Benchmarks trade in green; FMCG, Capital Goods lead

Indian equity markets added gains and started trading in green in the late afternoon session on account of buying in frontline blue chip counters. Investors however maintained cautions approach and took note of oil prices which continued its rout falling to lowest in almost six years. Traders were seen piling positions in FMCG, Capital Goods and Auto stocks while selling was witnessed in Realty, Oil & Gas and IT stocks. In scrip specific development, BEML and Ramkrishna Forgings were both trading in green after touching 52-week high on reports of fund buying. On the global front, the Asian markets were trading mostly in green while the European markets were trading on optimistic note.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 27597.04, up by 11.77 points or 0.04% after trading in a range of 27503.79 and 27670.19. There were 19 stocks advancing against 11 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.66%, while Small cap index up by 0.46%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were FMCG up by 0.76%, Capital Goods up by 0.63%, Auto up by 0.54%, Bankex up by 0.45%, Metal up by 0.38% while, Realty down by 1.22%, Oil & Gas down by 0.71%, IT down by 0.19%, PSU down by 0.13%, TECK down by 0.12% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were BHEL up by 2.68%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.69%, Axis Bank up by 1.59%, Cipla up by 1.27% and Hindalco up by 1.22%. On the flip side, ONGC down by 2.18%, Hindustan Unilever down by 1.30%, Infosys down by 1.16%, Hero MotoCorp down by 1.02% and NTPC down by 0.75% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, in order to boost domestic economic growth, Finance Minister Arun Jailtley stated that the Government intended to invest more funds on improving infrastructure and would encourage investments in the manufacturing sector that could spur growth and generate employment. The government would stick to a non-adversarial tax regime as it tries to attract investors who were scared away by provisions of retrospective taxation, the Minister added.

On the issue of declining investments in highways sector, Finance Minister stressed that an extraordinary step was taken to fund the highways sector by hiking the excise duty on petrol and diesel by Rs 2 per litre. The government is taking steps to clear the mess in coal and power sector. Highlighting the need to attract more private investments, Jaitley said that the government is trying to consolidate investor sentiments after taking a slew of measure over the last seven months. FDI in construction has been liberalised, 100% foreign investment has been allowed in railways and defence and insurance sectors have been opened for FDI up to 49%.

Indian economic growth had slowed down to below 5% over the last two financial years amid concerns like high interest rate and stubborn inflation, low investments and slow execution of infrastructure projects. However, the domestic economy has shown signs recovery and expanded at 5.5% during first half of this fiscal as compared to 4.9% in the corresponding period of previous fiscal.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8352.50, up by 29.50 points or 0.35% after trading in a range of 8321.20 and 8356.65. There were 34 stocks advancing against 16 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Ultratech Cement up by 5.43%, Grasim Industries up by 4.08%, Asian Paints up by 3.70%, ACC up by 3.59% and BHEL up by 2.78%. On the flip side, DLF down by 2.20%, ONGC down by 2.17%, Hindustan Unilever down by 1.29%, Infosys down by 1.11% and Cairn India down by 1.08% were the top losers.

The Asian markets were trading mostly in green; Shanghai Composite increased 5.99 points or 0.19% to 3,235.30, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI increased 12.29 points or 0.71% to 1,747.37, Jakarta Composite increased 25.34 points or 0.49% to 5,213.27, Taiwan Weighted increased 53.5 points or 0.58% to 9,231.80 and Hang Seng increased 189.51 points or 0.79% to 24,215.97.

On the other hand, Nikkei 225 decreased 110.02 points or 0.64% to 17,087.71, Straits Times decreased 5.16 points or 0.15% to 3,339.73 and KOSPI Index decreased 3.81 points or 0.2% to 1,917.14.

The European markets were trading in green; France’s CAC increased 2 points or 0.05% to 4,230.24, Germany’s DAX increased 9.03 points or 0.09% to 9,790.93 and UK’s FTSE 100 increased 12.07 points or 0.19% to 6,513.49.