Markets continue to trade in fine fettle

Markets are trading in fine fettle in the early noon trade with benchmarks holding gains of over half a percent. The market mood was continuously showing uptrend since morning with no sign of any serious profit taking. The better part of the trade was that buying was visible across the board and broader indices apart from the blue chips too were performing well. Both the benchmarks were trading above their crucial psychological marks of 29300 (Sensex) and 8850 (Nifty). The good going in the Asian markets was supporting the local bourses with hopes of the current talks concluding with some kind of a new accord in place for the new Greek government. Back on street, barring some weakness in metal, IT and tech all other sectoral indices were retaining their gains on the BSE. Capital goods and consumer durables have taken lead of over a percent each. There was some buzz in the defence related stocks after Prime minister Narendra Modi making a strong pitch for military indigenisation, said that the country's defence industry was at the core of his ‘Make in India’ mission. Prime Minister said even a 20-25 per cent decrease in defence import can create 2 lakh jobs. Also, a 25 percent hike in domestic defence output can create 1 lakh skilled jobs. Pipavav Defence and Offshore surged by over 14%, Astra Microwave Products zoomed by around 10%, Bharat Electronics was up by 9%, Bharat Forge was up by over 3% and M&M was up by over 2%.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 29303.26, up by 167.38 points or 0.57% after trading in a range of 29126.91 and 29336.08. There were 18 stocks advancing against 12 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were outperforming the benchmarks; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.61%, while Small cap index gained 1.01%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Capital Goods up by 1.27%, Consumer Durables up by 1.24%, FMCG up by 1.00%, Power up by 0.82%, Auto up by 0.71% while, Metal down by 0.55%, TECK down by 0.19%, INFRA down by 0.17%, Oil & Gas down by 0.07%, IT down by 0.01% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were HDFC up by 3.18%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 2.10%, Tata Power up by 2.08%, NTPC up by 1.91% and ITC up by 1.18%. On the flip side, Hero MotoCorp down by 4.58%, Bharti Airtel down by 2.25%, Sesa Sterlite down by 2.13%, Bajaj Auto down by 0.89% and Tata Steel down by 0.78% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the government is going to start cash transfer under all Central schemes directly to beneficiaries by April. The finance ministry in a memorandum has said that the electronic transfers must be made to beneficiaries of all schemes where that involve any kind of cash benefits. All ministries have been asked to use DBT for all Central sector as well as Centrally sponsored schemes from April. It said that “Ministry/Department will prepare a digitised list of all beneficiaries for the same. The list will be populated with Aadhaar number by June 30, 2015. E-transfer of funds will start in all schemes not later than April, 2015. The deadline for this task would be April 30, 2015.”

In the case of Central sector schemes, the finance ministry has asked all departments to transfer funds electronically to all individuals and institutions. It has directed that a digitised list of all beneficiaries must be made and seeded with Aadhaar numbers by June 30.

Presently, Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) in 35 schemes and DBTL (PAHAL) have been expanded across the entire country. The move would significantly widen the scope of the two-year old DBT that was launched in from January 2013 but is confined to cash transfers for scholarships and pensions. The finance ministry has further stated that the cash transfer would be made by Public Financial Management Systems of the Controller General of Accounts or NEFT.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8850.55, up by 41.20 points or 0.47% after trading in a range of 8808.90 and 8862.20. There were 26 stocks advancing against 23 stocks declining on the index, while one stock remained unchanged.

The top gainers on Nifty were HDFC up by 3.32%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 2.15%, NTPC up by 2.01%, Tata Power up by 1.96% and ITC up by 1.31%. On the flip side, Hero MotoCorp down by 4.66%, NMDC down by 3.87%, Bharti Airtel down by 2.53%, Sesa Sterlite down by 2.03% and DLF down by 1.74% were the top losers.

Most of the Asian markets were trading in green, Straits Times was up by 19.75 points or 0.58% to 3,435.66, Hang Seng was up by 47.2 points or 0.19% to 24,832.08, Jakarta Composite surged by 56.43 points or 1.06% to 5,393.93 and Nikkei 225 was higher by 212.08 points or 1.18% to 18,199.17. On the other hand FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was marginally down by 2.22 points or 0.12% to 1,807.87.