Post Session: Quick Review

Markets returned to the jubilation mood on Wednesday after a day of consolidation, the major benchmarks after a cautious start gained momentum and never looked back till the end, with buying witnessed across the board. Traders got some encouragement with global rating agency Standard and Poor’s (S&P) latest report, expecting a stable trend in sovereign credit rating in Asia-Pacific nations, including India, despite growing economic uncertainties. In its mid-year review of the Asia-Pacific region, S&P retained India’s sovereign rating at ‘BBB-' with stable outlook as originally mentioned in its report in September 2014. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be launching the National Skill Mission in an effort to create a large pool of skilled workforce required to sustain his ambitious ‘Make in India’ initiative. The mission is aimed at roping in 24 lakh youth, across India, over the next one year.

On the global front, after the US markets extended gains the Asian markets followed the trend and barring few mostly ended in green. Chinese market which has been gaining for last couple of days reversed its track and ended with loss of over 3 percent, even though the nations' gross domestic product expanded 7 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, beating estimates for a 6.8 percent increase. The European markets made a mildly negative start, though stabilized afterwards, as the Greece Parliament will vote on a sweeping austerity package to secure the funding it needs to stem its fiscal crisis and remain in the euro zone. Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has lashed out at the bailout deal offered by eurozone leaders to Greece, saying that the country's public debt had become ‘highly unsustainable’.

Back home, Indian markets posted good gains amid increased buying and hopes that India will import cheap oil from Iran on the back of the nuclear deal. The Obama Administration too has said that countries like India and Japan have paid an economic price for sanctions against the Islamic republic and they may no longer feel obliged to do so if the pact is scuttled by the Congress. Iran on Tuesday reached an agreement on its nuclear programme with six world powers led by the US. Traders rejoiced on hopes that Indian economy would benefit from low oil prices as it would kickstart infrastructure projects and will bring down the cost of funds. Meanwhile, the second meeting of the governing council of NITI Aayog on the land acquisition Bill ended with a push for common consensus. Arvind Panagariya, vice chairman, NITI Aayog, had urged states to liberalise their land use policy and introduce transparent land leasing laws to facilitate industrialisation and investments. Back on street, the day was marked by big gains in bluechip stocks, while the broader markets that looked confident in early deals lost their momentum towards the end, still managing a positive close. On sectoral front, the auto pack was the clear winner led by Maruti Suzuki, which surged to its fresh all time high on some brokerage upgrade. IT and tech sectors too were in jubilant mood despite rupee appreciation after the Greek deal.

The BSE Sensex ended at 28191.21, up by 258.31 points or 0.92% after trading in a range of 27986.48 and 28218.37. There were 25 stocks on gainers side against just 5 stocks on decliners side on the index. (Provisional)

The broader indices though ended in green but they gave up early gains and underperformed the benchmarks; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.11%, while Small cap index gained 0.46%. (Provisional)

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Auto up by 1.30%, IT up by 1.09%, TECK up by 0.94%, FMCG up by 0.40%, Realty up by 0.39%, while Consumer Durables down by 1.24% and PSU down by 0.09% were the two losing indices on BSE. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Sensex were Maruti Suzuki up by 2.60%, Tata Motors up by 2.14%, Wipro up by 1.98%, HDFC up by 1.94% and TCS up by 1.82%. On the flip side, NTPC down by 0.30%, Tata Steel down by 0.27%, GAIL India down by 0.11%, SBI down by 0.04% and Hindustan Unilever down by 0.02% were the top losers. (Provisional)

Meanwhile, under mounting pressure at international forums to open up the retail e-commerce sector to foreign investment, commerce and industry minister Nirmala Sitharaman will discuss the ecommerce policy framework with state industry ministers in a meeting that will explore the possibility of allowing foreign direct investments in consumer ecommerce. The ministers' meeting will be preceded by an official level meeting where officials of the department of commerce and department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP) will meet industry officials of the states to discuss ease of doing business and ecommerce policy.

It has been reported that a whole range of issues on ecommerce will be discussed with the states including taxation, FDI policy framework and definition of ecommerce. The meeting is also considered important, as for the first time, the commerce department will present international trade data for states, urging them to put in place a trade policy that encourages exports and jobs creation. Sitharaman in May had met both domestic and foreign e-commerce firms and industry lobby groups to try and gain a better understanding of the issues faced by such companies.

The current policy allows 100 per cent FDI in business-to-business (B2B) ecommerce but business-to-consumer (B2C) is closed to foreign investment and the government has been under intense pressure from various countries to liberalise foreign direct investment in the ecommerce sector. Not only has Japan been pressing for setting up a working group on e-commerce in the regional comprehensive economic partnership (RCEP), but now Russia too has started pushing for an agreement on ecommerce

The CNX Nifty ended at 8526.00, up by 71.90 points or 0.85% after trading in a range of 8462.95 and 8531.40. 42 stocks ended in green against 8 stocks in red on the index. (Provisional)

The top gainers on Nifty were Maruti Suzuki up by 2.48%, Tata Power up by 2.26%, Wipro up by 2.23%, Ultratech Cement up by 2.13% and Tata Motors up by 2.10%. On the flip side, Cairn India down by 1.23%, Yes Bank down by 0.95%, PNB down by 0.86%, HCL Tech. down by 0.78% and BPCL down by 0.53% were the top losers. (Provisional)

European Markets were trading marginally in green; UK’s FTSE 100 was up by 3.66 points or 0.05% to 6,757.41, Germany’s DAX was higher by 8.8 points or 0.08% to 11,525.70, and France’s CAC was tad higher by 0.61 points or 0.01% to 5,032.47.

Asian markets closed mostly in green on Wednesday, with Tokyo stocks closing higher as a weaker yen supported the market after Bank of Japan cut its annual inflation and growth forecasts, boosting the chance of more monetary easing this year. The Bank of Japan voted 8 to 1 as expected to keep monetary policy steady as board member Takahide Kiuchi once again dissented and called for a cut in outright government bond buying by nearly half. The board enlightened that exports and output were picking up even as consumer prices are nearly flat year-on-year. Kiuchi has called for trimming asset purchased by the BoJ to 45 trillion yen annually from 80 trillion yen set in October last year. Chinese GDP remained unchanged at an annual rate of 7.0% compared to the preceding month. Chinese Retail Sales rose to an annual rate of 10.6%, from 10.1% in the preceding month while Chinese Industrial Production rose to 6.8%, from 6.1% in the preceding month. Indonesian Trade Balance fell to a seasonally adjusted 0.48B, from 0.95B in the preceding month. Singaporean Retail Sales rose to a seasonally adjusted 6.1%, from 5.0% in the preceding month.