Post Session: Quick Review

Indian equity benchmarks traded on a firm note throughout the day and closed in green. The gain in benchmarks was largely driven by Reliance Industries (RIL) that hit nearly 8-year high as investors cheered the announcements made by Chairman Mukesh Ambani for customers of Jio. Investors welcomed plans by RIL’s telecom unit to start charging customers for services. The equity benchmarks made a positive start and traded in fine fettle in early deals on penultimate session of F&O expiry taking some encouragement with a private report stating that India’s millennial population is a massive disruptive force and driven by these supportive demographics along with government’s policy action, Indian economy is likely to reach $5 trillion by 2025. Some support also came with report that Reserve Bank of India is proposing its toughest measures yet to recover loans from defaulters by prescribing December deadline for the loan restructuring of top 50 defaulters in a way that the assets turn viable and also in an environment where vigilance departments do not stifle the right economic outcome. Picking up from where former governor Raghuram Rajan left, Deputy Governor Acharya proposed setting up of two asset management companies, one private and the other quasi with government stake holding, and two rating agencies backing for valuation of stressed assets. Investors got some respite as Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged the United States to keep an open mind on admitting skilled Indian workers, in comments that pushed back against Republican President Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ rhetoric on jobs. Indian nationals are by far the largest group of recipients of the 65,000 H-1B visas issued each year to new applicants under a cap mandated by Congress. The market may remain volatile this week as traders may roll over positions in the Futures & Options (F&O) segment from the near month i.e. February 2017 series to next month i.e. March 2017 series. The near month February 2017 derivatives contracts will expire on Thursday i.e. February 23, 2017.

On the global front, Asian markets closed mostly higher, joining a record-setting night for world markets as investors cheered upbeat factory activity in Europe and solid earnings on Wall Street. Indonesia stocks closed higher as gains in the Consumer Industry, Miscellaneous Industry and Manufacturing sectors led shares higher. Hong Kong expects its economy to expand 2 to 3 percent in 2017, the city’s financial secretary Paul Chan said in his first budget speech, far more than a 1.3 percent expansion forecast by economists. European shares climbed to a new 14-month high, supported by well-received earnings updates from companies such as Lloyds, Telefonica Deutschland and Scor.

Back home, aviation stocks Jet Airways, SpiceJet and InterGlobe Aviation closed in green taking support from report published by domestic brokerage firm which showed that Passenger Load Factors (PLF) as well as traffic growth remain high with IndiGo, SpiceJet and Go Air maintaining PLFs at more than 90 percent in the domestic segment and overall domestic passenger growing by 25 percent in January 2017.

The BSE Sensex ended at 28858.77, up by 97.18 points or 0.34% after trading in a range of 28789.30 and 28963.52. There were 11 stocks advancing against 19 stocks declining on the index. (Provisional)

The broader indices ended in red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.66%, while Small cap index was down by 0.62%. (Provisional)

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Energy up by 4.48%, Oil & Gas up by 1.65%, Telecom up by 0.62% and Bankex up by 0.18%, while IT down by 1.70%, Utilities down by 1.44%, Power down by 1.40%, TECK down by 1.33% and Consumer Durables down by 1.18% were the losing indices on BSE. (Provisional)

The top gainers on the Sensex were Reliance Industries up by 11.24%, Axis Bank up by 3.70%, Asian Paints up by 2.71%, Coal India up by 2.64% and Hero MotoCorp up by 1.01%. (Provisional)

On the flip side, NTPC down by 3.51%, Power Grid down by 2.41%, TCS down by 2.24%, Infosys down by 2.07% and Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone down by 1.68% were the top losers. (Provisional)

Meanwhile, appreciating corporate philanthropy concept, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said an idea of mandatory corporate social responsibility (CSR) which was initially lesser known in India has taken off well and it will help to achieve government’s objective of doubling the income of those living in rural areas, which the government due to limited resources, cannot achieve on its own and therefore civil society has an important role in it.

Further he said that through the CSR, an institutionalised mechanism has been put in place by which some money has to be spent on the rural India, and mentioned that a few years ago when the idea of CSR was introduced in 2013, it was not free from doubt. There was some resistance as corporate world felt that this was an additional tax which was being imposed on them, but it has begun well as an institutionalised mechanism.

Though, Jaitley pointed that the role of non-governmental organisations in rural India continue to lag, which otherwise should get a boost from assistance provided by CSR activities. He also urged corporates to adopt an arm's length approach while taking up CSR activities and not pursue proposals to subserve their own ends.

The CNX Nifty ended at 8930.10, up by 22.25 points or 0.25% after trading in a range of 8905.25 and 8960.75. There were 19 stocks advancing against 32 stocks declining on the index. (Provisional)

The top gainers on Nifty were Reliance Industries up by 11.13%, Idea Cellular up by 5.21%, Axis Bank up by 3.93%, Asian Paints up by 2.87% and Coal India up by 2.63%. (Provisional)

On the flip side, NTPC down by 3.39%, Ambuja Cement down by 2.39%, Power Grid down by 2.35%, TCS down by 2.25% and Infosys down by 2.23% were the top losers. (Provisional)

The European markets were trading in green; UK’s FTSE 100 increased 21.74 points or 0.3% to 7,296.57, Germany’s DAX increased 27.02 points or 0.23% to 11,994.51 and France’s CAC increased 19.51 points or 0.4% to 4,908.27.

Asian equity markets ended mostly higher on Wednesday, even as Japanese shares ended flat as the yen's retreat halted ahead of the Fed minutes due to be released later in the day. The minutes may provide more insight on the probability of a March interest rate hike, with traders putting their rate hike odds for March at 20 percent. Meanwhile, Chinese shares ended higher after official data showed China's housing market continued to cool in January, a welcome sign for policymakers worried about a generalized bubble developing in the market.