Benchmarks trade in fine fettle in early deals on Monday

After making a flat opening, Indian equity markets have enlarged their gains and are now trading with the gains of over a quarter percent that lifted both the Sensex and Nifty above their important levels of 28300 and 8600 respectively, on account of sustained buying by fund and retail investors. The session was proving jubilant for broader indices, which were trading with gains in the range of 0.45-0.65%. Some support also came with a survey report of CII ASCON, which has said that the economy is showing signs of a turnaround, albeit moderately, on the back of continued policy actions, implementation and enhanced business and consumer confidence. Rupee opened higher against the dollar on Monday and was trading at 63.76, up 5 paise at the Interbank Foreign Exchange that too kept supporting the sentiment. However, some cautiousness is likely to prevail in the markets ahead of the release of inflation based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data and industrial production data for June 2015 on August 12 and inflation based on the Wholesale Price Index for July 2015 on August 14.

In scrip specific development, Divis Laboratories surged to its lifetime high, up 8% to Rs 2,130 in early trade after the company reported a strong 45% year-on-year (YoY) rise in its net profit at Rs 243 crore for the quarter ended June 2015 (Q1). The drug maker had profit of Rs 168 crore a year ago quarter.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly lower on new indications of a slowdown in the Chinese economy September.

Back home, all the sectoral indices, barring Consumer Durables, were trading in green. The market breadth on BSE was positive in the ratio of 1278: 591 while 64 scrips remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 28333.16, up by 96.77 points or 0.34% after trading in a range of 28228.27 and 28367.89. 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 0.64%, while Small cap index gained 0.48%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were TECK up by 0.72%, IT up by 0.71%, Healthcare up by 0.64%, Oil & Gas up by 0.52% and Power up by 0.51% while Consume Durables down by 0.12% was the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Dr. Reddys Lab up by 1.17%, HDFC up by 1.09%, Maruti Suzuki up by 1.01%, TCS up by 0.97% and SBI up by 0.89%. On the flip side, Tata Motors down by 0.71%, ONGC down by 0.66%, NTPC down by 0.60%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 0.55% and Sun Pharma Inds. down by 0.24% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, a CII ASCON survey that tracks the growth of industrial and services sectors, in its poll for the April-June quarter, based on responses collected from sectoral industry associations, has revealed a slight improvement in growth trends in production over the year-ago period. It has said that the economy is showing signs of a turnaround, albeit moderately, on the back of continued policy actions, implementation and enhanced business and consumer confidence.

The CII ASCON survey which tracks the Industry performance based on the feedback received from and affiliated associations of CII, industry divisions representing about 3500 companies, has shown growth improvement both on a quarter on quarter and a year-on-year basis. Responses were segregated in four broad categories - Excellent (growth in excess of 20%); High (growth in the range of 10-20%); Moderate (0-10%) and Negative (less than 0%). Accordingly, the share of sectors recording excellent growth of around 20 per cent in the latest quarter has surged up to 16.1 per cent against 7.1 per cent recorded in the year-ago period. Though, the share of sectors witnessing a high growth rate of 10 to 20 per cent has reduced significantly to 9.7 per cent in the same period from 14.3 per cent last year.

Also, the share of sectors reporting moderate growth has declined marginally to 51.7% as compared to 51.8% in the year-ago period. Moreover, the number of sectors recording negative growth has fallen from 26.9% in the first quarter last year to 23.6% this year.

The industry associations which participated in the poll encompass wide range of sectors comprising of small, medium and large enterprises. In most of the cases, these account for approximately 70% of the total industry output in respective sectors.

The survey's respondents have expressed their optimism in a further improvement in the near-term growth outlook helped by continued policy actions, implementation and enhanced business and consumer confidence.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8602.20, up by 37.60 points or 0.44% after trading in a range of 8564.45 and 8608.35. There were 43 stocks advancing against 7 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were BPCL up by 1.86%, Dr. Reddys Lab up by 1.34%, Tata Power up by 1.30%, HDFC up by 1.12% and Power Grid Corpn. up by 1.11%. On the flip side, ONGC down by 0.72%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 0.70%, Tata Motors down by 0.55%, Idea Cellular down by 0.30% and NTPC down by 0.19% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Jakarta Composite decreased 30.36 points or 0.64% to 4,739.95, Hang Seng decreased 28.93 points or 0.12% to 24,523.54, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 28.9 points or 1.72% to 1,653.75 and KOSPI Index decreased 9.57 points or 0.48% to 2,000.66.

On the flip side, Taiwan Weighted increased 9.94 points or 0.12% to 8,452.23, Nikkei 225 increased 15.82 points or 0.08% to 20,740.38 and Shanghai Composite increased 119.9 points or 3.2% to 3,864.10.