Benchmarks continue firm trade in late afternoon session

Indian equity markets continued their firm trade in the late afternoon session on account of buying in frontline blue chip counters. The sentiments were on optimistic note after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley stated that the speculations over the deficient rainfall are somewhat misplaced, with little impact expected on food grain stocks and the broader inflationary trends. Sentiments also turned up-beat after private forecasters bet on Indian Ocean to turnaround monsoon current. Traders were seen piling position in Metal, PSU and FMCG stocks while selling was witnessed in Realty, Bankex and Auto sectors stocks.  In scrip specific development, Just Dial was trading in green after the company’s board of directors approved the proposal to buy back shares.

On the global front, the Asian markets were trading mostly in red while the European markets were trading on pessimistic note. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above the psychological 8,150 and 26,900 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was positive in the ratio of 1491:990 while 132 scrips remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 26939.08, up by 125.66 points or 0.47% after trading in a range of 26718.44 and 26991.82. 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 0.39%, while Small cap index up by 0.67%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Metal up by 2.45%, PSU up by 1.64%, FMCG up by 1.52%, Capital Goods up by 1.37% and Power up by 1.23% while, Realty down by 1.00%, Bankex down by 0.40%, Auto down by 0.13% and IT down by 0.01% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Coal India up by 4.85%, GAIL India up by 3.40%, Sun Pharma Inds. up by 2.99%, NTPC up by 2.85% and Hindustan Unilever up by 2.21%.

On the flip side, Tata Motors down by 1.58%, ICICI Bank down by 1.48%, Axis Bank down by 0.68%, HDFC down by 0.64% and TCS down by 0.60% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, undeterred by the recent slide in the stock markets that wiped of over 1000 points from Sensex in just two days, the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said that the government’s PSU disinvestment programme will continue as planned.  Government has set a target of Rs 69,500 crore from PSU disinvestment for the current fiscal. Of this, Rs 41,000 crore is to come from minority share sale in PSUs and Rs 28,500 crore from strategic stake sale.

Jaitley said that 'I don't read too much on daily movements as far as markets are concerned. By and large with the health of economy recovering, I see much greater stability as far as markets are concerned. And therefore, the disinvestment programme of the government will continue as it has been planned.'

There has been sharp sell-off in the equity markets on worries about the health of the economy after predictions of deficient monsoon and on concerns the central bank would no longer cut interest rates this year.

In the last fiscal the government’s disinvestment proceeds fell well short of the initially targeted amount of Rs.63,425 crore. This fiscal, though the disinvestment department has got approval from Cabinet for selling minority stakes worth about Rs 50,000 crore in a host of PSUs, but it has only been able to divest stake in one company -- REC -- so far this fiscal. The Cabinet has approved sale of 5 percent stakes in ONGC, BHEL and NTPC as well as 10 percent each in IOC, NALCO and NMDC.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8168.30, up by 37.65 points or 0.46% after trading in a range of 8100.15 and 8181.95. There were 33 stocks advancing against 17 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Coal India up by 4.86%, Zee Entertainment up by 3.40%, GAIL India up by 3.34%, Sun Pharma up by 3.06% and NTPC up by 2.67%.

On the flip side, Ambuja Cement down by 2.53%, ACC down by 1.94%, Tata Motors down by 1.36%, ICICI Bank down by 1.33% and Indusind Bank down by 1.00% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in the red; Hang Seng was down by 1.06%, Jakarta Composite declined by 0.31%, Nikkei 225 lost 0.13%, Taiwan Weighted lost 0.09%, KOSPI Index dipped by 0.23% and Straits Times was down by 0.25%.

On the flip side, Shanghai Composite was up by 1.54% and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was up by 0.28%.

European Markets were trading in the red; Germany's DAX dropped 0.88%, UK's FTSE declined 0.70% and France’s CAC was down by 0.99%.