Markets extend gains; trade near highest point of the day

Indian equity indices extended their gains and were hovering near the highest point of the day in late afternoon session, on continued buying by investors in Banking, PSU, and Utilities stocks. Sentiments remained optimistic with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s statement that the government is keen to roll out the GST on July 1 and other aspects like bringing petroleum and land under its ambit will be considered after the first year of implementation of the new system of indirect tax collection. The GST bill will be introduced in Parliament next week. Meanwhile, the government has exempted FIIs from taxation of indirect transfers of Indian assets made after 2011 but has left prior period cases open for interpretation. On sectoral front, stocks of some public sector undertakings (PSU) were trading in green with the Nifty PSU Bank index gaining more than 4% with the private report that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has promised to offer a solution to the growing non-performing assets (NPA) crisis in next few days.

On the global front, European markets were trading in red amid investors’ uncertainty over a delayed vote on U.S. President Donald Trump's health-care bill and mixed economic reports on housing and labor market. Asian markets were trading in red. Back home, in scrip specific development, Karnataka Bank edged higher after the bank inaugurated five new branches at various locations.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 29494.57, up by 162.41 points or 0.55% after trading in a range of 29350.17 and 29500.38. There were 20 stocks advancing against 9 stocks declining on the index, while 1 stock remained unchanged.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.27%, while Small cap index was up by 0.59%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Bankex up by 1.45%, PSU up by 1.34%, Utilities up by 0.68%, Metal up by 0.66% and Power up by 0.58%, while IT down by 0.53% and TECK down by 0.36% were the only losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were ICICI Bank up by 3.35%, SBI up by 3.33%, ITC up by 1.33%, GAIL India up by 1.07% and Bharti Airtel up by 1.06%. On the flip side, Infosys down by 0.75%, TCS down by 0.71%, Cipla down by 0.53%, Bajaj Auto down by 0.30% and Adani Ports & SEZ by 0.26% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, buoyed by the surge in equity markets, the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) will consider increasing its investments in Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) 15 per cent of investible deposits in 2017-18, from the current 10 per cent. The EPFO trustees will meet on March 30 to discuss the option.

Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya had already indicated that EPFO are proposing to invest up to 15 per cent during the next year and for which they will seek opinion in its meeting. He had also pointed that the organisation is getting good yield from such investments. So far, it has invested Rs 18,069 crore in the market.

The EPFO had entered the stock market by investing 5 per cent in August 2015, which was raised to 10 per cent last year. In the current year, the PF body invested the amount in the two index-linked ETFs- the BSE's Sensex and the NSE's Nifty, which yielded a return of 18.13 per cent.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 9125.05, up by 38.75 points or 0.43% after trading in a range of 9089.40 and 9131.95. There were 32 stocks advancing against 19 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Bank of Baroda up by 5.12%, ICICI Bank up by 3.48%, SBI up by 3.35%, Aurobindo Pharma up by 1.48% and ITC up by 1.39%. On the flip side, Grasim Industries down by 2.54%, Tech Mahindra down by 1.43%, Infosys down by 0.82%, TCS down by 0.79% and ONGC down by 0.75% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Taiwan Weighted decreased 27.76 points or 0.28% to 9,902.98, Jakarta Composite decreased 13.11 points or 0.24% to 5,550.65, KOSPI Index decreased 3.77 points or 0.17% to 2,168.95 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 0.42 points or 0.02% to 1,746.58. On the flip side, Shanghai Composite increased 20.9 points or 0.64% to 3,269.45, Hang Seng increased 30.57 points or 0.13% to 24,358.27 and Nikkei 225 increased 177.22 points or 0.93% to 19,262.53.

All European markets were trading in red; France’s CAC decreased 17.8 points or 0.35% to 5,014.96, Germany’s DAX decreased 11.01 points or 0.09% to 12,028.67 and UK’s FTSE 100 decreased 2.91 points or 0.04% to 7,337.80.