Benchmarks trade jubilantly in early deals; Sensex surpasses 29,800 mark

Indian equity benchmarks have made a gap-up opening and are trading jubilantly in early deals on Tuesday with frontline gauges surpassing their crucial 29,800 (Sensex) and 9,250 (Nifty) levels. Sentiments remained upbeat, as the Bihar assembly in a special session unanimously passed the Goods and Services Tax Bill, 2017. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said the consensus on Goods and Services Tax (GST) reflects the spirit of ‘one nation, one aspiration, one determination’. Traders also took some encouragement with Reliance Industries numbers, which beating the estimates reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 8,046 crore for the January-March 2017 quarter, up 12.3 per cent from the corresponding period last year, on the back of rebound in global crude oil prices and excellent refining margins.

Global cues too supported sentiments with most of the Asian counters trading in green at this point of time, led by the Japanese market which is up by around a percent after Bank of Japan said that corporate service prices in Japan came in line with expectations and were up 0.8 percent on year in March. The US markets rallied in the last session taking cues from the French voting, when investors breathed a sigh of relief after a centrist candidate emerged as the favorite to become France's next president.

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. Stocks related to software space edged higher, as the US has said that it greatly values investments by Indian companies and wants strong economic ties between the two nations, days after finance minister Arun Jaitley raised the issue of restrictions on H-1B visa with his American counterpart. The market breadth remained in favour of advances, as there were 1,384 shares on the gaining side against 783 shares on the losing side while 67 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 29,801.57, up by 145.73 points or 0.49% after trading in a range of 29780.84 and 29841.39. There were 23 stocks advancing against 7 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index jumped 0.76%, while Small cap index was up by 0.62%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 1.37%, Energy up by 1.32%, Oil & Gas up by 1.25%, Telecom up by 1.08% and Capital Goods up by 0.98%, while there were no losers on the BSE sectoral front.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Mahindra & Mahindra up by 2.00%, Reliance Industries up by 1.60%, Power Grid up by 1.32%, ICICI Bank up by 1.23% and Wipro was up by 1.14%. On the flip side, Adani Ports down by 0.77%, TCS down by 0.38%, ITC down by 0.31%, ONGC down by 0.28% and Cipla was down by 0.15% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, a day after a US official accused top Indian IT firms TCS and Infosys of unfairly cornering the lion's share of H-1B visas by putting extra tickets in the lottery system, Indian IT industry body Nasscom has rebutted the claims and contesting the numbers has said that Indian software firms accounted for less than 20% of the 65,000 work permits issued annually.

While, the White House official cited Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) as examples of companies using a large share of H-1B visas through the lottery system, Nasscom said that these companies received 7,504 approved H-1B visas, accounting for only 8.8% of the H-1B visas in FY15. The IT body further said that only 6 of the top 20 H-1B recipients were Indian companies

Nasscom backed its counter with US data, claiming that all Indian IT companies cumulatively accounted for less than 20% of the total approved H-1B visas, adding that there was documented shortfall between the supply and demand for computer science majors in the US workforce, especially in cutting-edge fields such as cloud, big data, and mobile computing.

The recent restrictive policies of the US government on the H-1B visa programme have impacted the number of applications. The number of applicants seeking H-1B visas dropped by 16% for 2017-18, with the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) receiving 199,000 petitions for the year; applications are received in April to be processed for the current year. The US Department of Labor estimates that there will be 2.4 million unfilled STEM jobs by 2018, with 50% of these vacancies in IT-related positions.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 9,258.05, up by 40.10 points or 0.44% after trading in a range of 9250.35 and 9279.80. There were 39 stocks advancing against 12 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Bharti Infratel up by 2.76%, BPCL up by 2.62%, Indian Oil Corporation up by 2.22%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.97% and Reliance Industries was up by 1.57%. On the flip side, Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 1.01%, Adani Ports & SEZ down by 0.85%, ACC down by 0.75%, Eicher Motors down by 0.63% and ITC was down by 0.51% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in green; FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI rose 3.4 points or 0.19% to 1,759.45, Shanghai Composite gained 13.14 points or 0.42% to 3,142.67, KOSPI Index increased 13.99 points or 0.64% to 2,187.73, Taiwan Weighted jumped 67.78 points or 0.7% to 9,785.73, Nikkei 225 added 151.47 points or 0.8% to 19,027.35 and Hang Seng was up by 227.5 points or 0.94% to 24,366.98.

On the flip side, Jakarta Composite decreased 5.33 points or 0.09% to 5,659.15.