Benchmarks continue firm trade in late afternoon session

Indian equity markets continued their firm trade in late afternoon session on account of buying in frontline blue chip counters. The sentiments were on up-beat mood on 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. The sentiments also got some support after the FM asserted that India must completely open up its economy to global investment, except for rare sectors. Traders were seen piling position in Consumer Durables, IT and TECK stocks while selling was witnessed in PSU, Metal and Realty sector stocks. In scrip specific development, Everonn Education was trading firm after the company’s board approved conversion of loan into equity. Jaypee Infratech was trading in green after the environment minister Prakash Javadekar confirmed the limitation of the eco-sensitive zone around Okhla Bird Sanctuary. The company has a large 1150 acre project where deliveries can finally commence.

On the global front, the Asian markets traded 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 8,500 and 27,900 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was positive in the ratio of 1447:1245 while 111 scrips remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 27953.90, up by 122.36 points or 0.44% 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 0.20%, while Small cap index up by 0.33%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Consumer Durables up by 1.23%, IT up by 1.17%, TECK up by 0.78%, Capital Goods up by 0.62% and Auto up by 0.58%, while PSU down by 0.73%, Metal down by 0.68%, Realty down by 0.50%, Bankex down by 0.29%, INFRA down by 0.03% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Sun Pharma up by 4.39%, Wipro up by 2.40%, Cipla up by 2.17%, Lupin up by 1.95% and Hero MotoCorp up by 1.60%.

On the flip side, Hindalco down by 2.36%, SBI down by 1.90%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.19%, HDFC down by 0.96% and Axis Bank down by 0.83% 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 8503.60, up by 37.05 points or 0.44% after trading in a range of 8425.95 and 8520.45. There were 30 stocks advancing against 20 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Sun Pharma up by 4.39%, ACC up by 3.83%, HCL Tech up by 2.50%, Wipro up by 2.46% and Lupin up by 2.22%.

On the flip side, Hindalco down by 2.42%, SBI down by 2.11%, Bank of Baroda down by 1.90%, Yes Bank down by 1.35% and PNB down by 1.29% were the top losers.

The Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Nikkei 225 decreased 331.84 points or 1.61% to 20,222.63, Hang Seng decreased 307.12 points or 1.31% to 23,167.85, Taiwan Weighted decreased 155.38 points or 1.9% to 8,021.84, Jakarta Composite decreased 24.7 points or 0.55% to 4,485.77, KOSPI Index decreased 16.88 points or 0.86% to 1,939.38 and Straits Times decreased 5.29 points or 0.17% to 3,044.36.

On the other hand, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI increased 5.99 points or 0.38% to 1,585.59 and Shanghai Composite increased 45.95 points or 1.23% to 3,794.11.

The European markets were trading in red; UK’s FTSE 100 decreased 71.57 points or 1.1% to 6,454.72, Germany’s DAX decreased 155.84 points or 1.43% to 10,760.08 and France’s CAC decreased 56.76 points or 1.14% to 4,914.49.