Benchmarks trade jubilantly in noon deals; Sensex reclaims 28,000 mark

Gaining further strength, barometer gauges have escalated to day’s high, recapturing their crucial 28,000 (Sensex) and 8,500 (Nifty) bastion in noon deals as investors continue to pour in money into risky equities. Sentiments remained up-beat with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s statement, who making a case for interest rate cut has said that that RBI will take note of the declining inflation and take a decision accordingly. Some support also came after the FM asserted that India must completely open up its economy to global investment, except for rare sectors. He said that while macroeconomic indicators like inflation and industrial production were positive, the challenges included slow credit off-take. Appreciation in Indian rupee too aided the sentiments, the rupee strengthened by 10 paise to trade 65.21 against the dollar in early trade today. Buying in software and pharma counters too aided sentiments. Stocks related to these spaces edged higher on expectations that the weakening rupee would help boost revenues of these export-oriented sectors during the second quarter.

On the global front, European counters have made a sluggish start, CAC, DAX and FTSE all were trading in red in early deals. Asian markets were trading mostly in red at this point of time after Chinese stocks extended their fall, stoking fears about the stability of China’s economy. Back home, there was broad based buying witnessed in the markets and apart from the blue chips, the broader markets too equally participated in the rally. On the sectoral front, healthcare, consumer durables and software witnessed the maximum gain in trade, while public sector undertaking, metal and banking remained the top losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices too were trading in-line with benchmarks, while the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 1,435 shares on the gaining side against 1,086 shares on the losing side while 121 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 28003.87, up by 172.33 points or 0.62% after trading in a range of 27721.25 and 28021.39. There were 19 stocks advancing against 11 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.29%, while Small cap index up by 0.46%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Healthcare up by 2.59%, Consumer Durables up by 0.93%, IT up by 0.90%, Capital Goods up by 0.65% and TECK up by 0.63%, while PSU down by 0.57%, Metal down by 0.46% and Bankex down by 0.05% were the few losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Sun Pharma up by 3.92%, Cipla up by 2.61%, Lupin up by 2.26%, Wipro up by 1.63% and Tata Motors up by 1.52%. On the flip side, Hindalco down by 1.80%, SBI down by 1.37%, HDFC down by 0.93%, Bharti Airtel down by 0.57% and NTPC down by 0.47% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has launched two funds by Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) with total corpus of Rs 12,000 crore for the purpose of funding start-ups in India and to aid small enterprises. The funds include Rs 2,000 crore India Aspiration Fund (IAF) and SIDBI Make in India Loan for Enterprises (SMILE) scheme with an investment of Rs 10,000 crore. Arun Jaitley said that the country is witnessing a start-up revolution and to harness the potential of India’s innovators and entrepreneurs, a vibrant financial ecosystem was essential, where the IAF is intended to play a vital role in this financial ecosystem.

The India Aspiration Fund, a fund-of-funds managed by SIDBI is expected to catalyze tens of thousands of crores of equity investment into start-ups and MSMEs (micro and small enterprises), creating employment for lakhs of people, mostly educated youth, over next four to five years. IAF will have an initial corpus of Rs 2,000 crore and further more money can be infused as per requirement. Further, Life Insurance Corportaion of India (LIC) will be a partner and co-investor in the fund.

The Rs 10,000 crore SIDBI Make in India Loan for Enterprises (SMILE) scheme which was announced in the Budget in February will provide soft loans in the nature of quasi-equity and term loans on relatively soft terms to MSMEs to meet the required debt-equity ratio norm as also for pursuing opportunities of growth by existing MSMEs. The scheme has built-in higher concessional terms for the enterprises promoted by Scheduled castes(SC)/Scheduled tribes(ST), persons with Disabilites (PwD), women and is expected to benefit around 13,000 enterprises with employment of nearly 2 lakh persons.

SIDBI will be providing 15% of the total corpus which will be mobilized by the start-ups through various resources under IAF or fund of funds. Further, SIDBI is going to finance Rs 752 crore to the start-ups which will be further mobilising Rs 8,620 crore under IAF and are expecting to provide Rs 2,000 crore under the scheme which was likely to mobilize fund in future to the tune of Rs 20,000 crore as sanctioned by the MUDRA Bank.

SIDBI chairman and managing director Kshatrapati Shivaji said that they provide loan under the scheme under 2:1 debt-equity ratio. In the near future SIDBI will be providing funds under the scheme to sectors like IT, biotechnology and digital technology.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8511.50, up by 44.95 points or 0.53% after trading in a range of 8425.95 and 8520.45. There were 27 stocks advancing against 22 stocks declining on the index while 1 stock remained unchanged.

The top gainers on Nifty were Sun Pharma up by 3.93%, Cipla up by 2.57%, ACC up by 2.57%, Lupin up by 2.45% and Wipro up by 1.71%. On the flip side, Bank Of Baroda down by 2.25%, Hindalco down by 1.80%, SBI down by 1.76%, PNB down by 1.49% and HDFC down by 0.92% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Nikkei 225 declined 331.84 points or 1.61% to 20,222.63, Hang Seng decreased 167.14 points or 0.71% to 23,307.83, Taiwan Weighted tumbled 155.38 points or 1.9% to 8,021.84, Jakarta Composite shed 27.86 points or 0.62% to 4,482.61, KOSPI Index dipped 16.88 points or 0.86% to 1,939.38 and Straits Times was down by 0.79 points or 0.03% to 3,048.86.

On the flip side, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI rose 6.29 points or 0.4% to 1,585.89 and Shanghai Composite was up by 58.04 points or 1.55% to 3,806.20.

European Markets were trading mostly in red; Germany’s DAX lost 0.66%, France’s CAC declined 0.51% and UK’s FTSE was down by 0.28%.