Benchmarks add gains; Oil & Gas leads

Indian equity markets added gains and continued trading in green in late afternoon session on account of buying in frontline blue chip counters. Traders were seen piling positions in Oil & Gas, Consumer Durables and IT stocks while selling was witnessed in Metal, Auto and Realty sector stocks. In scrip specific development, Hotel Leela Venture was trading in green after the company outlined a debt-reduction plan through sale of assets. It has engaged JM Financial Securities for sale of its Chennai and Goa hotels. Coal India was trading weak as the stock went ex-dividend today. Mahindra & Mahindra was trading in red after reporting its disappointing February sales number. The auto manufacturer reported 10 percent decline in total sales at 38,033 units in February.

On the global front, the Asian markets were trading mostly in green while the European markets were trading on optimistic note. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above the psychological 8,950 and 29,500 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was positive in the ratio of 1499:1156 while 145 scrips remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 29536.82, up by 77.68 points or 0.26% after trading in a range of 29364.87 and 29595.02. There were 16 stocks advancing against 14 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 1.16%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Oil & Gas up by 2.27%, Consumer Durables up by 1.10%, IT up by 0.91%, TECK up by 0.82%, Capital Goods up by 0.37% while, Metal down by 1.31%, Auto down by 1.13%, Realty down by 0.85%, PSU down by 0.68%, Bankex down by 0.54% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Reliance Industries up by 4.43%, TCS up by 2.68%, Cipla up by 2.61%, Sun Pharma up by 2.45% and Dr. Reddy’s Lab up by 2.25%. On the flip side, Coal India down by 4.76%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 3.42%, Axis Bank down by 2.28%, Tata Motors down by 1.64% and Hindustan Unilever down by 0.88% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, in order to improve infrastructure and bring down rampant poverty, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley highlighted that India’s economy needs to reach an annual growth rate of 9-10% and then sustain that activity more than a decade.

Jaitley, after presenting a budget that focused on boosting growth before taking on structural reforms, underscored that in order to achieve this goal, the $2 trillion South Asian economy needs to find investment from outside. He admitted that investment available within the country, including bank’s ability to finance was modest and therefore the country would require money from wherever it was available.

The Finance Minister used China as an example of what high growth rates could achieve over a decades-long period. He emphasized that if the country could reach 8% growth and then boost it to the 9-10% range than the economy could achieve better infrastructure and bring down poverty rates at a faster pace.

'Union Budget 2015-16' was the first full- fledged budget since Prime Minister Narendra Modi`s landslide election victory last May. It promised higher investment in India`s decrepit roads and railways, while offering the carrot of tax cuts to global companies but the stick of tighter rules to get business tycoons to invest at home rather than put away wealth overseas.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8969.65, up by 12.90 points or 0.14% after trading in a range of 8925.55 and 8990.85. There were 25 stocks advancing against 25 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Reliance Industries up by 4.30%, TCS up by 2.87%, Cipla up by 2.51%, Sun Pharma up by 2.41% and Dr. Reddy’s Lab up by 2.17%. On the flip side, Coal India down by 4.81%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 3.61%, Ambuja Cement down by 2.73%, Axis Bank down by 2.25% and DLF down by 2.17% were the top losers.

The Asian markets were trading mostly in green; Jakarta Composite increased 1.37 points or 0.03% to 5,479.20, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI increased 3.83 points or 0.21% to 1,820.96, Taiwan Weighted increased 4.41 points or 0.05% to 9,605.77, KOSPI Index increased 4.57 points or 0.23% to 2,001.38 and Straits Times increased 19.63 points or 0.58% to 3,423.52.

On the other hand, Hang Seng decreased 184.66 points or 0.74% to 24,702.78, Shanghai Composite decreased 73.23 points or 2.2% to 3,263.05 and Nikkei 225 decreased 11.72 points or 0.06% to 18,815.16.

The European market were trading in green; France’s CAC increased 11.83 points or 0.24% to 4,929.15, Germany’s DAX increased 28.65 points or 0.25% to 11,439.01 and UK’s FTSE 100 increased 18.66 points or 0.27% to 6,959.25.