Markets trade near the highs of the day; Sensex above 27800 level

Markets strengthening further have surged to their high points of the day in early noon session, after the volatile last session there is no sign of profit taking after some initial hiccups and both the major indices were trading with gain of over a percent, with Nifty comfortably trading above 8400 level while Sensex sailing above 27800 mark. Rupee appreciation against dollar in the morning session too has supported the markets. However, there was some cautiousness too ahead of the GDP numbers scheduled to be announced later in the day and sustained selling by foreign investors. The infra stocks were showing some upmove, as the Minister for road transport and highways and shipping Nitin Gadkari has said that the government is planning to launch 1,231 projects for 37,000 km to meet its target for highways sector this year. The broader markets too were trading jubilantly, while all the sectoral indices were showing considerable gains led by healthcare, tech, realty and IT. Non sectoral gauge aviation too was buzzing in trade today on reporting good set of earnings and as the Civil Aviation Ministry is soon going to submit a draft note on the proposed changes in the controversial 5/20 norm to the Cabinet for approval.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 27806.23, up by 299.52 points or 1.09% after trading in a range of 27467.23 and 27829.91. There were 28 stocks advancing against just 2 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 1.22%, while Small cap index gained 0.93%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were TECK up by 1.44%, IT up by 1.37%, Realty up by 1.28%, Bankex up by 1.05%, FMCG up by 1.00%, while Consumer Durables down by 0.07% was the lone losing index on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bharti Airtel up by 2.49%, Coal India up by 2.11%, Cipla up by 2.04%, Maruti Suzuki up by 1.93% and Wipro up by 1.79%. On the flip side, ONGC down by 1.46% and BHEL down by 0.79% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, minister for road transport and highways and shipping Nitin Gadkari, while expressing hopes that the vital sectors of road transport and shipping would contribute more than 2% to the country’s GDP in the next two years and create nearly 25 lakh new jobs has said that it is a difficult work but we will try to accomplish it.

The minister stated that the government is planning to launch 1,231 projects for 37,000 km to meet its target for highways sector this year. Confident of achieving the target of constructing highways up to 30 km per day by 2016-17, Gadkari said they had already achieved an average of 13 km a day compared to 3 km during UPA regime. The minister said that apart from the existing Rs 2.25 lakh crore work going on for construction of 37,000 km of roads, projects of Rs 3.5 lakh crore would be awarded in the next six months. And with that, the target of achieving 30 kms of road per day in two years would be exceeded.

In 2014-15, the government awarded contracts of Rs 45,000 crore and was able to construct 8,000 kms of road compared to 3,621 km a year earlier. The highways ministry is also planning to build better connectivity to the religious circuits including the Shriram Circuit, Buddha Circuit and Ajmer Sharif, and also the 1,100 km Chardham .

Highlighting signs of revival in public-private partnership projects, Gadkari said that we have five new projects that have attracted bidders under the public-private partnership model and 17 more are in the final stages of being awarded using the hybrid model. The five projects include Solapur-Bijapur, Shivpuri-Devas, Raipur-Bilaspur, Hospet-Chitradurg and Delhi- Mukarma highways.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8411.30, up by 92.30 points or 1.11% after trading in a range of 8305.70 and 8420.75. There were 45 stocks advancing against 5 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Ambuja Cement up by 3.04%, BPCL up by 3.03%, Asian Paints up by 2.93%, Indusind Bank up by 2.19% and Cipla up by 2.00%. On the flip side, NMDC down by 2.44%, PNB down by 1.44%, ONGC down by 1.34%, BHEL down by 1.07% and Power Grid Corpn down by 0.21% were the top losers.

Asian markets have mostly turned red, Straits Times lost 26.83 points or 0.79% to 3,390.94, Taiwan Weighted was down by 11.77 points or 0.12% to 9,701.07, Jakarta Composite declined by 10.52 points or 0.2% to 5,226.88 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was lower by 3.25 points or 0.19% to 1,752.31.

On the other hand, KOSPI Index gained 3.91 points or 0.19% to 2,114.80, Shanghai Composite was higher by 4.58 points or 0.1% to 4,624.84, Nikkei 225 gained 11.69 points or 0.06% to 20,563.15 and Hang Seng increased by 30.96 points or 0.11% to 27,485.27.