Benchmarks make gap-up opening; Nifty regains 8950 mark

Extending their previous session jubilation, Indian equity benchmarks have made a gap-up opening and are trading in fine fettle in early deals on Monday after the Union Budget tabled by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley reduced corporate tax and announced a timeline to implement the General Sales Tax. Sentiments also remained up-beat on report that foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 614.03 crore on Saturday, as per provisional data. Meanwhile, stocks related to infra space edged higher with the announcement of different measures in the budget, there is proposal to set up 5 ultra mega power projects, each of 4000MW and Tax-free bonds for projects in rail road and irrigation. Government has also said to revitalize the PPP model for infra with taking maximum risk.

On the global front, The US markets made a soft closing in last session on getting mixed economic data. Slow GDP growth in third quarter made the traders cautious. The Asian markets were trading mostly in the green at this point of time after the People’s Bank of China cut both its benchmark interest rate and its deposit rate by a quarter point each.

Back home, on the sectoral front, capital goods, banking and infrastructure witnessed the maximum gain in trade, while fast moving consumer goods, consumer durables and software 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 1205 shares on the gaining side against 637 shares on the losing side while 70 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 29536.14, up by 174.64 points or 0.59% after trading in a range of 29414.54 and 29573.58. There were 17 stocks advancing against 13 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.75%, while Small cap index up by 0.68%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Capital Goods up by 2.05%, Bankex up by 1.78%, Infrastructure up by 1.03%, Power up by 0.84% and PSU up by 0.84% while, FMCG down by 1.30%, Consumer Durables down by 0.49%, IT down by 0.30%, TECK down by 0.19% and Metal down by 0.14% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Axis Bank up by 3.06%, Larsen & Toubro up by 2.64%, HDFC Bank up by 2.54%, BHEL up by 2.37% and HDFC up by 1.82%. On the flip side, ITC down by 2.56%, GAIL India down by 1.43%, Wipro down by 0.68%, Tata Power down by 0.58% and Sesa Sterlite down by 0.53% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, in an encouraging development, RBI’s deputy governor S.S. Mundra underscored economic growth gradually picking up and India to meet the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI)’s inflation target of 6% by January 2016.  He also pointed to the possibility of some global uncertainty, but at the same time highlighted that system was well prepared to deal with systematic shocks.

Bolstering prospects for further interest rate cuts, India’s consumer prices inflation accelerated to 5.11% in January, after shifting to a new base year for calculating prices, but stayed well below the central bank`s target.

The deputy government further stated that the state run banks would require Rs 2.5 trillion in capital to meet Basel III requirements by 2019, which is higher than the requirement of Rs 2.4 trillion envisaged for these banks earlier.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8960.50, up by 58.65 points or 0.66% after trading in a range of 8923.30 and 8970.30. There were 34 stocks advancing against 16 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were BPCL up by 3.83%, Ultratech Cement up by 3.39%, ACC up by 3.29%, Axis Bank up by 3.18% and IDFC up by 2.83%. On the flip side, Jindal Steel & Power down by 2.91%, ITC down by 2.60%, GAIL India down by 1.39%, Wipro down by 0.70% and Infosys down by 0.51% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in the green; KOSPI Index rose 5.82 points or 0.29% to 1,991.62, Shanghai Composite increased 9.62 points or 0.29% to 3,319.92, Jakarta Composite gained 18.21 points or 0.33% to 5,468.51, Nikkei 225 jumped 53.69 points or 0.29% to 18,851.63 and Hang Seng was up by 62.06 points or 0.25% to 24,885.35.

On the flip side, Taiwan Weighted decreased 27.58 points or 0.29% to 9,594.52, Straits Times slipped 6.69 points or 0.2% to 3,396.17 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was down by 4.09 points or 0.22% to 1,817.12.