Benchmarks continue firm trade in late afternoon session

Indian equity benchmarks continued their firm trade in the late afternoon session on account of buying in frontline blue chip counters. The sentiments got some support after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley stated that India’s economic situation is by far the best in the world and the country has the potential to do even better. The minister enlightened that India is doing much better than other economics and has maintained 7.65% growth in FY16 Vs 7.2% in FY15 despite international headwinds. Traders were seen piling position in Realty, Capital Goods and FMCG stocks while selling was witnessed in TECK and IT sector stocks. In scrip specific development, Hexaware Technologies was trading in red after the company reported earnings that failed to meet market expectations. The company yesterday after market hours reported its March quarter net profit of Rs 84.19 crore against Rs 83.35 crore a year ago, a marginal rise of 1%. Income from operations rose 15% from a year ago to Rs 820.21 crore. Ricoh India was trading at lower circuit limit triggered by Bombay Stock Exchange’s warning that trading in the company shares will be suspended from May 25, if the multinational imaging and electronics firm doesn’t comply with market regulator SEBI’s listing norms. The company has time till May 20 to comply with Securities and Exchange Board of India’s listing norms.

On the global front, the Asian markets were trading mostly in red while the European markets traded on optimistic note. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above the psychological 7,700 and 25,300 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was negative in the ratio of 1176:1233 while 130 scrips remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 25303.04, up by 201.31 points or 0.80% after trading in a range of 25162.94 and 25314.69. 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 0.15%, while Small cap index up by 0.22%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 1.39%, Capital Goods up by 1.37%, FMCG up by 1.01%, Auto up by 0.82% and Power up by 0.75%, while, TECK down by 0.37%, and IT down by 0.04% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were HDFC up by 3.57%, Tata Motors up by 3.06%, BHEL up by 2.17%, Larsen & Toubro up by 2.02% and Sun Pharma up by 1.84%.

On the flip side, Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone down by 3.40%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.61%, Infosys down by 0.23%, Reliance Industries down by 0.23% and Hindustan Unilever down by 0.23% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, amid the rising concern of the government regarding the trade deficit, there is a good news that the country’s gold imports fell sharply by 67.33 per cent to 19.6 tonnes in April 2016, as jewellers’ strike opposing one per cent excise duty on non-silver jewellery significantly hit demand for the metal.

As per the data of gold and silver refiner MMTC Pamp, gold imports declined to 19.6 tonnes in April, 2016 as against 60 tonnes in the year-ago period due to poor demand. Of the total imports, bullion shipments were at 13.14 tonnes in April this year, down from 54 tonnes in the year-ago period. It added that there was import of small quantity of gold for export purpose, but that has not been included in the total gold imports for April and the data does not include the imports done for export purpose.

MMTC Pamp, which is a joint venture between state-run MMTC and Switzerland’s PAMP said that not much was imported due to poor demand in the wake of jewellers’ strike in April. Whatever gold that was imported in January and February was being used.

India imports around 800-900 tonnes of gold annually and in 2015-16, the country is estimated to have imported 750 tonnes of gold, as against 971 tonnes in the preceding year. The country's current account deficit is likely to widen modestly to $25 billion in the current fiscal from $20 billion last year on rising demand for gold and sluggishness in exports.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 7745.60, up by 39.05 points or 0.51% after trading in a range of 7706.85 and 7751.60. There were 27 stocks advancing against 24 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were HDFC up by 3.65%, Tata Motors up by 3.35%, BHEL up by 2.21%, Larsen & Toubro up by 1.97% and ITC up by 1.84%.

On the flip side, Idea Cellular down by 5.01%, Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone down by 4.08%, Bharti Airtel down by 2.02%, Bharti Infratel down by 1.48% and Hindalco down by 1.26% were the top losers.

The Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Hang Seng decreased 76.01 points or 0.37% to 20,449.82, Taiwan Weighted decreased 17.51 points or 0.21% to 8,167.96 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 10.45 points or 0.63% to 1,647.13.

On the other hand, Shanghai Composite increased 6.57 points or 0.22% to 2,997.84. Japanese, Jakarta and South Korean stock exchange was closed on account of national holiday.

The European markets were trading in green; UK’s FTSE 100 increased 25.03 points or 0.41% to 6,137.05, France’s CAC increased 1.93 points or 0.04% to 4,326.16 and Germany’s DAX increased 16.95 points or 0.17% to 9,845.20.