Benchmarks continue firm trade in late morning session

Local equity markets, after paring some gains in early deals, have gained some momentum in late morning session, on account of buying in frontline blue chip counters. At present, Sensex and Nifty were trading above the crucial 25,750 and 7,850 levels respectively, with gains of over half a percent. Sentiments got some support with the report that foreign direct investment (FDI) into the country increased by 37% to $39.32 billion during 2015. Computer hardware and software sector attracted the highest FDI, followed by services, trading business, automobile industry and chemicals. The upsurge in the market was also supported by IT stocks, after India’s second-largest IT services firm Infosy forecast strong revenue growth of 11.5%-13.5% in consent currency (CC) in the current fiscal. Besides, strong rally in ITC post the company’s decision to resume manufacturing of cigarettes at its factories soon following a favourable high court order has aided the sentiment. Meanwhile, shares of aviation and state-owned oil marketing companies have surged after global crude oil prices eased after talks between the OPEC and non-OPEC producers to freeze oil output remained inconclusive.

On the global front, most of the Asia markets dropped on Monday, with Japan’s shares leading the losses as a series of earthquakes measuring up to 7.3 magnitude hurt the sentiments. Also, sharp fall in the crude oil prices after OPEC and non-OPEC producers on Sunday failed to reach a deal to freeze oil output impacted the street. Back home, stocks from information technology (IT), Consumer Durables and FMCG counters were supporting the markets’ uptrend, while those from Oil & Gas, Metal and PSU counters were adding to the underlying cautious undertone. In scrip specific development, shares of Suprajit Engineering have surged after the company announced that its board approved the merger of Phoenix Lamps with the company in the ratio of 4:5. Furthermore, DCB Bank surged after the bank reported strong growth in net interest income and decline in gross and net non-performing assets for the quarter ended March 31, 2016.

The market breadth on BSE was positive, out of 2209 stocks traded, 1218 stocks advanced, while 868 stocks declined on the BSE.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 25769.92, up by 143.17 points or 0.56% after trading in a range of 25634.12 and 25870.03. There were 19 stocks advancing against 11 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.86%, while Small cap index up by 0.90%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were IT up by 2.75%, TECK up by 2.59%, Consumer Durables up by 1.57%, FMCG up by 0.73% and Realty up by 0.73%, while PSU down by 0.47%, Bankex down by 0.38% and Oil & Gas down by 0.26% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Infosys up by 6.11%, Lupin up by 1.76%, Cipla up by 1.61%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.12% and Bharti Airtel up by 1.08%. On the flip side, ONGC down by 2.44%, TCS down by 1.95%, GAIL India down by 1.91%, ICICI Bank down by 1.68% and SBI down by 1.54% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, giving some relief to the consumers after successive hikes, oil marketing companies (OMCs) have slashed prices of petrol and diesel by 74 paise and Rs 1.30 per litre respectively, to align the domestic rates of the fuels with global benchmarks. The new rates announced were effective from midnight April15/April 16.

With this reduction petrol in the national capital will cost Rs 61.13 per litre against Rs61.87 earlier, while diesel will retail at Rs 48.01 per litre against Rs 49.31 per litre earlier. Further, in Mumbai petrol will cost, Rs65.63 a litre, Rs64.90 a litre in Kolkata and Rs60.58 a litre in Chennai and Diesel will cost Rs53.49 a litre in Mumbai, Rs50.48 a litre in Kolkata and Rs48.76 a litre in Chennai.

The cut comes after two previous hikes in pterol of Rs 3.07 a litre on March 17 and Rs 2.19 per litre on April 4 and four straight increases in diesel prices. Diesel price was last hiked on April 4 by Rs 0.98 a litre and three previous increases totaled Rs 3.65 per litre. The government on five occasions since November has raised excise duty on the two auto fuels.

State-owned fuel retailers IOC, Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL) revise rates of the fuel on 1st and 16th of every month based on the average oil price and the foreign exchange rate in the preceding fortnight. The revision was due last week, but the retailers chose to defer it by a day.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 7892.30, up by 41.85 points or 0.53% after trading in a range of 7842.75 and 7912.65. There were 32 stocks advancing against 19 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Infosys up by 6.17%, Idea Cellular up by 5.28%, Bharti Infratel up by 2.99%, HCL Tech up by 2.36% and BPCL up by 2.10%. On the flip side, ONGC down by 2.65%, TCS down by 2.08%, GAIL India down by 2.02%, Bank of Baroda down by 1.80% and SBI down by 1.69% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Nikkei 225 was down by 2.91%, Hang Seng down by 1.26%, Shanghai Composite down by 1.32%, Taiwan Weighted down by 0.48%, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI down by 0.79% and KOSPI Index down by 0.51%. On the other hand, Jakarta Composite was up by 0.31%.