Benchmarks continue its momentum supported by realty and auto

The market continued to trade higher in afternoon trade on fresh buying by investors. Trading sentiment got a boost after, India's current account deficit (CAD) declined sharply to $0.3 billion (0.1% of Gross Domestic Product) in the fourth quarter of ended March 2016 (FY16) from $ 7.1 billion (1.3%), in third quarter ended December 2015, on account of lower trade gap. Some support also came with Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das’ statement that FDI inflows in the current fiscal will top 15.3 per cent rise in 2015-16 on the back of reforms and liberalization of FDI norms.

On global front, Asian markets were trading in green; however there is uncertainty in market on referendum on whether Britain should stay in the European Union, which overshadowed this week's U.S. and Japanese central bank meetings. Brexit fears took their toll on oil as well, sending Brent crude sliding to about $48.22 a barrel.

Back home, the Union Minister for Power, Coal and Renewable Energy Piyush Goyal has said that his Ministry is committed to ensuring that every household is electrified and all farmers in the country get adequate and timely power in the country. In scrip specific development, sugar stocks took a beating on Friday after the government imposed a 20 per cent customs duty on sugar exports in a bid to check domestic prices by boosting supplies. Max Financial Services shares rallied 14 per cent while HDFC shares jumped 1.5 per cent, due to max life insurance and max financial services decision to merge into HDFC Standard Life Insurance

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 26663.94, up by 138.48 points or 0.52% after trading in a range of 26580.57 and 26730.55. There were 18 stocks advancing against 11 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.20%, while Small cap index gained 0.48%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 2.72%, Auto up by 0.80%, FMCG up by 0.63%, Metal up by 0.62%, PSU up by 0.49% while, Power down by 0.12%, Capital Goods down by 0.11% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Motors up by 2.07%, Coal India up by 2.03%, HDFC up by 1.64%, Bharti Airtel up by 1.62% and Maruti Suzuki up by 1.49%. On the flip side, Sun Pharma Inds.down by 1.12%, Tata Steel down by 1.08%, Infosys down by 0.55%, Larsen & Toubro down by 0.52% and ONGC down by 0.47% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, information technology research and advisory company Gartner has said that the governments in India are likely to spend $7 billion on IT products and services, which include consulting, software support, business process outsourcing, IT outsourcing, implementation, and hardware support, an increase of 3.1 percent over 2015.

The forecast includes spending on internal services, software, IT services, data center, devices and telecom services by state governments as well as the central government, which essentially refers to salaries and benefits paid to the information services staff of an organization. IT services which includes consulting, software support, business process outsourcing, IT outsourcing, implementation, and hardware support is expected to grow 8.8 per cent in 2016 to reach $1.6 billion, also the business process outsourcing sub-segment will grow by 22 per cent.

As per Gartner, government spending on software will total $938 million in 2016, a 9.9 percent increase from 2015, Telecom services will be at $1.5 billion, with the mobile network services sub-segment recording the fastest growth of 3.5 percent in 2016 to reach $793 million.

Driven by the Digital India initiative, government spending on IT has been increasing since last couple of years. The ‘Digital India’ focuses on building digital infrastructure, providing government service on the web and mobile platforms to digitally empower citizens, with an estimated investment of Rs 1.13 lakh crore over the next three to five years

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8168.00, up by 27.25 points or 0.33% after trading in a range of 8148.40 and 8195.25. There were 26 stocks advancing against 24 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Tata Motors - DVR up by 2.40%, Tata Motors up by 1.99%, Coal India up by 1.93%, HDFC up by 1.56% and Bharti Airtel up by 1.52%. On the flip side, Tata Power down by 4.00%, Bharti Infratel down by 2.87%, Tata Steel down by 1.27%, Sun Pharma Inds.down by 1.24% and Aurobindo Pharma down by 1.03% were the top losers.

The Asian markets were trading mostly in green, KOSPI Index increased 1.41 points or 0.07% to 1,953.40. FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI rose by 5.68 points or 0.35% to 1,620.58. Shanghai Composite was higher by 12.29 points or 0.43% to 2,885.11.Taiwan Weighted rose 73.94 points or 0.87% to 8,568.08.Hang Seng was up by 114.33 points or 0.57% to 20,152.75.Nikkei 225 increased 165.52 points or 1.07% to 15,599.66. On the other hand Jakarta Composite decreased by 6.77 points or 0.14% to 4,807.62