Benchmarks off day’s highs in noon deals

Key benchmark indices are trading off the day’s highs in afternoon as investors opted to take some of their profits near 8,200 (Nifty) and 26,800 (Sensex) marks, which proved to be a strong resistance levels for Indian equity markets. Though, key gauges managed to trade with a decent gain in noon deals on the back of better than expected GDP data. India’s manufacturing PMI stood at 50.7 as against 50.5 in April indicating an uptick in the manufacturing data. A strong rupee, decent fourth quarter results and advancement of monsoons too were aiding the sentiments. Asian stocks were trading mostly in red terrain at this point of time as a slip in crude oil prices dampened investors’ appetite for riskier assets, while the recently bullish dollar stalled against the euro and yen following a mixed bag of US economic data.

Closer home, shares of state-run oil marketing companies such as BPCL and IOC were trading in positive terrain following a hike in petrol and diesel prices. On the flip side, banking counter reeling under pressure after private agency said that PSU banks unlikely to achieve FY17 loan recovery targets. Shares of aviation companies were trading lower after oil marketing companies announced hike in aviation turbine fuel by over 9% from June 01, 2016. Aviation Turbine Fuel (Domestic) has been hiked to 9.2% to Rs 46,729.48 in Delhi effective from June 1 compared with Rs 42,784.01 last month. Meanwhile, the broader indices too were trading with traction, while the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 1365 shares on the gaining side against 969 shares on the losing side while 107 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 26773.01, up by 105.05 points or 0.39% after trading in a range of 26671.86 and 26857.25. 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 0.19%, while Small cap index up by 0.52%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Telecom up by 2.32%, FMCG up by 1.25%, TECK up by 1.03%, IT up by 0.83% and Oil & Gas up by 0.31%, while Bankex down by 0.57%, Metal down by 0.43%, Realty down by 0.38%, Finance down by 0.25% and Capital Goods down by 0.05% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Adani Ports &Special up by 3.84%, Asian Paints up by 2.84%, Bharti Airtel up by 2.43%, TCS up by 1.97% and ITC up by 1.68%. On the flip side, ICICI Bank down by 1.12%, Tata Motors down by 1.00%, HDFC Bank down by 0.62%, SBI down by 0.41% and BHEL down by 0.37% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, in order to align the domestic rates of the automobile fuels with global prices, the PSU Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) have once again increased prices of petrol by Rs 2.58 per litre and diesel rates by Rs 2.26 per litre, effective from the midnight of May 31 and June 1. It was the second hike in last one month, the prices were last hiked on May 17, when petrol price was increased by 83 paise and diesel was made costlier by Rs 1.26 per litre in line with rising crude oil and product prices in the global market.

While it was the second consecutive hike in petrol prices, it marked the seventh straight fortnightly increase in diesel rates. Post the changes, petrol will be priced at Rs 65.60 per litre, while a litre of diesel will cost Rs 53.93 per litre in Delhi, including state taxes.

According to IOC the country's largest fuel retailer, the hike in prices is due to the movement in the international oil market and INR-USD exchange rate. It further said that the current level of international product prices of Petrol and Diesel and the Rupee-Dollar exchange rate warrant increase in price of Petrol and Diesel, the impact of which is being passed on to the consumers with this price revision.

The three PSU OMCs, Indian Oil Corporation (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 CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8189.85, up by 29.75 points or 0.36% after trading in a range of 8173.75 and 8215.35. There were 29 stocks advancing against 22 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Adani Ports & Special up by 4.09%, Asian Paints up by 3.11%, Bharti Airtel up by 2.50%, Bharti Infratel up by 2.26% and TCS up by 2.21%. On the flip side, Yes Bank down by 1.95%, Hindalco down by 1.62%, Tata Motors down by 1.28%, Bank of Baroda down by 1.02% and Tata Motors - DVR down by 0.92% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Nikkei 225 declined 279.25 points or 1.62% to 16,955.73, Hang Seng slipped 11.1 points or 0.05% to 20,803.99, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 1.83 points or 0.11% to 1,624.17 and KOSPI Index was down by 0.68 points or 0.03% to 1,982.72.

On the flip side, Shanghai Composite rose 0.68 points or 0.02% to 2,917.30, Jakarta Composite increased 47.95 points or 1% to 4,844.82 and Taiwan Weighted was up by 61.57 points or 0.72% to 8,597.16.