Benchmarks continue firm trade in late morning session

Indian equity markets continued their firm trade in late morning session on account of buying in blue chip counters. The sentiments were on optimistic note on report of India topping in the Nielsen’s global confidence index. The country’s confidence level was unchanged from the preceding quarter at 131 points, though the survey revealed that citizens are actually saving more than before in a continuing trend of caution, and their spending habits haven’t changed much over the past two quarters. Traders were seen piling position in Auto, Consumer Durables and Realty stocks, while selling was witnessed in IT and TECK sector stocks. In the scrip specific development, DLF was trading firm after the company announced a 21 percent jump in second quarter net profit at Rs 131.5 crore compared with Rs 109.06 crore reported for the same period a year ago. Tata Motors was trading in green after its subsidiary Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) reported strong sales growth in the US market. JLR, which contributes nearly 80 percent to the consolidated operating profit of Tata Motors, reported 76 percent jump in its US sales in October. Land Rover sales grew 98 percent, while Jaguar sales increased 2 percent.

On the global front, the Asian markets were trading in green. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above the psychological 8,050 and 26,700 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was positive in the ratio of 1336:750 while 101 scrips remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 26709.47, up by 118.88 points or 0.45% after trading in a range of 26684.44 and 26800.06. There were 21 stocks advancing against 9 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.63%, while Small cap index up by 0.49%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Auto up by 1.89%, Consumer Durables up by 1.49%, Realty up by 0.96%, Capital Goods up by 0.78% and Metal up by 0.74%, while IT down by 0.10% and TECK down by 0.06% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Motors up by 5.42%, Bajaj Auto up by 1.65%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.40%, Hindustan Unilever up by 1.14% and Hero MotoCorp up by 1.04%.

On the flip side, GAIL India down by 0.78%, TCS down by 0.65%, NTPC down by 0.55%, ICICI Bank down by 0.54% and Axis Bank down by 0.36% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, with an aim to provide an alternative for buying physical gold, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has fixed the public issue price at Rs 2,684 per gram for the sovereign gold bonds. This is the first tranche of the gold bond scheme and subsequent tranches would be notified later. The applications for the bonds will be accepted from November 5 to November 20, 2015.

RBI has notified that the rates have been fixed on the basis of simple average of closing price for gold of 999 purity of the previous week (October 26-30, 2015) published by the India Bullion and Jewellers Association (IBJA). These bonds which will be sold through banks and designated post offices would be issued on November 26. These will be issued by the RBI on behalf of the Government of India. Therefore, these bonds will have a sovereign guarantee.

Indian residents including individuals, HUFs, trusts, universities and charitable institutions can buy the bonds. The Gold Bond scheme will offer investors an interest rate of 2.75 per cent and a choice to buy bonds worth 2 grams of gold, up to a maximum of 500 grams and tenor of the bond will be for a period of eight years with exit option from 5th year to be exercised on the interest payment dates.

The interest earned on gold bonds would be taxable, and capital gains tax shall be levied as in case of physical gold. The redemption of gold bonds will be done by banks, NBFCs and other authorized entities. Earlier, the Budget 2015-16 had proposed to launch a Sovereign Gold Bond (SGB) scheme to develop a financial asset as an alternative to gold.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8085.95, up by 25.25 points or 0.31% after trading in a range of 8078.00 and 8116.10. There were 33 stocks advancing against 17 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Tata Motors up by 5.56%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.52%, Bajaj Auto up by 1.48%, Yes Bank up by 1.15% and Hindustan Unilever up by 1.14%.

On the flip side, Asian Paints down by 0.87%, TCS down by 0.68%, ICICI Bank down by 0.66%, GAIL India down by 0.62% and NTPC down by 0.59% were the top losers.

The Asian markets were trading in green; KOSPI Index increased 0.68 points or 0.03% to 2,049.08, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI increased 4.98 points or 0.3% to 1,682.54, Jakarta Composite increased 67.13 points or 1.48% to 4,600.21, Shanghai Composite increased 89.04 points or 2.68% to 3,405.73, Taiwan Weighted increased 136.8 points or 1.57% to 8,849.99, Nikkei 225 increased 352.31 points or 1.89% to 19,035.55 and Hang Seng increased 371.51 points or 1.65% to 22,939.94.