Benchmarks continue firm trade in late afternoon session

Indian equity markets continued its firm trade in the late afternoon session on account of buying in frontline blue chip counters taking cues from global counterparts. The sentiments were on optimistic note after a survey sponsored by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) projected economic growth rate at 7.9 percent for the current fiscal year, up from 7.5 percent in 2014-15. Traders were seen piling positions in Realty, IT and Consumer Durables stocks while selling was witnessed in Bankex sector stocks. In scrip specific development, Coal India was trading firm on reports that the government has reverted from its six month old directive to halve the company’s e-auction volumes. Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) was trading in green after foreign brokerage firm upgraded the stock to buy with increased target price.

On the global front, the Asian markets were trading on a mixed note while the European markets were trading mostly on optimistic note. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above the psychological 8,700 and 28,700 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was positive in the ratio of 1750:904 while 116 scrips remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 28716.96, up by 200.37 points or 0.70% after trading in a range of 28566.61 and 28740.22. There were 22 stocks advancing against 8 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.82%, while Small cap index up by 1.65%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 1.77%, IT up by 1.66%, Consumer Durables up by 1.66%, FMCG up by 1.59%, Oil & Gas up by 1.50% while, Bankex down by 0.05% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Coal India up by 5.05%, Reliance Industries up by 3.15%, Dr. Reddy’s Lab up by 2.05%, Bharti Airtel up by 2.04% and TCS up by 1.97%. On the flip side, Sesa Sterlite down by 2.20%, HDFC down by 1.75%, NTPC down by 0.96%, Hero MotoCorp down by 0.93% and ONGC down by 0.91% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, India’s central bank governor, Raghuram Rajan, being extremely positive on the economy, pointed to the green shoots that have now started showing up in the investment climate. Besides, he also asserted that while the rates of stalled projects were coming down, investment intentions were picking up with the economy beginning to see the start of an investment cycle. Data put out by Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) on Tuesday also points out to a revival in investment growth. He however, cautioned that these were just early signs and not calls for celebration.

Further, the governor also refrained from commenting on the new series on economic growth numbers by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) and said that he was trying to understand the new series as he felt that determining potential growth wasn’t that easy with such a short series of data.

The governor emphasized that as the growth process for the country kick-starts, the government would have to be mindful of on issues relating to fuelling such expansion with sufficient funding options. He also drew some attention of government to capital needs of PSU banks and highlighted that there was some room for the banks, especially the state-run ones to access the markets to raise capital from the market over and above what they can do from the government.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8718.30, up by 58.00 points or 0.67% after trading in a range of 8679.80 and 8730.50. There were 31 stocks advancing against 19 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Coal India up by 5.08%, BPCL up by 3.36%, Reliance Industries up by 3.23%, Tech Mahindra up by 2.86% and Bharti Airtel up by 2.36%. On the flip side, Idea Cellular down by 2.61%, Sesa Sterlite down by 2.40%, HDFC down by 1.86%, Yes Bank down by 1.46% and NTPC down by 1.18% were the top losers.

The Asian markets were trading on a mixed note; KOSPI Index increased 12.23 points or 0.6% to 2,059.26, Shanghai Composite increased 33.43 points or 0.84% to 3,994.81, Nikkei 225 increased 149.27 points or 0.76% to 19,789.81 and Hang Seng increased 961.22 points or 3.8% to 26,236.86.

On the other hand, Taiwan Weighted decreased 69.93 points or 0.73% to 9,571.97, Jakarta Composite decreased 42.69 points or 0.77% to 5,480.60, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 8.09 points or 0.44% to 1,848.42 and Straits Times decreased 4.3 points or 0.12% to 3,461.32.

The European markets were trading mostly in green; France’s CAC increased 13.69 points or 0.27% to 5,164.88, UK’s FTSE 100 increased 36.9 points or 0.53% to 6,998.67 while, Germany’s DAX decreased 18.28 points or 0.15% to 12,105.24.