Indian bourses continue to trade in positive territory

Key benchmark indices continued to trade in green in afternoon session on the back of buying witnessed in Oil & Gas, Realty and PSU stocks. The sentiments got boost after India’s Wholesale Price Index (WPI) in the month of September 2016 has softened to 3.57 percent compared to 3.74 percent in the previous month. Also, the consumer prices index (CPI), eased in the month of September at 4.31% as compared to 5.05% in August, mainly on account of a sharp fall in food prices especially those of vegetables. Some support also came with reports that the government may seek parliamentary approval to spend about $7.5 billion more on roads, railways and other public programmes over the next five months. Further, appreciation in the rupee value against dollar too supported the sentiments.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mixed on the final trading day of the week, with investors assessing price increases in China and the possibility of an interest rate hike in the U.S. later in the year. Back home, the BSE Sensex is currently trading at 27661.38, up by 18.27 points or 0.07% after trading in a range of 27548.18 and 27763.54. There were 15 stocks advancing against 15 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.62%, while Small cap index was up by 0.58%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Oil & Gas up by 1.77%, Realty up by 0.90%, PSU up by 0.89%, Capital Goods up by 0.89% and Power up by 0.35%, while Consumer Durables down by 0.48%, Metal down by 0.44%, TECK down by 0.40%, IT down by 0.28% and FMCG down by 0.15% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were GAIL India up by 3.51%, ONGC up by 1.91%, Larsen & Toubro up by 1.57%, Reliance Industries up by 1.26% and Cipla up by 1.14%. On the flip side, Hindustan Unilever down by 2.06%, Lupin down by 1.12%, Infosys down by 1.08%, Maruti Suzuki down by 0.93% and Tata Steel down by 0.70% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said that the absence of reforms in infrastructure and power sectors by previous government created huge non-performing assets (NPAs) in the core segments. He also said there are various sectors that have been impacted by the global slowdown, but some of these were affected more because of the absence of reforms. 

He further said that their own inability to bring in reforms adequately in infrastructure and power sectors caused the difficulty in banks books.  He added that in the infrastructure sector the main problem is the inability to adequately and quickly settle the disputes. He said that they allowed them to pester for an indefinitely long period and now they have taken various steps including amending laws, setting up faster courts, among others.

Though, accepting that absence of reforms in state discom led to a stress in the power sector, Jaitley stated that the only silver lining is that the causes of the stress in power sector have been analysed quickly and correctly, and now they are addressing those problems. He said that bringing reforms in the country has become easier now than it was some years back.

Jaitley has said that there is a lot of maturity, which has come into the country's political system and this is noticed from the fact that reforming in India now is no longer as challenging as it used to be say 10 or 20 years ago. It can be noted that most of the over Rs 8.5 trillion of dud loans of banks, a large chunk are their exposure to infra and power sectors.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8576.95, up by 3.60 points or 0.04% after trading in a range of 8549.80 and 8600.20. There were 24 stocks advancing against 27 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were GAIL India up by 3.72%, ONGC up by 1.83%, Larsen & Toubro up by 1.52%, Reliance Industries up by 1.37% and BPCL up by 1.17%. On the flip side, Zee Entertainment down by 3.16%, Hindustan Unilever down by 2.04%, Eicher Motors down by 1.45%, Lupin down by 1.21% and Idea Cellular down by 0.99% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mixed; Taiwan Weighted decreased 54 points or 0.59% to 9,165.17, Shanghai Composite decreased 7.48 points or 0.24% to 3,053.87, Jakarta Composite decreased 2.71 points or 0.05% to 5,337.69 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 2.68 points or 0.16% to 1,662.34. On the flip side, KOSPI Index increased 7.22 points or 0.36% to 2,022.66, Nikkei 225 increased 82.13 points or 0.49% to 16,856.37 and Hang Seng increased 179.02 points or 0.78% to 23,210.32.