Indian markets continue to trade firm; Nifty above 9250 mark

Indian equity benchmarks have managed to hold on to the initial momentum in the noon session of trade, as cheerful leads from the local as well as the global front continue to fortify investors conviction. A win for the pro-EU presidential candidate in the first round of French elections triggered a relief rally globally. Polls show Emmanuel Macron defeating anti-euro nationalist Marine Le Pen by as much as 30% points in the second round of the French presidential election in two weeks. On the domestic front, sentiments got some support with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s statement that India will continue to grow at 7-8 per cent rate, an 'absolute normal' for the nation under the current global environment. Jaitley also said as far as the economy is concerned, all the decisions taken by the Modi-Government are consistently in one direction.  Further, paving the way for July 1 roll out of the GST, 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’. Moreover, march-quarter earnings of index heavyweight Reliance Industries (RIL) came in better than street expectations, adding to the sentiments. For the March quarter, RIL’s consolidated net profit rose 12.3% to Rs 8,046 crore, against Rs 7,167 crore for the same period a year ago. Its turnover in the March quarter rose 45.2% year-on-year to Rs 92,889 crore, largely meeting street expectations for net profit. Meanwhile, investors will now look out for the 23 companies, which will report their earnings today. These include IT major Wipro and a number of financial institutions, like IDFC Bank, M&M Financial, LIC Housing Finance and ICICI Prudential Life, among others.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly higher on Tuesday, following strong cues from Wall Street overnight as encouraging results from the French presidential election helped ease worries over political instability in Europe. However, investors are cautious as they kept an eye on North Korea, which is marking the 85th anniversary of the Korean People's Army on Tuesday, amid news that the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier-led battle group is nearing the Korean peninsula. Meanwhile, Safe-haven assets, including the yen and gold remained under pressure, while the Canadian dollar fell after the US announced new duties averaging 20% on Canadian softwood lumber imports. The Canadian currency tumbled to a four-month low as the US dollar strengthened 0.4 per cent to C$1.3554.

Back home, all BSE sectoral indices were trading in the green. Among them, Telecom index gained the most, followed by Energy, Oil & Gas and Realty. In scrip specific development, Bharat Heavy Electricals (BHEL) gained after the company bagged its largest ever export order worth Rs 10,000 crore, for setting up 1,320 MW (2x660 MW) Maitree super thermal power project in Bangladesh. Furthermore, Tata Metaliks gained after the company reported a rise of 5.08% in its net profit at Rs 40.36 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2017 as compared to Rs 38.41 crore for the same quarter in the previous year.

The market breadth remained optimistic, as there were 1550 shares on the gaining side against 1017 shares on the losing side, while 124 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 29848.72, up by 192.88 points or 0.65% after trading in a range of 29780.84 and 29851.60. 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 0.96%, while Small cap index up by 0.81%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Telecom up by 3.14%, Energy up by 1.42%, Oil & Gas up by 1.36%, Realty up by 1.21% and Capital Goods up by 0.97%, while there were no losers on BSE sectoral front.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bharti Airtel up by 4.44%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 3.29%, Reliance Industries up by 1.78%, ICICI Bank up by 1.12% and Power Grid up by 1.07%. On the flip side, NTPC down by 1.11%, TCS down by 0.82%, ONGC down by 0.30%, Adani Ports & SEZ down by 0.23% and Cipla down by 0.13% 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 has 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 9274.20, up by 56.25 points or 0.61% after trading in a range of 9250.35 and 9279.80. There were 40 stocks advancing against 11 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Bharti Airtel up by 3.93%, Bharti Infratel up by 3.20%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 3.19%, BPCL up by 3.10% and IOC up by 2.56%. On the flip side, Eicher Motors down by 1.30%, NTPC down by 1.23%, TCS down by 0.78%, Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 0.48% and ACC down by 0.41% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in green; FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI rose 0.19%, Shanghai Composite gained 0.26%, KOSPI Index increased 0.89%, Taiwan Weighted jumped 1.27%, Nikkei 225 added 1.15% and Hang Seng was up by 1.18%. On the flip side, Jakarta Composite decreased 0.07%.