Indian bourses continue to trade in positive territory

Key benchmark indices continued to trade in positive territory in the afternoon session supported by value-buying in select blue-chip stocks despite weak global cues. Sentiments remained optimistic with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s statement dismissing the slowdown concerns, that higher tax mop up indicates uptick in economic activity. He said that demonetised notes had no role to play in the tax collections for December as people were allowed to pay taxes in the spiked currency only in November and the indirect and direct tax collections between April and December this year increased by 25 percent and 12.01 percent respectively compared to the same period last year. Some support also came with Moody’s report which maintained positive outlook on India and said beyond the short-term negative impact on growth, demonetisation has the potential to raise government revenues and provide some fiscal space to support growth if required. Appreciation in the rupee too supported the sentiments. The rupee recovered by 10 paise to 68.20 against the dollar in early trade on fresh selling of the American currency by exporters and banks. In scrip specific development, Engineers India was up by over three percent after the company bagged orders from HPCL for execution of Vizag Refinery Modernization Project.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in red after the Dow Jones Industrial Average once again failed to take on its 20,000-point milestone and oil prices fell as much as 4 percent overnight amid signs of growing U.S. production and record Iraqi exports.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 26862.23, up by 135.68 points or 0.51% after trading in a range of 26804.17 and 26902.05. There were 24 stocks advancing against 6 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.32%, while Small cap index was up by 0.64%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Oil & Gas up by 1.16%, Consumer Durables up by 0.93%, Auto up by 0.75%, Metal up by 0.59% and PSU up by 0.57%, while Realty down by 0.09% was the lone losing index on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Motors up by 2.43%, Adani Ports &Special up by 1.47%, GAIL India up by 1.42%, Tata Steel up by 1.15% and HDFC Bank up by 1.14%. On the flip side, Axis Bank down by 0.94%, Dr. Reddys Lab down by 0.46%, Power Grid down by 0.43%, Bharti Airtel down by 0.25% and SBI down by 0.18% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, in order to tap the huge potential of India- Japan bilateral trade, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said that the pace of implementation of India- Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) needs to be enhanced faster.

Sitharaman requested the Japanese side to take steps to increase Indian exports to Japan in Sesame seeds, Surimi fish and Indian generic drugs. She said that the Japanese Industrial Townships (JITs) in India would be transformational and will bring in significant Japanese investments and further strengthen economic cooperation between two countries. On the logistics front, she stated that India plans to build Logistics University wherein the cooperation from Japan would be needed.

Stressing on various initiatives taken by government of India for Make in India and other measures taken for India’s growth, Japan’s Economy Trade and Industry Minister Seko has stated that there is a huge potential for Indo- Japanese cooperation. In order to attract greater Japanese Investments in India, the Japanese side has said that the issue related to Transfer Pricing assessment and other ones as raised by Japan Chambers of Commerce and Industry in India (JCCII) needed to be resolved from time to time.

The Japanese business delegates wanted to contribute to the development of India thereby expanding their business in India in sectors such as agriculture, power, electronics, railways, logistics sectors, manufacturing of ATMs and so on. They have expressed their interest in enhancing cooperation in the area of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) between India and Japan and planned to train Indian IPR examiners in Japan. They also expressed the need for a high level meeting between India and Japan on IPR cooperation

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8272.30, up by 36.25 points or 0.44% after trading in a range of 8261.00 and 8288.10. There were 35 stocks advancing against 16 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Hindalco up by 3.92%, Tata Motors up by 2.51%, Tata Motors - DVR up by 2.00%, BPCL up by 1.99% and Adani Ports &Special up by 1.65%. On the flip side, Grasim Industries down by 1.35%, Indusind Bank down by 1.08%, Axis Bank down by 1.02%, Ambuja Cement down by 0.88% and Power Grid down by 0.70% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Nikkei 225 decreased 152.89 points or 0.79% to 19,301.44, Shanghai Composite declined 11.04 points or 0.35% to 3,160.20, Jakarta Composite was down by 10.49 points or 0.2% to 5,305.88 and KOSPI Index slipped 3.66 points or 0.18% to 2,045.12. On the flip side, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI increased 2.68 points or 0.16% to 1,670.58, Taiwan Weighted rose 7.22 points or 0.08% to 9,349.64 and Hang Seng was up by 124.66 points or 0.55% to 22,683.35.