Indian bourses continue to trade in positive territory

Key benchmark indices continued to trade in positive territory in the afternoon session led by gains in frontline blue chip stocks despite a weak trend in Asia. At present, Sensex and Nifty were trading above the crucial 29,700 and 9,200 levels respectively. Sentiments remained up-beat with the report that India’s oil consumption fell for the third straight month in March as the demand growth in diesel, petrol and other products came to a crawl. The oil demand fell by 0.65% in March to 17,358 thousand metric tonnes (TMT). Besides, appreciation in Indian rupee coupled with bouts of buying in FMCG, PSU, IT and Realty sector stocks, too supported the market. Investors however maintained a cautious approach ahead of key economic data. The government will release data for Consumer Price Inflation for March and Index of Industrial Production for February on April 12. In scrip specific development, InterGlobe Aviation (IndiGo) was trading in green on operating 900 flights on April 7, the ‘highest ever’ in a single day by any Indian airline.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in red as the political tinderbox in the Middle East and the Korean Peninsula added to uncertainty over the looming French vote, pushing edgy investors into safer assets such as the yen and Treasuries. Back home, the BSE Sensex is currently trading at 29733.34, up by 157.60 points or 0.53% after trading in a range of 29570.58 and 29787.05. There were 21 stocks advancing against 9 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.21%, while Small cap index was up by 0.59%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were FMCG up by 1.19%, PSU up by 0.73%, IT up by 0.73%, Realty up by 0.71% and Telecom up by 0.69%, while Metal down by 1.52%, Utilities down by 0.87%, Power down by 0.70% and Basic Materials down by 0.32% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were ITC up by 2.25%, Infosys up by 1.41%, ICICI Bank up by 1.12%, Wipro up by 0.98% and SBI up by 0.95%. On the flip side, Adani Ports & SEZ down by 3.91%, Tata Steel down by 1.14%, Bajaj Auto down by 0.88%, NTPC down by 0.87% and Cipla down by 0.86% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the Union Minister of Power, Coal and New and Renewable Energy, Piyush Goyal has said that the Paris agreement on climate change does not stop India or any country from meeting its energy desires from whatever sources of energy one may choose. He also said that coal will continue to remain their backbone as it was a domestic raw material for producing energy, and added that there was no such agreement in Paris that will stop them from continuing to encourage coal-based generation of power.

The Minister has stated that India is giving a big push to renewable energy and their plans are to use renewable energy manifold times. He highlighted that the country has sufficient capacity of thermal power plants and there was a push on renewable energy also to ensure that clean energy is produced. He noted that the government has planned to take up to one lakh MW of power production from solar energy by 2022, which is five times the current levels. He added that the country also plans to produce up to 1.75 lakh MW of wind energy.

Goyal further said that old thermal power plants consumed a lot of water for power production as they used the old open cycle cooling technology, under which 120 litres of water was used per unit of energy produced. He noted that more than 90 percent of power plants set up are on new technology. He said that at present, around 12,000 MW of power plants are continuing to work on open cycle cooling technology, which are largely state power units and government of India is not in a position to force their shutting. However, the Centre is in constant touch with states in this regard.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 9220.30, up by 38.85 points or 0.42% after trading in a range of 9172.85 and 9237.60. There were 36 stocks advancing against 15 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were ITC up by 2.28%, Infosys up by 1.43%, BPCL up by 1.31%, ICICI Bank up by 1.13% and Yes Bank up by 1.11%. On the flip side, Tata Power down by 3.85%, Adani Ports &Special down by 3.62%, Zee Entertainment down by 2.25%, Tata Steel down by 1.20% and Cipla down by 0.99% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Hang Seng decreased 195.1 points or 0.8% to 24,067.08, Taiwan Weighted declined 50.12 points or 0.51% to 9,832.42, Nikkei 225 dipped 50.01 points or 0.27% to 18,747.87, KOSPI Index decreased 9.47 points or 0.44% to 2,123.85 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was down by 4.99 points or 0.29% to 1,734.53.

On the flip side, Jakarta Composite increased 1.62 points or 0.03% to 5,645.92 and Shanghai Composite was up by 4.86 points or 0.15% to 3,274.25.