Benchmarks trade jubilantly in early deals; Nifty regains 8,500 level

Buoyed by firm global cues, Indian equity benchmarks have made a gap-up opening and are trading jubilantly in early deals with Nifty and Sensex recapturing their crucial 8,500 and 27,400 levels, respectively. Sentiments remained up-beat with a survey report that India improved its ranking by one spot in a global index of business optimism, with policy reforms and Goods and Services tax (GST) expected to become a reality soon. India was ranked second on the optimism index during the third quarter (July-September 2016). Traders also took some encouragement with report that foreign direct investment (FDI) into the country grew by over 30 percent to $ 21.62 billion during the first half of 2016-17. During April-September of 2015-16, India received FDI worth $ 16.63 billion.

On the global front, Asian markets were rallying at this point of time and the Japanese market has advanced around one and a half percent as the yen weakened the most in a month after dollar strengthened on latest FBI report. The US markets ended lower in last session amid election outcome concerns and traders shrugged off the largely positive jobs report. Back home, there was broad based buying witnessed in the markets and apart from the blue chips, the broader markets too participated strongly in the rally.

The market breadth remained in favor of advances, as there were 1,717 shares on the gaining side against 363 shares on the losing side while 81 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 27488.81, up by 214.66 points or 0.79% after trading in a range of 27456.41 and 27591.15. There were 22 stocks advancing against 7 stocks declining on the index, one stock remained unchanged.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index surged 1.31%, while Small cap index was up by 1.54%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Healthcare up by 2.12%, Realty up by 1.82%, Oil & Gas up by 1.77%, PSU up by 1.62% and Metal up by 1.57%, while there were no losers on the BSE sectoral front.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Lupin up by 5.84%, ITC up by 2.41%, SBI up by 2.02%, Sun Pharma Inds. up by 1.64% and ICICI Bank up by 1.52%. On the flip side, Asian Paints down by 1.05%, Hindustan Unilever down by 0.70%, TCS down by 0.59%, Larsen & Toubro down by 0.49% and Bajaj Auto down by 0.39% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, India’s economic think-tank, National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) has pegged India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth at 7.6 percent for the fiscal year 2016-17, backed by pick-up in rural demand and positive signals’ on the manufacturing front. It said that the anticipated improvement in the agricultural sector and the associated increase in rural demand will push the economic growth upward.

NCAER said that the manufacturing sector is giving positive signals with Purchasers' Managers Index (PMI), Index of Industrial Production for core sectors and auto sales going up and the domestic aviation sector growth continues to be a robust. However, other service index indicators continue to be muted. Food inflation is also showing signs of dampening in the latter part of the second quarter. However, fuel inflation may revive. Although urban demand is predicted to remain strong, external demand continues to be volatile.

Economic think-tank estimated that the output of kharif food grains is expected to revive with an increase of 10 to 11 percent over last year's output of 124 million tonnes. It further said that India's fiscal position remained under stress during first half of the current fiscal. It added that despite healthy growth in tax revenues, the combination of rising expenditure and lower-than-expected non-tax revenues is likely to ‘test the government's resolve’ to abide by the fiscal deficit target set out in Budget 2016-17.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8506.60, up by 72.85 points or 0.86% after trading in a range of 8493.65 and 8535.85. There were 42 stocks advancing against 9 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Lupin up by 5.82%, Aurobindo Pharma up by 3.56%, BPCL up by 2.87%, Hindalco up by 2.58% and Grasim Industries up by 2.57%. On the flip side, Asian Paints down by 1.12%, Bharti Infratel down by 0.89%, TCS down by 0.76%, Hindustan Unilever down by 0.70% and Larsen & Toubro down by 0.59% were the top losers.

All the Asian markets were trading in green; FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI rose 0.4 points or 0.02% to 1,648.64, Jakarta Composite gained 1.22 points or 0.02% to 5,363.88, Shanghai Composite increased 8.24 points or 0.26% to 3,133.56, KOSPI Index jumped 13.61 points or 0.69% to 1,995.63, Hang Seng advanced 103.85 points or 0.46% to 22,746.47, Taiwan Weighted added 114.42 points or 1.26% to 9,182.57 and Nikkei 225 was up by 248.16 points or 1.47% to 17,153.52.