Benchmarks extend gains in late noon session

Indian equity markets have extended their gains in late noon deal on fresh buying by funds and retail investors. Traders turned optimistic after international credit rating agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) forecasted that India’s economy can grow at about 8% in the next two years. Traders also took some encouragement with report that India's economy will hum along at a solid pace for the remainder of this fiscal year provided structural reforms are passed, while above-target inflation means the Reserve Bank of India will only cut rates once more this year. Further, India Meteorological Department’s statement that India has received 1% surplus rainfall since the monsoon season started in June too aided sentiments.

On global front, Asian markets were down on Friday, after inaction by the European Central Bank popped investor exuberance of a global central bank easing.

Back home, in scrip specific development, shares of Bangalore-based drugmaker Biocon jumped over 11 per cent in Friday's trade after the company reported its net profit grew by 17 per cent YoY in June quarter on account of healthy business recorded across molecule, biologics and branded formulations segments. Share of Power Grid Corporation climbed over 3 percent after the company received its board’s approval to invest Rs 2,731 crore in various projects.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 27766.81, up by 56.29 points or 0.20% after trading in a range of 27646.21 and 27795.20. 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 0.74%, while Small cap index added by 0.79%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Power up by 1.44%, Metal up by 1.08%, Capital Goods up by 1.01%, Realty up by 0.65% and Auto up by 0.49%, while IT down by 0.28% and FMCG down by 0.08% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Power Grid Corpn. up by 2.73%, Tata Motors up by 1.43%, GAIL India up by 1.39%, NTPC up by 1.10% and Larsen & Toubro up by 1.02%. On the flip side, Hindustan Unilever down by 1.33%, Bajaj Auto down by 1.19%, Infosys down by 0.87%, Wipro down by 0.68% and Sun Pharma Inds. down by 0.46% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, government is targeting to triple the country’s current nuclear power generation capacity over the next 10 years to meet the growing needs. Union Minister Jitendra Singh has said that the government aims to increase the capacity for power generation by three times in ten years without compromising on safety of people and it would also ensure that power from this source is affordable.

Jitendra Singh pointed that, while earlier five-year plan targets were set with regard to electricity generation from nuclear power plants, but now the concept of five-year plans has lost relevance with the establishment of Niti Aayog and the government proposes to make long term plans ranging from 7-15 years.

Regarding the nuclear power programme, he said that the government is considering setting up new nuclear power plants in areas not covered before like Bihar, Haryana and Punjab to ramp up nuclear energy production in a big way.  Singh also said that the three stage nuclear power programme has been frame to efficiently utilise the large reserve of thorium in the country but the technology is still not tested and tried. India at present has a nuclear power capacity of about 6,000 MW and it had target of 14,580 MW by 2020-21.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8532.60, up by 22.50 points or 0.26% after trading in a range of 8489.80 and 8539.15. There were 35 stocks advancing against 16 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Power Grid Corpn. up by 3.02%, Bharti Infratel up by 2.52%,  Aurobindo Pharma up by 1.80%, Zee Entertainment up by 1.73% and Hindalco up by 1.68%. On the flip side, Bajaj Auto down by 1.43%, Bosch down by 1.25%, Hindustan Unilever down by 1.24%, ACC down by 1.09% and Infosys down by 0.86% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading in red, Nikkei 225 decreased 182.97 points or 1.09% to 16,627.25, Hang Seng declined 80.2 points or 0.36% to 21,920.29, Taiwan Weighted was down 43.42 points or 0.48% to 9,013.14, Jakarta Composite fell 36.08 points or 0.69% to 5,180.90, Shanghai Composite decreased 30.93 points or 1.02% to 3,008.08, KOSPI Index droped 1.88 points or 0.09% to 2,010.34, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 1.33 points or 0.08% to 1,656.21