Benchmarks continue firm trade in noon session

Indian equity benchmarks continued to trade firm in noon session as hopes of a good monsoon and continued liquidity inflows kept investors’ sentiments upbeat. India looks likely to receive above average monsoon rainfall as concern over the El Nino weather condition has eased in the past few weeks, the chief of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Tuesday, raising prospects of higher farm and economic growth. El Nino, a warming of ocean surface temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific that typically occurs every few years and was linked to crop damage, fires and flash floods, faded in 2016. Sentiments also got a leg up after data showed that foreign funds, which were net sellers on the Indian bourses for the past few sessions, made fresh purchases in yesterday’s trade. Foreign institutional investors bought shares worth Rs 333 crore in Tuesday’s session. Some support also came with the report that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has reviewed progress of key infrastructure sectors including petroleum and natural gas, power, renewable energy and housing. The Prime Minister called for greater emphasis on ethanol blending, and evolution of mechanisms so that farmers can benefit the most from this process.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mixed on Wednesday as investors focused on strong corporate earnings and the dollar gave back some of its recent gains. Japanese market is modestly higher, following the mixed cues from Wall Street while a weaker yen lifted exporters’ shares. Korean stocks led losers as investors took profits after South Korea’s liberal leader Moon Jae-in was elected president. Meanwhile, US markets made a mixed closing in last session, as the traders remained on sidelines ahead of key economic data releases. Hope that US President Donald Trump will cut corporate and personal taxes too remained in focus for investors. Further, European stocks are set to follow Asia’s example, with major indices set for a broadly flat start according to index futures.

Back home, stocks from Telecom, FMCG and Healthcare counters were supporting the markets’ uptrend, while those from Realty and IT counters were adding to the underlying cautious undertone. In scrip specific development, Natco Pharma gained after the company launched a generic version of pomalidomide 1 mg, 2 mg, and 4 mg capsules in India. Furthermore, Jubilant Life Sciences surged after the company restarted its manufacturing operations at Gajraula in Uttar Pradesh, except distillery unit.

The market breadth remained optimistic, as there were 1516 shares on the gaining side against 1001 shares on the losing side, while 146 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 30152.56, up by 219.31 points or 0.73% after trading in a range of 29987.44 and 30207.13. There were 23 stocks advancing against 7 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.83%, while Small cap index up by 0.76%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Telecom up by 1.87%, FMCG up by 1.70%, Healthcare up by 1.05%, Capital Goods up by 0.98% and Industrials up by 0.95%, while Realty down by 0.60% and IT down by 0.40% were the only losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Hindustan Unilever up by 3.82%, Bharti Airtel up by 3.40%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 2.21%, HDFC up by 2.09% and Cipla up by 1.52%. On the flip side, TCS down by 1.06%, Wipro down by 1.06%, Infosys down by 0.39%, ICICI Bank down by 0.38% and GAIL India down by 0.27% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, government has set up a high-level task force in order to deal with employment data discrepancies and ensure the timely availability of reliable information regarding job creation. The task force will recommend solutions which can be implemented in a time-bound manner. The government attaches the highest priority to job creation.

The Prime Minister Narendra Modi has directed that this task be expedited so that policies on employment can be formulated with a proper appreciation of impacts, based on credible data. India suffers from a lack of reliable, timely data on employment which has made it difficult for policy makers and independent observers to assess the extent of employment generation at different points of time. Some data is collected and published by certain agencies including the Labour Bureau, but the coverage is very small as it covers only a few sectors and the methodology is not based on updated panel of survey respondents.

The task force will be headed by government think tank NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Arvind Panagriya. The other members will include Labour Secretary M Sathiyavathy, Secretary of Statistics TCA Ananth, Pulak Ghosh of NITI Aayog and Manish Sabharwal, chairman of human resource services TeamLease.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 9381.75, up by 64.90 points or 0.70% after trading in a range of 9336.00 and 9392.50. There were 35 stocks advancing against 16 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Hindustan Unilever up by 3.83%, Aurobindo Pharma up by 3.81%, Bharti Airtel up by 3.71%, HDFC up by 2.12% and Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.96%. On the flip side, Ultratech Cement down by 1.38%, Wipro down by 1.26%, Indian Oil Corporation down by 0.96%, TCS down by 0.96% and ACC down by 0.80% were the top losers.

The Asian markets were trading mixed; Taiwan Weighted rose 52.84 points or 0.53% to 9,968.32, Nikkei 225 increased by 61.55 points or 0.31% to 19,904.55 and Hang Seng was by up 193.57 points or 0.78% to 25,082.60.

On the other hand, Jakarta Composite decreased by 18.21 points or 0.32% to 5,678.84, KOSPI Index declined by 18 points or 0.79% to 2,274.76, Shanghai Composite slipped 7.63 points or 0.25% to 3,072.90.