Markets trade marginally higher in morning deals

After making a good start, Indian equity benchmarks have pared most of their gains and are trading near neutral line with modest gains in early deals, as investors are waiting for the release of the macroeconomic data-IIP and CPI due tomorrow and the fourth quarter earnings kick starting on Friday with IT giant Infosys numbers.  Caution also prevailed in the markets with a WTO report stating that India's rank remained unchanged at 19th in 2015 in the list of top 30 merchandise exporters of the world, though India's ranking among top importers slipped by one notch to 13th in 2015. Besides, foreign institutional investors were net sellers in equities worth Rs 180 crore on Friday, as per provisional stock exchange data that too added negative milieu.  On the sectoral front,   most of the indices on BSE were trading in green, with prominent gainers being the stocks from Realty, Consumer Durables, Power, Metal and Oil & Gas counters. On the flip side, stocks from IT, FMCG and TECK counters were the only losers of the session. Markets will remain closed on Thursday and Friday on account of Baba Saheb Ambedkar Jayanti and Ram Navami, respectively.

In the scrip specific development, ARSS Infrastructure Projects rallied over 6 per cent on bagging an order worth Rs 156.85 crore from East Coast Railway, Bhubaneswar. Bharti Airtel surged over 3 per cent on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) after the company entered into an agreement with Aircel to acquire its 2,300-MHz spectrum band in eight circles for Rs 3,500 crore. The acquisition will enable Bharti Airtel to become a pan-India 4G operator.

On the global front, US markets ended modestly higher on Friday amid a rebound in crude oil prices. Asian markets were trading mostly in red on Monday despite some slightly encouraging economic data from Japan and China. According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics inflation held steady at 2.3 per cent year-on-year in March, but a tenth of a percentage point below expectations. The pace of wholesale price deflation slowed to -4.3 per cent year-on-year last month, from -4.9 per cent in February.

Back home, at present both the Sensex and Nifty were trading above 24,700 and 7,550 level. The market breadth on BSE was positive in the ratio of 1027:506, while 71 scrips remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 24706.73, up by 32.89 points or 0.13% after trading in a range of 24669.57 and 24791.36. There were 18 stocks advancing against 12 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.52%, while Small cap index gained 0.42%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 1.25%, Consumer Durables up by 1.21%, Power up by 0.92%, Metal up by 0.86% and Oil & Gas up by 0.79%, while IT down by 0.54%, FMCG down by 0.26% and TECK down by 0.17% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were BHEL up by 2.98%, Bharti Airtel up by 2.66%, Tata Motors up by 1.42%, ONGC up by 1.31% and Tata Steel up by 1.16%. On the flip side, Lupin down by 1.05%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 0.74%, Infosys down by 0.72%, Cipla down by 0.71% and Wipro down by 0.58% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued instructions on trading in Priority Sector Lending Certificates (PSLCs) and launched a platform to enable trading in the certificates through its Core Banking Solution (CBS) portal (e-Kuber). PSLCs have been framed on the lines of carbon credit trading, wherein banks can earn premium for exceeding targets.

As per the notification issued by the RBI all Scheduled Commercial Banks (including Regional Rural Banks), Urban Co-operative Banks, Small Finance Banks (when they become operational) and Local Area Banks are eligible to participate in the trading. Four kinds of PSLCs, namely, PSLC - Agriculture, PSLC - Small & Marginal Farmers, PSLC - Micro Enterprises and PSLC - General can be bought and sold via the platform. The certificates will have a standard lot size of Rs 25 lakh and multiples thereof. There will be no transfer of credit risk on the underlying and the settlement of funds will be done through the e-Kuber portal.

PSLCs provide a market-driven incentive for efficiency and enable banks to sell their surplus lending and thus earning a premium for their efficiency/geographical spread. Earlier, the RBI had comprehensively revised the priority sector guidelines in April 2015 which provided for the introduction of PSLCs as a mechanism to incentivise banks having surplus in their lending to different categories of priority sector. On lines of carbon credit trading, the goal of PSLCs is to allow market mechanism to drive priority sector lending by leveraging the comparative strength of different banks. Banks are required to lend 40 per cent of their advances to priority sectors, which also include agriculture, education and housing.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 7565.10, up by 9.90 points or 0.13% after trading in a range of 7555.25 and 7580.80. There were 34 stocks advancing against 17 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were BHEL up by 2.77%, Bharti Airtel up by 2.72%, Hindalco up by 1.88%, Tata Motors up by 1.63% and ONGC up by 1.16%. On the flip side, Wipro down by 0.98%, Lupin down by 0.97%, Grasim Industries down by 0.94%, TCS down by 0.76% and Mahindra & Mahindra down by 0.67% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red, Nikkei 225 decreased 201.09 points or 1.27% to 15,620.43, Jakarta Composite decreased 25.12 points or 0.52% to 4,821.58, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 5.33 points or 0.31% to 1,713.07 and KOSPI Index decreased 1.42 points or 0.07% to 1,970.63.

On the flip side, Taiwan Weighted increased 12.6 points or 0.15% to 8,554.10, Shanghai Composite increased 54.45 points or 1.82% to 3,039.41 and Hang Seng increased 103.52 points or 0.51% to 20,473.92.