Markets continue to trade in high spirit in early noon session

Indian equity benchmarks continued to trade in high spirit in early noon session on the back of sustained buying by fund and retail investors in the blue chips stocks such as Bankex, Capital Goods, FMCG and Realty. Sentiment was upbeat with persistent buying by foreign institutional investors and rally in the US markets as a soft jobs report gave investors hope the Federal Reserve would keep any future interest rate hike small and slow. Further, some support also came in with a statement by RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan on GDP. He said "I have no problem with India's growth. It is doing great. It could do better". Furthermore, rise in oil prices and appreciation in the Indian rupee against dollar too supported the markets sentiment. Meanwhile, shares of sugar companies were trading higher on the BSE on expectation of strong earnings for quarter ended March 31, 2016 (Q4FY16).

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in red, after disappointing U.S. jobs report and worse-than-expected trade numbers out of China raised questions about the underlying strength of the world's biggest economies. Back home, in scrip specific development, share of Tasty Bite Eatables has rallied near 20% on the BSE  after the company reported a strong 85% year on year (YoY) jump in net profit at Rs 5.88 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 2016 (Q4FY16).

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 25585.16, up by 356.66 points or 1.41% after trading in a range of 25302.86 and 25608.59. There were 28 stocks advancing against 2 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.96%, while Small cap index up by 0.88%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Bankex up by 1.67%, Capital Goods up by 1.51%, FMCG up by 1.42%, Realty up by 1.25% and Auto up by 1.10%, while they were no losers on the sectoral index. 

The top gainers on the Sensex were HDFC up by 2.80%, Bajaj Auto up by 2.28%, ICICI Bank up by 2.20%, Larsen & Toubro up by 2.15% and ITC up by 1.99%. On the flip side, Dr. Reddys Lab down by 0.85% and Cipla down by 0.47% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, India’s e-commerce sector is expected to see revenues of $120 billion by 2020 from $30 billion at the end of last fiscal 2015-16 mainly on the back of young demographic profile, rising Internet penetration and relatively better economic performance, as per the Assocham-Forrester study report.

The report said that in India about 60-65 percent of the total e-commerce sales are being generated through smart phones. Branded apparel, accessories, jewellery, gifts, footwear are among the major hits on the e-commerce platforms. It further said that about 75 percent of the country's online users are in the age group of 15-34 years since India is one of the youngest demographies globally and one out of every 5 online user visits the Indian Railways site.

Meanwhile, in terms of base, India may be lower than China and other giants like Japan; the Indian rate of growth is way ahead of others. Against India's annual expansion of 51 percent, China's e-commerce is growing at 18 percent, Japan 11 percent and South Korea 10 percent. The report further said that India has an Internet user base of 400 million in 2016 whereas Brazil has 210 million Internet users and Russia 130 million, among the BRICS nations.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 7835.50, up by 102.05 points or 1.32% after trading in a range of 7753.55 and 7843.90. There were 47 stocks advancing against 3 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Yes Bank up by 3.16%, HDFC up by 2.76%, Zee Entertainment up by 2.68%, Bajaj Auto up by 2.37% and Larsen & Toubro up by 2.22%. On the flip side, Dr. Reddys Lab down by 0.80%, Idea Cellular down by 0.66%, Cipla down by 0.59% and Sun Pharma down by 0.04% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Shanghai Composite decreased 72.83 points or 2.5% to 2,840.42, Jakarta Composite decreased 55.27 points or 1.15% to 4,767.32, Taiwan Weighted decreased 14.6 points or 0.18% to 8,131.83, KOSPI Index decreased 8.9 points or 0.45% to 1,967.81 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 5.89 points or 0.36% to 1,643.47, while Hang Seng increased 108.23 points or 0.54% to 20,218.10 and Nikkei 225 increased 129.35 points or 0.8% to 16,236.07.