90, and has touched a high and a low of 7,966.30 and 7,943.75 respectively.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 7965.40, up by 6.50 points or 0.08%. There were 25 stocks advancing against 25 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Kotak Mahindra Bank up by 2.01%, HDFC up by 1.71%, IDFC up by 1.21%, Bharti Airtel up by 1.17% and Tata Power up by 1.07%. On the flip side, Hindalco down by 1.47%, TCS down by 1.20%, ACC down by 1.08%, Power Grid down by 1.00% and GAIL India down by 0.96% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in the red; Nikkei 225 tumbled by 194.19 points or 1.19% to 16,116.45, Hang Seng dipped 278.55 points or 1.20% to 22,950.66, KOSPI Index dropped 14.74 points or 0.73% to 2,011.86, Straits Times decreased by 24.06 points or 0.73% to 3,265.66, Jakarta Composite slipped 9.83 points or 0.19% to 5,132.18, Shanghai Composite contracted by 2.41 points or 0.10% to 2,355.30 and Taiwan Weighted was down by 32.34 points or 0.36% to 8,928.42.

On the flip side, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was up by 5.78 points or 0.31% to 1,852.12.