Benchmarks continue firm trade in late morning session

Indian equity benchmarks continued their firm trade in the late morning session on account of buying in frontline blue chip counters. Sentiments got some support with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley urging the Rajya Sabha to pass the GST bill expeditiously to enable states get a share of the Service Tax which is not shared under the provisions of 14th Finance Commission. GST, touted as the single biggest indirect taxation reforms since independence, will simplify and harmonies the indirect tax regime in the country. However, weak trend in Asian stocks coupled with depreciation in rupee value against the US dollar have limited the gains.  Indian rupee depreciated by 5 paise to 67.15 against the US dollar in early trade due to fresh demand for the American currency from importers. Investors also remained cautious with the report that International Monetary Fund trimmed India's growth forecast for the current and next financial years by 0.1 percentage points as it pared global growth by an identical amount.

On the global front, most of the Asian markets remained under pressure on Wednesday as investors reassessed the global economy following the International Monetary Bank's global growth cut. According to IMF report, Britain’s decision to leave the European Union will reduce global economic growth this year and next. IMF lowered its estimate for worldwide growth to 3.1 percent this year, 0.1 percentage point lower than its previous forecast. The downward growth revision added to a gloomy outlook amid questions about whether recent stock market rallies were sustainable. Sentiments weakened further after Oil prices fell as much 1 per cent for a second day in a row on Tuesday as a rallying dollar and a global fuel glut offset forecasts for lower US crude stockpiles that typically would have been bullish for the market. Meanwhile, market participants remained keen on corporate earnings reports and also on the European Central Bank's policy meeting later in the week.

Back home, barring Teck index which lost 0.02 percent, all the other indices were trading in the positive territory, with Realty, Oil & Gas and Power indices leading the gains. Volatility was a tad up with the India vix ruling at 15.84. In scrip specific development, Aurobindo Pharma has gained after the company received nod from the US drug regulator to manufacture and market Rosuvastatin Calcium tablets. On the other hand, Wipro has dipped after the company’s IT services margin narrowed to 17.8% in the June quarter compared with 19.7% in the quarter ended March 2016.

The market breadth remained optimistic as there were 1377 shares on the gaining side against 679 shares on the losing side, while 125 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 27857.85, up by 70.23 points or 0.25% after trading in a range of 27759.71 and 27908.22. 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 0.59%, while Small cap index was up by 0.63%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 1.52%, Oil & Gas up by 1.19%, Power up by 0.89%, PSU up by 0.88% and Auto up by 0.47%, while TECK down by 0.02% was the sole losing index on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Power Grid up by 1.83%, Hero MotoCorp up by 1.44%, Dr. Reddys Lab up by 1.33%, GAIL India up by 1.28% and Coal India up by 1.22%. On the flip side, Wipro down by 3.12%, ICICI Bank down by 0.72%, Axis Bank down by 0.55%, HDFC down by 0.43% and Asian Paints down by 0.40% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the government has made the environmental clearance process more transparent and expeditious. The Environment Minister Anil Madhav Dave has said that the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change received more than 2,300 projects for environmental clearance in the last three years and the current year, and a total of only 432 projects are pending for environmental clearances as on June 30.

Dave added that key projects received for environmental clearances uring the last three years till July 15 include 67 in mining, 82 in infrastructure, six in nuclear, defence and others and in river valley and hydro-electric sector and his Ministry has undertaken various initiatives to make the environmental clearance process more transparent and expeditious without compromising the integrity of the environment, which inter alia include use of information communication technology for environment clearance process, amendment of environment impact assessment notification 2006 delegating more powers to state-level environment impact assessment authorities, standardization of terms of reference for preparation of environment impact assessment report and environment management plan among others. 

Former Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar had earlier said that over 2,000 projects involving Rs 10 lakh crore investment, which were stuck for years and some of them in key sectors, have been given environmental clearance in the last two years. Javadekar had also said that in line with the government's policy of ease of doing business, the average waiting period for approval of projects has been brought down to 190 days from 600 days during the UPA regime and the aim now is to slash it further to 100 days.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8551.00, up by 22.45 points or 0.26% after trading in a range of 8512.55 and 8559.50. There were 36 stocks advancing against 15 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Aurobindo Pharma up by 3.33%, Power Grid up by 2.01%, ACC up by 1.58%, Hero MotoCorp up by 1.39% and Coal India up by 1.30%. On the flip side, Wipro down by 2.78%, Asian Paints down by 0.85%, Axis Bank down by 0.80%, HCL Tech down by 0.80% and ICICI Bank down by 0.69% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Nikkei 225 decreased 0.26%, Taiwan Weighted shed 0.35%, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI dipped 0.37%, KOSPI Index slipped 0.21% and Shanghai Composite was down by 0.02%. On the flip side, Jakarta Composite increased 0.8% and Hang Seng was up by 0.84%.