Benchmarks trade slightly in green in early deals

Indian equity benchmarks are trading slightly in the green in early deals on Wednesday as investors opted to buy beaten down but fundamental strong stocks after five days of drubbing. Some support also came with Mauritius promising full cooperation with India to address outstanding issues relating to their bilateral tax treaty. Some support also came in on reports that foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 737.86 crore yesterday, as per provisional data. However, gains remain capped as traders remained cautious ahead of expiry of March derivative contracts tomorrow.

On the global front, the US markets extended their losses in last session, though there were some early gains but traders remained concerned about the outlook for interest rates on the heels of some upbeat housing data. The new home sales surged up by 7.8 percent to an annual rate of 539,000 in February from the revised January rate of 500,000. The Asian markets were trading mostly in the red at this point of time on US rate concern and as South Korea’s fourth-quarter economic growth was revised down to 0.3 percent from the previous quarter.

Back home, on the sectoral front, healthcare, fast moving consumer goods and auto witnessed the maximum gain in trade, while metal, capital goods and public sector undertaking remained the top losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices too were going neck-to-neck with benchmarks, while the market breadth on the BSE was negative; there were 841 shares on the gaining side against 1,002 shares on the losing side while 91 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 28199.18, up by 37.46 points or 0.13% after trading in a range of 28176.25 and 28249.60. There were 11 stocks advancing against 19 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.13%, while Small cap index up by 0.10%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Healthcare up by 0.59%, FMCG up by 0.45%, Auto up by 0.32%, Realty up by 0.24% and Infrastructure up by 0.17% while, Metal down by 1.06%, Capital Goods down by 0.75%, PSU down by 0.65%, Power down by 0.52% and Oil & Gas down by 0.45% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Sun Pharma up by 1.55%, Tata Motors up by 1.54%, HDFC up by 1.06%, Hindustan Unilever up by 0.90% and ICICI Bank up by 0.80%. On the flip side, GAIL India down by 2.56%, NTPC down by 2.20%, Coal India down by 1.46%, Sesa Sterlite down by 1.11% and Larsen & Toubro down by 0.98% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, with the Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) 2014-19 all set to expire March 31, 2014, the government is may yet again miss the deadline. The policy, which was last set to expire in March last year was extended by a year as the government did not announce a new FTP. The new policy had been expected to be put in place quickly after the Narendra Modi government came to power in May 2014. But the finance ministry’s reluctance to give sizeable funds for export sops forced the commerce ministry to delay it to the next fiscal year.

However, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman expressed hopes of coming up with the policy soon. She also dismissed claims of exports falling substantially on account of delay in putting up new FTP. Justifying this she said that exports suffered even when the FTP was explicit and was there in place between 2009 and 2014. Further, the Minister in an attempt to reason out the delay in FTP said that the new five-year FTP with a ‘Make in India’ focus needed comprehensive deliberations on various sectors and exporting destinations.

She underlined that the new policy had to be out-of-the-box and was expected to support India’s exports, which could be done by assessing various sectors and their capability and new and traditional markets of the world.

Further, Commerce Minister pointed that the FTP would not lay emphasis on subsidies and incentives to exporters and would rather make it easier for them to do business. She highlighted that her ministry has already reduced the number of mandatory documents required for import and export of goods to three in each case from close to a dozen at present.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8549.40, up by 6.45 points or 0.08% after trading in a range of 8545.05 and 8573.75. There were 16 stocks advancing against 34 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Sun Pharma up by 1.77%, Tata Motors up by 1.71%, BPCL up by 1.31%, HDFC up by 1.13% and Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.08%. On the flip side, GAIL India down by 2.58%, NMDC down by 2.39%, NTPC down by 2.19%, Zee Entertainment down by 2.16% and Coal India down by 1.54% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in the red; Taiwan Weighted decreased 65.69 points or 0.68% to 9,665.97, Jakarta Composite declined 40.26 points or 0.74% to 5,407.39, Shanghai Composite dropped 38.84 points or 1.05% to 3,652.57, Nikkei 225 shed 25.85 points or 0.13% to 19,687.60 and KOSPI Index was down by 1.9 points or 0.09% to 2,039.47. On the flip side, Straits Times increased 4.67 points or 0.14% to 3,417.93, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI rose 5.72 points or 0.32% to 1,819.76 and Hang Seng was up by 91.17 points or 0.37% to 24,490.77.