Markets continue to trade jubilantly in afternoon trade

Indian benchmark indices continued to trade jubilantly in afternoon deals on widespread buying encouraged by forecast of a normal monsoon. The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has said that the monsoon this year could be ‘normal’ and bring 100 per cent rainfall instead of 96 per cent it predicted earlier, which is expected to give a booster dose to the rural economy. Domestic sentiment was also buoyed by commerce & industry minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s statement that India’s manufacturing policy will soon be overhauled with the objective of creating more jobs in an environment where technology is rapidly replacing labour.

At present, Sensex and Nifty were trading above the crucial 30,100 and 9,350 levels respectively, with gains of over half a percent. In scrip specific development, Tech Mahindra was up by around one and half percent with its arm launching a chatbot based Caller Ring Back Tone (CRBT) solution to assist subscribers in finding and availing the right content and price points for various offerings.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mixed as investors focused on strong corporate earnings and the dollar gave back some of its recent gains after a rise in political tensions. Back home, the BSE Sensex is currently trading at 30165.12, up by 231.87 points or 0.77% 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 0.76%, while Small cap index was up by 0.80%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Telecom up by 1.95%, FMCG up by 1.62%, Healthcare up by 1.11%, Auto up by 1.05% and Industrials up by 0.96%, while IT down by 0.61%, Realty down by 0.56% and TECK down by 0.12% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Hindustan Unilever up by 3.85%, Bharti Airtel up by 3.53%, HDFC up by 2.26%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 2.09% and Cipla up by 1.55%. On the flip side, TCS down by 1.26%, Wipro down by 1.18%, Infosys down by 0.61%, Asian Paints down by 0.36% and Hero MotoCorp down by 0.26% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, considering reduced likelihood of El-Nino, the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the country's national weather forecaster, has said that the country is likely to receive above average monsoon rainfall this year and noted that it could reach 100 per cent of the long period average (LPA) instead of 96 percent of the LPA as predicted in its earlier forecast on April 18, 2017.

IMD said that it had earlier assessed 96 per cent based on the climatological conditions up to March but things have changed for good since then. Now, conditions are becoming favourable for an improvement over April 18 estimate. It has further stated that Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology too downgraded the occurence of El-Nino this year and they also expect that prospects of monsoon could improve slightly.

IMD Director General K J Ramesh said the recent development on El-Nino indicates that the monsoon could be normal this year and it could reach 100 per cent of the LPA. He said that Indian Ocean dipole, or IOD phenomenon, which counters an El Nino weather event, looks favourable for monsoon rains this year.

India defines average, or normal, rainfall as between 96 percent and 104 percent of the 50-year average and the monsoon delivers about 70 percent of the county's annual rainfall, critical for growing crops such as rice, cane, corn, cotton and soybeans because nearly half of the country's farmland lacks irrigation. Anything between 96 and 104 per cent of the LPA is considered as “normal”. Anything under 96 per cent is considered as “below normal” and 104-110 per cent of the LPA as “above normal”.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 9379.60, up by 62.75 points or 0.67% after trading in a range of 9336.00 and 9392.50. There were 37 stocks advancing against 14 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Aurobindo Pharma up by 3.94%, Hindustan Unilever up by 3.85%, Bharti Airtel up by 3.69%, HDFC up by 2.29% and Eicher Motors up by 2.26%. On the flip side, Ultratech Cement down by 1.83%, Wipro down by 1.40%, TCS down by 1.28%, Indian Oil Corp. down by 1.07% and Yes Bank down by 0.90% were the top losers.

The Asian markets were trading mixed; Taiwan Weighted increased 52.84 points or 0.53% to 9,968.32, Nikkei 225 rose 57.09 points or 0.29% to 19,900.09 and Hang Seng was up by 215.83 points or 0.87% to 25,104.86. On the flip side, KOSPI Index decreased 22.64 points or 0.99% to 2,270.12, Jakarta Composite was down by 17.16 points or 0.3% to 5,679.89 and Shanghai Composite declined 11.88 points or 0.39% to 3,068.64.