Benchmarks continue firm trade in late morning session

After getting a gap-up start, benchmark equity indices continue to trade in fine fettle in late morning deals on sustained buying by funds and retail investors amid a firming trend overseas. Sentiments got a boost with Finance Minister’s statement that he will reach out to the Congress again to persuade it to support the much delayed GST bill in second half of the Budget Session beginning next month. Appreciation in Indian rupee too aided sentiments. Extending its rising streak for the fourth day, Indian rupee has appreciated by 16 paise to 66.38 against dollar in early trade on increased selling of the American currency by exporters and banks amidst continued foreign fund inflows. Some support also came in from reports that foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 513 crore on March 29, 2016. However, investors remained cautious with the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB's) report that Global headwinds will pull down India's growth rate to 7.4 per cent in the next fiscal from 7.6 per cent this year but more reforms will help the country remain one of the fastest growing economies in the world. ADB has also projected rise in consumer inflation, mainly on account of the impact of salary hike of government employees and a likely mild pick up in global oil prices.

On the global front, Asian stock markets, with the exception of Japan, are in positive territory on Wednesday, as investors turned optimistic after dovish comments from Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen offset recent speculation that the Fed will raise interest rates at its next meeting toward the end of April. Yellen said she considers it appropriate for the Fed to proceed cautiously in adjusting monetary policy given the risks to the economic outlook. Back home, all BSE sectoral indices were trading in the green. Among them, Capital Goods index gained the most by 2.80 per cent, followed by Metal 1.95 per cent, Oil & Gas 1.90 per cent and PSU 1.64 per cent.

In scrip specific development, Shares of Sun Pharmaceutical Industries have surged on the report that the company entered the Japanese prescription market with the acquisition of 14 established prescription brands from Novartis AG and Novartis Pharma AG (Novartis) in Japan. Furthermore, Ceat has gained after the company commissioned, its green-field unit, situated at Buti Bori, near Nagpur in state of Maharashtra, with effect from March 28, 2016.

The market breadth on BSE was positive, out of 2179 stocks traded, 1569 stocks advanced, while 509 stocks declined on the BSE.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 25116.73, up by 216.27 points or 0.87% after trading in a range of 25055.42 and 25121.69. There were 27 stocks advancing against 3 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 1.08%, while Small cap index up by 1.33%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 2.08%, Oil & Gas up by 1.90%, Capital Goods up by 1.74%, PSU up by 1.26% and Power up by 1.24%, while there were no losers on BSE sectoral space.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Lupin up by 3.39%, GAIL India up by 3.28%, ICICI Bank up by 2.69%, Bajaj Auto up by 2.14% and Tata Motors up by 2.04%. On the flip side, HDFC down by 1.19%, Maruti Suzuki down by 0.87% and Bharti Airtel down by 0.07% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, in order to boost the foreign and domestic investments, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said that India needs to further ease its business processes, though he admitted that the country has been impacted by global trade shrinkages in terms of uncertainties in stock and currency markets.

Jaitley who is on a four-day Australia visit said that ease of doing business is an important work which is still in progress as far as India is concerned. He added that 'I can't claim that we have achieved everything but I think there is a greater realisation in India that in the competitive world today not only to attract foreign investors but also persuading domestic investors, we will have to ease our business processes.'

Highlighting various measures taken since the NDA government came to power in May 2014, Jaitley said that the government has removed the unnecessary conditionalities which were slowing down foreign direct investments and this probably in greenfield projects, has made India the most sought after destination as far as FDI is concerned.

Finance Minister further said that “in term of ease of doing business, you are measured by the stability of policies, by predictability, by cutting short the time between the decision to make investment and actual implementation you need few approvals and easy approvals'. He said that for India, the system was to get approval from multiple authorities which could frustrate the investors.

Moreover the second important challenge was not only to improve India's image but to get the image improved by the fact that in actual operation those who domestically do business and those who intend to invest in India go back with an impression that it is easy to do business in India.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 7656.65, up by 59.65 points or 0.79% after trading in a range of 7643.45 and 7665.40. There were 45 stocks advancing against 5 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Lupin up by 3.38%, GAIL India up by 3.02%, BPCL up by 2.76%, Vedanta up by 2.45% and ICICI Bank up by 2.42%. On the flip side, Zee Entertainment down by 1.28%, HDFC down by 1.26%, Maruti Suzuki down by 0.87%, Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 0.69% and Bharti Airtel down by 0.18% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in green, KOSPI Index was up by 0.26%, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI increased by 0.22%, Jakarta Composite rose 0.58%, Shanghai Composite surged by 1.53%, Taiwan Weighted increased by 1.39% and Hang Seng was up by 1.3%. On the flip side, Nikkei 225 was down by 0.77%.