Benchmarks continue firm trade in late afternoon session

Indian equity markets trimmed gains and continued to trade in green in the late afternoon session on account of buying in frontline blue chip counters which was boosted by a rally in global markets. The sentiments got some support after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley promised investors to resolve their tax concerns and reassured an increasingly skeptical business community that Asia’s third-largest economy can withstand global market turbulence and China’s slowdown. The Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development’s leading indicators continued to indicate that India will be the main exception, with its economic growth likely to pick up going forward, further provided some upside to the market. Traders were seen piling position in Auto, Metal and Realty sector stocks. In scrip specific development, Tara Jewels was trading in green after the company stated that it has secured an order from American multinational retail company Walmart.

On the global front, the Asian markets traded in green, while the European markets were trading on optimistic note. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above the psychological 7,800 and 25,600 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was positive in the ratio of 1872:652 while 89 scrips remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 25692.69, up by 374.82 points or 1.48% after trading in a range of 25553.61 and 25820.56. There were 28 stocks advancing against 2 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 2.11%, while Small cap index up by 1.92%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Auto up by 3.09%, Metal up by 3.08%, Realty up by 2.90%, Consumer Durables up by 2.28% and Power up by 2.06%.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Vedanta up by 7.01%, Hindalco up by 6.59%, NTPC up by 4.85%, Tata Steel up by 4.81% and Tata Motors up by 4.70%.

On the flip side, GAIL India down by 0.36% and Hindustan Unilever down by 0.12% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, in order to protect steel industry from rising imports, the government is likely to soon impose safeguard duty on imports of certain types of steel on the recommendations of The Directorate General of Safeguards (DGS), following demand for the same by JSW Steel, Essar Steel and SAIL. The steel producers are seeking safeguard duty as it would also cover imports from countries like Japan and South Korea, with which India has free trade pacts. The domestic industry has urged for imposition of provisional safeguard duty in view of a steep deterioration in the performance of this industry in view of imports surge.

DGS has examined the application received from the major steel producers and found that prima-facie evidence that increased imports of certain kinds of steel are hurting the domestic producers hence initiated the investigation and will soon take a decision. The major steel producers, representing 50 percent of the domestic production, have complained of surge in imports of steel products like hot-rolled steel and other variants from China, Korea, Japan and Russia and they had moved DGS, for imposition of the levy on imports of hot-rolled flat products of non-alloy and other alloy steel in coils of a width of 600 mm or more for four years.

Last month, with an aim at helping domestic players battling cheap Chinese imports after the currency devaluation by China, the government had hiked import duty on base metals, including iron and steel, by 2.5 percent. Earlier, in June, India imposed anti-dumping duty of up to $316 per tonne on imports of certain steel products from three countries, including China, to protect domestic producers from below-cost inbound shipments. The imports increased to 33, 79,360 tonnes in 2015-16 (annualised), against 12, 92,099 tonnes in 2013-14. During the same period the percentage of import with respect to domestic production rose to 13 percent, from 5 percent. According to DGS, the market share of domestic producers in the current fiscal is likely to fall from 45 percent to 37 percent.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 7809.20, up by 120.95 points or 1.57% after trading in a range of 7764.55 and 7846.05. There were 45 stocks advancing against 5 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Vedanta up by 7.17%, Hindalco up by 6.53%, NTPC up by 5.11%, Tata Motors up by 4.94% and Tata Steel up by 4.72%.

On the flip side, Power Grid down by 0.83%, Tech Mahindra down by 0.71%, GAIL India down by 0.42%, Wipro down by 0.12% and Hindustan Unilever down by 0.12% were the top losers.

The Asian markets were trading in green; FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI increased 16.32 points or 1.03% to 1,603.44, Jakarta Composite increased 31.32 points or 0.73% to 4,349.91, Straits Times increased 36.76 points or 1.27% to 2,922.08, KOSPI Index increased 55.52 points or 2.96% to 1,934.20, Shanghai Composite increased 72.64 points or 2.29% to 3,243.09, Taiwan Weighted increased 285.42 points or 3.57% to 8,286.92, Hang Seng increased 872.27 points or 4.1% to 22,131.31 and Nikkei 225 increased 1343.43 points or 7.71% to 18,770.51.

The European markets were trading in green; UK’s FTSE 100 increased 101.99 points or 1.66% to 6,248.09, France’s CAC increased 95.58 points or 2.08% to 4,693.84 and Germany’s DAX increased 168.21 points or 1.64% to 10,439.57.