Benchmarks trade higher on firm global cues

Indian equity benchmarks have made a positive start, are trading in fine fettle in early deals on Tuesday on the back of firm cues, and slump in crude prices. The US markets ended modestly higher in last session with the Dow and the S&P 500 reaching to new record closing highs, the modest gains were on report that China showed stronger than expected export growth in the month of October. The Asian markets too were trading mostly in green at this point of time taking cues from the US markets and on hopes that Fed would not raise the interest rates immediately. Japanese market too has recovered after the nation’s current account surplus surged to 963 billion yen.

Back home, the domestic sentiment remained upbeat as foreign funds and retail investors engaged in enlarging positions on expectations of acceleration in economic reforms by the government after the expansion of the Union Cabinet. Some support also came in from international ratings agency Moody’s quarterly Global Macro Outlook report that it expects India to witness 'sustained robust growth' over the next two years.

On the sectoral front, realty, capital goods and infrastructure witnessed the maximum gain in trade, while consumer durables, software and technology remained the top losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices too were trading in line with benchmarks, while the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 1332 shares on the gaining side against 680 shares on the losing side while 81 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 27911.25; around 43 points higher as compared to its previous closing of 27868.63, and has touched a high and a low of 27994.76 and 27909.62 respectively. The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 27957.73, up by 83.00 points or 0.30%. There were 19 stocks advancing against 11 stocks declining on the index.

The overall market breadth remained in the favour of advances with 63.64% stocks advancing against 32.49% declines. The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.65%, while Small cap index up by 0.51%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 1.28%, Capital Goods up by 0.63%, Infrastructure up by 0.60%, Bankex up by 0.58%, Auto up by 0.56%, while Consumer Durables down by 0.07%, IT down by 0.05%, TECK down by 0.01% were the few losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Steel up by 1.27%, GAIL India up by 1.20%, HDFC up by 0.96%, Axis Bank up by 0.92% and Mahindra & Mahindra up by 0.92%. On the flip side, BHEL down by 1.73%, Dr. Reddys Lab down by 0.90%, Coal India down by 0.87%, Infosys down by 0.72% and Bharti Airtel down by 0.69% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has asserted that India will amend tough land acquisition and bring tax reforms to boost investments and kick start the domestic economic growth. Highlighting importance of business friendly regulations in the country, Arun Jaitley stated that there is a need to change tough land acquisition law to speed up the process of buying land for industrial use, a contentious issue in India which has long delayed projects.

Finance Minister also promised a reasonable, non-aggressive and rational tax policy to make India a hub of low-cost manufacturing. On the insurance sector, Jaitley expressed hope that the long-pending Insurance Amendment Bill, that seeks to raise FDI in the sector from existing 26 percent to 49 percent, will get Parliament nod in the upcoming Winter Session. Regarding the Goods and Services Tax (GST), Jaitley stressed that the government is in the final stages of talks with states on the issue, hinting that amendments to GST may be introduced in the Winter session of Parliament.

On ambitious divestment programme in public sector banks, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley emphasized that the government is planning to bring down its stake in public sector banks to 52 percent so that a large amount of capital, almost close to Rs 3 lakh crore, can be introduced into banks.

The CNX Nifty opened at 8,354.10; around 20 point higher as compared to its previous closing of 8,344.25, and has touched a high and a low of 8,376.45 and 8,353.15 respectively.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8363.05, up by 18.80 points or 0.23%. There were 31 stocks advancing against 19 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were IDFC up by 2.68%, Ultratech Cement up by 2.00%, Ambuja Cement up by 1.56%, Tata Steel up by 1.31% and Jindal Steel & Power up by 1.25%. On the flip side, BHEL down by 1.77%, Bharti Airtel down by 0.95%, Dr. Reddys Lab down by 0.94%, Coal India down by 0.89% and NMDC down by 0.88% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in the green; KOSPI Index rose 3.69 points or 0.19% to 1,961.92, Shanghai Composite surged 32.78 points or 1.32% to 2,506.45, Jakarta Composite strengthened 69.64 points or 1.4% to 5,035.03, Hang Seng increased 149.26 points or 0.63% to 23,893.96 and Nikkei 225 was up by 240.11 points or 1.43% to 17,020.64. On the flip side, Taiwan Weighted slipped 14.58 points or 0.16% to 9,035.40, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 2.62 points or 0.14% to 1,825.31 and Straits Times was down by 2.06 points or 0.06% to 3,298.94.