Benchmarks continue firm trade in late morning session

Indian bourses continued to trade in green in late morning session on the back of fresh buying by participants, following beginning of May series in the derivatives segment and value-based buying in select counters. Besides, a firming trend at other Asian markets also triggered buying on domestic bourses.  At present, Sensex and Nifty were trading above the crucial 28,300 and 8,250 levels respectively, with gains of over a percentage point. Apart from blue chips, broader indices too equally participated in the rally with both mid cap and small cap indices trading up by 0.73% and 1.37% respectively. Sentiment got a boost with the report that French companies are looking at 10% growth in their investments in India amidst growing ties between both the nations and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent visit to France. Buying in auto space too supported the sentiments with most of the companies releasing better-than-expected monthly sales data for April. However, traders turned cautious after Indian manufacturing growth eased in April as domestic demand softened, despite factories cutting prices for the first time in nearly two years.

On global front, Asian stock markets rose after Wall Street rebounded and China's leaders promised more measures to shore up slowing growth. The HSBC/Markit Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) showed factory activity in China contracted at its fastest rate in a year in April as demand faltered and deflationary pressures persisted. Back home, all the sectoral indices were trading in the positive territory with BSE Realty index leading the rally up 2.20% followed by Consumer Durables, Oil & Gas and PSU indices trading higher over a percentage point. In scrip specific development, shares of Mahindra & Mahindra surged after the company reported strong growth in tractor exports during April 2015 compared with the same month last year. On the other hand, shares of Shriram Transport Finance Company have dipped after reporting a sharp 73% year on year (yoy) drop in its consolidated net profit at Rs 84 crore in March 2015 quarter due to higher provisioning for bad loans. 

The market breadth on BSE was positive, out of 2223 stocks traded, 1642 stocks advanced, while 510 stocks declined on the BSE. 

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 27305.74, up by 294.43 points or 1.09% after trading in a range of 27159.45 and 27386.60. There were 28 stocks advancing against 2 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.73%, while Small cap index up by 1.37%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 2.20%, Consumer Durables up by 1.91%, Oil & Gas up by 1.80%, PSU up by 1.43% and Power up by 1.21%, while there were no losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were ONGC up by 3.73%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 3.25%, Bajaj Auto up by 2.94%, Hindalco up by 2.63% and Cipla up by 2.43%. On the flip side, Tata Motors down by 1.63% and Larsen & Toubro down by 0.06% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Government facing various restraints in reporting Government Finance Statistics (GFS) data, including manual compilation of data from detailed demand of grants for economic and functional classification and a time lag of more than two years to get final data, has formed a Coordination Committee under chairmanship of Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) Arvind Subramanian to address issues while reporting GFS data.

A finance ministry office memorandum has stated that in order to address the various constraints and to enable timely reporting of GFS data to IMF, it has been decided to constitute a Coordination Committee on GFS. The GFS year book is an annual publication of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that collects data of the public sector from member countries.

The composition of the committee will have representation from RBI, the Controller General of Accounts (CGA), the Central Statistics Office (CSO), the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) and the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA), among others and the terms of reference of the committee include putting in place a mechanism for integration of vast electronic data so that the monthly and annual numbers can be compiled and reported at the earliest. The mandate is also to outline steps to cut down the timeline for completion of state finance statistics to one year from the current three years.

The GFS Yearbook delivers statistical data on government financial operations for 133 IMF member countries in one definitive volume. Detailed annual data are presented on revenue, expense, net acquisition of nonfinancial assets, financing transactions, other economic flows as well as, balance sheet information; budgetary operations, extra- budgetary operations, social security, and consolidated financial operations of central governments; state governments, local governments, and the consolidated general government when available.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8270.35, up by 88.85 points or 1.09% after trading in a range of 8220.45 and 8292.65. There were 45 stocks advancing against 5 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were ONGC up by 3.95%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 3.35%, Hindalco up by 3.03%, Bajaj Auto up by 2.97% and Indusind Bank up by 2.63%. On the flip side, Tata Motors down by 1.62%, Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 1.24%, IDFC down by 0.33%, Tech Mahindra down by 0.29% and Larsen & Toubro down by 0.12% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in the green; KOSPI Index increased 0.33%, Nikkei 225 rose 0.06%, Taiwan Weighted gained 0.41%, Shanghai Composite jumped 0.85%, Jakarta Composite surged 1.3% and Hang Seng was up by 0.38%. On the flip side, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 1.34% and Straits Times was down by 0.18%.