Benchmarks magnify gains; Nifty regains 7,950 mark

Indian equity benchmarks continued to trade jubilantly in last leg of trade supported by strong global cues, with frontline gauges surpassing their crucial 26,600 (Sensex) and 7,950 (Nifty) bastions. Asian stocks firmed up tracking overnight gains on Wall Street and weakness in the dollar after the minutes of the latest Fed meeting highlighted worries over downside risks to the global economy. Shares in Japan edged higher but a stronger yen capped upside gains. Moreover, firm opening in European counters too aided sentiments.

Back home, there was broad based buying witnessed in the markets and apart from the blue chips, the broader markets too equally participated in the rally. Appreciation in Indian rupee too supported the sentiments. Rupee was trading higher at this point of time on persistent selling of the American unit by banks and exporters amid bearish dollar overseas and rallying domestic equities. Meanwhile, banking shares are trading higher by up to 9%, extending their previous day’s upward move on the bourses, after the World Bank said the Indian economy is set to grow by 6.4% in 2015-16 as against 5.6% in 2014-15.

On the sectoral front, banking, power and realty witnessed the maximum gain in trade, while there were no losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices too were trading with traction, while the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 1969 shares on the gaining side against 853 shares on the losing side while 111 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 26658.11, up by 411.32 points or 1.57% after trading in a range of 26394.21 and 26672.51. There were 26 stocks advancing against 4 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 1.76%, while Small cap index up by 1.62%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Capital Goods up by 2.94%, Bankex up by 2.78%, Power up by 2.28%, Realty up by 2.24%, Infrastructure up by 1.92%, while there were no losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were BHEL up by 8.07%, Hindalco up by 5.28%, SBI up by 3.28%, ICICI Bank up by 2.97% and Axis Bank up by 2.61%. On the flip side, Wipro down by 1.33%, NTPC down by 0.45%, Dr. Reddys Lab down by 0.22% and ITC down by 0.14% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the Government has announced that its ambitious Smart City project will be primarily driven by private sector and some hilly regions will be part of the scheme.

Urban development secretary Shankar Aggarwal asserted that the project will be executed in PPP model and the government will contribute as viable gap funding (VGF) for the project. By adding further, the Minister revealed that the government is in the process of identifying cities to be part of the Smart Cities project and the process will be completed in a month. All state capitals, union territories and satellite towns of all metros would be included in the smart city list and the scheme would be rolled out in the next six months.

The new government's first budget had announced a mega project of developing 100 smart cities with modern amenities over the years. Smart City entails facilities like modern sewerage system, continuous water supply, solid waste management and infrastructure development among other advanced facilities. Total expected investment requirements for providing these services is around Rs 7.5 lakh crore over 20 years which means the government requires Rs 35,000 crore in a year.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 7960.15, up by 117.45 points or 1.50% after trading in a range of 7886.50 and 7965.05. There were 42 stocks advancing against 8 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were BHEL up by 8.24%, Hindalco up by 5.31%, Zee Entertainment up by 3.60%, SBI up by 3.37% and PNB up by 3.24%. On the flip side, Tech Mahindra down by 2.71%, Wipro down by 1.44%, NMDC down by 0.84%, Jindal Steel & Power down by 0.45% and BPCL down by 0.34% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in the green; FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI rose 4.17 points or 0.23% to 1,828.49, Shanghai Composite gained 6.58 points or 0.28% to 2,389.37, Taiwan Weighted increased 11.26 points or 0.13% to 8,966.44, Straits Times surged 34.18 points or 1.06% to 3,260.89, Jakarta Composite strengthened 44 points or 0.89% to 5,002.52 and Hang Seng increased 271.2 points or 1.17% to 23,534.53. On the flip side, Nikkei 225 decreased 117.05 points or 0.75% to 15,478.93.

European markets too were trading higher; France’s CAC increased 36.19 points or 0.87% to 4,204.31, UK’s FTSE 100 increased 51.61 points or 0.8% to 6,533.85 and Germany’s DAX increased 127.52 points or 1.42% to 9,122.85.