Firm trade prevails 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 were on upbeat note amid a firm rupee, progress of monsoons and strong global cues. The weather department has stated that monsoon rains covered nearly all of India except some parts of Gujarat and Rajasthan. Traders were seen piling position in Realty, PSU and Oil & Gas stocks while selling was witnessed in FMCG sector stocks. In scrip specific development, Manappuram Finance was trading firm after the gold loan company announced that the rating of its debentures has been upgraded by credit rating agency. CRISIL has upgraded its rating on long-term bank facility and non-convertible debentures of the company. TeamLease Services gains after the company announced the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire ASAP Info Systems. Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL) was trading in green after the company stated that it has received income tax refund worth Rs 112.95 crore for the assessment year 2000-2001. On the other hand, Bosch was trading in red after the share buyback price announced by the auto component major disappointed investors.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading in green while the European markets were trading on pessimistic note. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above the psychological 8,350 and 27,300 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was positive in the ratio of 1679:919 while 148 scrips remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 27318.76, up by 173.85 points or 0.64% after trading in a range of 27278.01 and 27385.66. There were 20 stocks advancing against 10 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.69%, while Small cap index was up by 1.00%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 2.62%, PSU up by 1.90%, Oil & Gas up by 1.74%, Metal up by 1.70%, Capital Goods up by 1.46% while, FMCG down by 1.00% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were ONGC up by 4.52%, Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone up by 3.79%, Tata Motors up by 2.94%, Coal India up by 2.39% and ICICI Bank up by 2.37%.

On the flip side, ITC down by 2.40%, NTPC down by 1.28%, Dr. Reddy’s Lab down by 1.02%, Hindustan Unilever down by 0.51% and Hero MotoCorp down by 0.38% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, government may not cut excise duty on petrol and diesel in the near term if it accepts the suggestion made in the approach paper, submitted by the Chief Economic Adviser (CEA) Arvind Subramanian last month, to the Finance Ministry for maintaining status quo when oil prices can climb by another $ 15 a barrel. CEA has suggested status quo on excise duties till oil prices climb to $ 65 per barrel, from the present $ 49 levels.

CEA stated in the approach paper, any rise in prices above $ 65 a barrel should be equally borne by the consumers and the government, consumers by way of paying higher retail rates and the government by cutting excise duty on the two auto fuels. If crude oil price were to average $ 65 a barrel from July to end of the year, half of the burden on the fiscal would be Rs 46,000 crore, or 0.3 per cent of GDP. Further he added that, every incremental $ 5 per barrel increase in global oil prices would translate into Rs 2-2.1 per litre increase in retail prices if the 50:50 burden sharing mechanism is followed.

India is dependent on imports to meet 80 per cent of its oil needs, it spent $ 63.96 billion on crude oil import in 2015-16, about half of $ 112.7 billion outgo in the previous fiscal. For the current fiscal, the import bill has been pegged at $ 66 billion at an average import price of $ 48 per barrel. Every rupee per litre increase in petrol price leads to 0.02 per cent rise in Wholesale Price Index (WPI) inflation and 0.07 per cent for the same amount of increase in diesel rates.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8375.45, up by 47.10 points or 0.57% after trading in a range of 8367.95 and 8398.45. There were 35 stocks advancing against 16 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were BHEL up by 4.51%, ONGC up by 4.00%, Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone up by 3.72%, Tata Motors - DVR up by 3.60% and Tata Motors up by 2.90%.

On the flip side, ITC down by 2.38%, Bosch down by 2.24%, NTPC down by 1.50%, Grasim Industries down by 1.41% and IndusInd Bank down by 1.38% were the top losers.

The Asian markets were trading in green; KOSPI Index increased 7.98 points or 0.4% to 1,995.30, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI increased 10.4 points or 0.63% to 1,656.62, Taiwan Weighted increased 22.34 points or 0.26% to 8,760.58, Shanghai Composite increased 56.13 points or 1.91% to 2,988.60, Nikkei 225 increased 93.32 points or 0.6% to 15,775.80 and Hang Seng increased 264.83 points or 1.27% to 21,059.20.

Jakarta Stock Exchange was closed today on account of national holiday.

The European markets were trading in red; UK’s FTSE 100 decreased 2.51 points or 0.04% to 6,575.32, Germany’s DAX decreased 13.3 points or 0.14% to 9,762.82 and France’s CAC decreased 5.39 points or 0.13% to 4,268.57.