Benchmarks trade in fine fettle; Sensex reclaims 27,800 mark

Indian equity markets, despite making cautious start, gained traction and are trading in fine fettle in early deals on Thursday with frontline gauges recapturing their crucial 27,800 (Sensex) and 8,550 (Nifty) bastions. Sentiments remained up-beat, as in the biggest tax reform since Independence, the national sales tax or GST Bill has been approved by the Rajya Sabha to replace a raft of different state and local taxes with a single unified value added tax system. Some support also came with report that foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 578.17 crore yesterday, as per provisional data released by the stock exchanges. Appreciation in Indian rupee too aided sentiments. The rupee was trading higher by 5 paise at 66.94 at this point of time as against its previous close of 66.99.

Firm global cues too provided much needed support to the local bourses with most of the Asian counters were trading in green as crude oil held onto its recovery and high-yielding currencies climbed. The US markets made modest recovery in the last session and the Dow snapped its seven days losing streak, led by the gains in energy stocks.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 27,800.54, up by 103.03 points or 0.37% after trading in a range of 27633.11 and 27921.91. There were 22 stocks advancing against 8 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index gained 0.59%, while Small cap index was up by 0.51%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Auto up by 1.73%, Industrials up by 1.26%, Metal up by 1.15%, Basic Materials up by 1.05% and Power up by 0.87%, while Consumer Durables down by 0.81%, Telecom down by 0.32%, Oil & Gas down by 0.24%, Energy down by 0.20% and TECK down by 0.03% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Motors up by 3.78%, Hero MotoCorp up by 1.95%, Tata Steel up by 1.89%, Bajaj Auto up by 1.83% and Sun Pharma Inds. up by 1.50%. On the flip side, Lupin down by 1.18%, ICICI Bank down by 0.79%, Infosys down by 0.55%, ITC down by 0.53% and Reliance Industries down by 0.35% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the International credit rating agency Standard & Poor (S&P) in its latest report has stated that India needs supportive monetary and fiscal policies to achieve 8 percent growth in the next 3 fiscal years, economic reforms need to gain momentum. But the ability to deploy monetary and fiscal stimulus is limited by the absence of fiscal cushion and inflation dynamics.

S&P Global Ratings also projected India's economy to accelerate to approximately 8 percent in the next three fiscal years even as China slips to annual growth rates of below 7 per cent.  It further said in statement, India has edged out China as the world's fastest-growing large economy, despite a slowdown in global growth and tough times for many emerging markets. However, this outperformance could prove temporary if India's reforms do not gather greater momentum.

It added that, India will have to address issues plaguing private investment and banks will have to clean up their balance sheets. Companies in infrastructure and other asset-heavy sectors will also need to deleverage materially. Besides, the recent trend of strong economic growth in India could slow in the medium term if improvements in the country's infrastructure do not pick up. A heavy debt burden and relatively large fiscal deficits prevent heavier budgetary spending to ease this constraint. Past attempts at allowing the private sector a role in infrastructure have met with limited success due to legal and bureaucratic obstacles.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8568.00, up by 23.15 points or 0.27% after trading in a range of 8519.50 and 8601.40. There were 35 stocks advancing against 16 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Tata Motors up by 3.94%, Tata Motors - DVR up by 3.25%, Hero MotoCorp up by 2.21%, Bajaj Auto up by 1.96% and Tata Steel up by 1.69%. On the flip side, BPCL down by 2.09%, Bharti Infratel down by 1.49%, Lupin down by 1.18%, ICICI Bank down by 0.87% and Infosys down by 0.58% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in green; Taiwan Weighted rose 0.99 points or 0.01% to 9,002.70, KOSPI Index gained 4.45 points or 0.22% to 1,999.24, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI increased 4.45 points or 0.27% to 1,652.95, Jakarta Composite added 29.47 points or 0.55% to 5,381.35, Hang Seng surged 122.36 points or 0.56% to 21,861.48 and Nikkei 225 was up by 50.07 points or 0.31% to 16,133.18. On the flip side, Shanghai Composite was down by 5.8 points or 0.19% to 2,972.66.