Boisterous benchmarks stage remarkable rally; surge around 2 percent

Indian equity indices staged a blockbuster performance on the last day of the week by vehemently rallying close to a two percentage points in the session and recaptured their important psychological levels. Indian markets posted their biggest single-day percentage gain since October, as hints of more stimulus measures from the European Central Bank lifted global markets, but still marked a third weekly fall. Global markets sentiments improved after oil prices rose 5 per cent on Friday. Although higher crude prices are not good for India's current account balance, they are helping shore up risk sentiment in global assets. On the domestic front, sentiment got a boost after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said India is gradually transforming most of its taxation laws for a greater degree of stability and predictability, stressing that the proposed Goods and Services Tax (GST) is a major step in this direction. The net impact of the GST, once it is put into force, is that there will be a seamless transfer of goods and services across the country. Some support also came with a private report that India's GDP growth rate is likely to accelerate gradually and inflation is expected to remain below 5 per cent over the next two years. Furthermore, adding to the optimism United Nations world economy report said that the India will be the world's fastest growing large economy at 7.3 per cent in 2016, improving further to 7.5 per cent in the following year. Investors overlooked the report that that RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan shot down Niti Aayog chief Arvind Panagariya's suggestion to raise the central bank's inflation target, while pointing out that the country's macroeconomic fundamentals were stable. He said the current global market turbulence may owe much to central banks persisting with stimulus programmes for too long.

On the global front, Asian markets ended higher after the ECB signaled stimulus hopes, while firming up of global crude oil prices also boosted sentiment. Japan’s Nikkei jumped 5.88 per cent to move away from a 15-month low struck Thursday. Furthermore, European equities rose sharply on Friday, adding to gains made in the previous session on ECB stimulus hints, with bouncing commodities prices boosting energy and mining stocks.

Back home, the benchmarks got off to a positive start in the morning trade as investors were largely influenced by the supportive leads from Asian markets. Thereafter, the frontline indices slowly but steadily started gathering more steam and surged by around one and half a percent by late morning trades. The bourses further capitalized on the momentum and spurted in afternoon trades on the back of broad based bottom fishing in undervalued stocks. The northbound journey only concluded with the close of the session helping the key gauges in recovering the most of the ground lost in the week gone by. Eventually the NSE’s 50-share broadly followed index Nifty, got buttressed by two percent to settle above the crucial 7,400 support level while Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensitive Index-Sensex accumulated over four hundred and fifty points and closed above the psychological 24,400 mark. Moreover, the broader markets participated in the rally and closed with gains of around two percent. On the BSE sectoral space, buying was evident across the board and investors piled up hefty positions in the high beta Metal counter which rocketed by over four percent while the Auto, PSU and Oil & Gas pockets too gained from strength to strength and climbed by about three percent each. While there were no sectoral laggards, individual names like Bharti Airtel, Hindustan Unilever and Wipro settled in the red terrain with 3.41%, 0.54% and 0.07% losses. The market breadth remained optimistic as there were 2060 shares on the gaining side against 598 shares on the losing side while 164 shares remained unchanged.

Finally, the BSE Sensex surged by 473.45 points or 1.98% to 24435.66, while the CNX Nifty gained 145.65 points or 2% to 7,422.45.

The BSE Sensex touched a high and a low 24472.88 and 24120.04, respectively. The broader indices ended in green, with the BSE Mid cap index ending up by 1.90%, while Small cap index ended higher by 2.25%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Metal up by 4.32%, Auto up by 3.65%, PSU up by 3.48%, Oil & Gas up by 2.95% and Bankex up by 2.81%, while there were no losers on BSE sectoral space.

The top gainers on the Sensex were GAIL India up by 7.99%, Maruti Suzuki up by 5.53%, Tata Steel up by 5.35%, Hero MotoCorp up by 5.11% and SBI up by 4.81%. On the flip side, Bharti Airtel down by 3.41%, Hindustan Unilever down by 0.54%, Wipro down by 0.07% and Infosys down by 0.05% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, India has been ranked 22nd on the inaugural list of the world’s best countries which was released on the sidelines of World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting and is topped by Germany. The report has been prepared by US News and World Report and New York-based brand consultancy BAV Consulting and Wharton School of Business.

According to the report, a set of 65 country attributes were identified. Attributes by nation were presented in the survey of more than 16,000 people from across the globe. Each country was scored on each of the 65 country attributes based on a collection of individual survey responses.  Attributes were grouped into nine sub-rankings that rolled into the Best Countries ranking: Adventure, Citizenship, Cultural Influence, Entrepreneurship, Heritage, Movers, Open for Business, Power and Quality of Life.  A total of 16,248 individuals from 36 countries in four regions - the Americas, Asia, Europe and the Middle East and Africa - were surveyed. Of them, 8,092 were informed elites and 4,513 were business decision-makers.

The report highlighted that India faces its fair share of international and domestic challenges. India has a fast-growing, diverse economy with a large, skilled workforce. But because of its population, it's also one of the poorest countries in the world based on income and gross national product per capita. Further the report stated that though agriculture employs the most workers, services are the major source of economic growth. Due to its educated, English-speaking workforce, India has become an important center of information technology services, business outsourcing services and software workers.

Apart from Germany being in the first position, other countries in the top five are Canada at 2nd position, UK at 3rd, the U.S. at fourth and Sweden at fifth position ahead of notables Australia, Japan, France, Netherlands and Denmark in the order. New Zealand, Austria and Italy are at 11th, 12th and 13th places. Singapore is the only Asian country to feature on top at the 15th place, followed by Spain and China at 16th and 17th.

The CNX Nifty touched a high and low 7,433.40 and 7,327.60 respectively.  

The top gainers on Nifty were GAIL India up by 7.64%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 5.43%, Hindalco up by 5.27%, Maruti Suzuki up by 5.15% and SBI up by 5.15%. On the flip side, Idea Cellular down by 6.01%, Bharti Airtel down by 3.20%, Bosch down by 0.82%, ITC down by 0.73% and Hindustan Unilever down by 0.34% were the top losers.

European markets were trading higher, UK’s FTSE 100 was up by102.15 points or 1.77% to 5,875.94, France’s CAC gained 119.33 points or 2.84% to 4,325.73 and Germany’s DAX increased 161.51 points or 1.69% to 9,735.67.

Asian equity markets ended in green on Friday, thanks to a rebound on Wall Street overnight following an uptick in oil prices and dovish comments from the European Central Bank (ECB). ECB President Mario Draghi on Thursday signaled that the governing council may provide more stimulus measures at its next meeting in March amid growing concerns over faltering global economic growth, which spooked investor sentiment worldwide. China stocks ended up in volatile trading, with the market drawing some support from a rebound in global equity markets. Japanese shares ended higher, buoyed by a weaker yen, the bounce in oil prices and speculation that the Bank of Japan may announce fresh monetary stimulus next week to fend off the threat of deflation. Hong Kong's shares closed nearly 3 percent higher, led by Chinese oil and coal producers after Premier Li Keqiang called for supply-side reforms and cutting overcapacity in the steel and coal industries.