Benchmarks trade in fine fettle in early deals

Indian equity benchmarks have made a positive start and are trading in fine fettle in early deals on Friday. Sentiments remained up-beat with NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Arvind Panagariya’s statement that India will regain the crown of the fastest growing major economy, overtaking China, as early as the first quarter of 2017-18. He said that India, on an annual basis, is ahead of China and will regain the growth momentum soon on the back of host of reforms initiated by the Modi government in the last three years. Traders also took some encouragement with the Moody’s Investors Service stating that India’s key reforms, including the impending goods and services tax and resolution of sticky loans may improve the country’s credit profile.

Global cues too remained supportive with Asian markets trading mostly in green at this point of time led by the rally in the Japanese market, which topped 20,000 for the first time since 2015, as the yen weakened after private American hiring data bolstered confidence in the global economy. The US markets rebounded in last session supported by some upbeat economic data that offset the weakness seen in the two previous sessions.

Back home, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley while maintaining that the decline in fourth quarter GDP print cannot be attributed to demonetisation alone has said that India growing at 7-8 percent is ‘fairly reasonable’ in the current global context. Select stocks from realty sector edged higher, as the government has set a target of constructing 51 lakh houses by March 2018 to reach halfway towards its goal of building 1crore houses by 2019.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 31224.44, up by 86.85 points or 0.28% after trading in a range of 31190.40 and 31332.56. There were 20 stocks advancing against 10 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index gained 0.44%, while Small cap index was up by 0.35%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Telecom up by 1.95%, Consumer Durables up by 0.84%, Healthcare up by 0.81%, TECK up by 0.60% and Utilities up by 0.50%, while Metal down by 0.44%, Capital Goods down by 0.14% and Realty down by 0.01% were the few losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bharti Airtel up by 3.45%, Cipla up by 1.49%, Hero MotoCorp up by 1.47%, NTPC up by 1.44% and Tata Motors up by 1.39%. On the flip side, Hindustan Unilever down by 1.10%, Tata Steel down by 1.04%, Power Grid down by 0.91%, ICICI Bank down by 0.70% and Bajaj Auto down by 0.56% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, after India’s economic growth slipped to 6.1% for the fourth quarter of FY17, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, dismissing notion that it was on account of demonetisation, has said that several factors including the global situation were responsible for downtrend of gross domestic product (GDP) growth and said that slowdown in the fourth quarter was due to both domestic and global factors.

Finance minister pointed that some slowdown was visible even prior to demonetisation of Rs 500/1000 currency notes announced by the government on November 8 last year. He added that there are several factors which can contribute to GDP in a particular quarter. Finance Minister also said that Indian economy is growing at a fairly decent pace and 7-8% is fairly reasonable level of growth and very good by global standard and Indian standard. He further said ‘I see no reason that there would be adverse impact of goods and services tax (GST) on GDP. GST by itself should normally add to the growth.’

Referring to the challenges, Jaitley said the major ones include resolving the issue of bad loans in the banking sector and encouraging private sector investment. He admitted that resolving the issue of non-performing assets weighing down banks’ balance sheets is a major challenge for the government. Besides, India lost the tag of the fastest growing economy to China in the March quarter with a GDP growth of 6.1%, which pulled down the 2016-17 expansion to 7.1%.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 9644.65, up by 28.55 points or 0.30% after trading in a range of 9639.05 and 9673.50. There were 34 stocks advancing against 17 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Bharti Airtel up by 3.68%, Hero MotoCorp up by 1.73%, Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone up by 1.56%, Cipla up by 1.54% and Tata Motors up by 1.27%. On the flip side, Hindustan Unilever down by 1.07%, Vedanta down by 1.04%, Hindalco down by 0.94%, Power Grid down by 0.82% and Tata Steel down by 0.78% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in green; FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI increased 8.91 points or 0.51% to 1,772.02, KOSPI Index surged 22.02 points or 0.94% to 2,366.63, Taiwan Weighted gained 44.11 points or 0.44% to 10,131.53, Hang Seng added 105.59 points or 0.41% to 25,914.81 and Nikkei 225 was up by 359.5 points or 1.81% to 20,219.53.

On the flip side, Shanghai Composite decreased 8.16 points or 0.26% to 3,094.46 and Jakarta Composite was down by 4.71 points or 0.08% to 5,733.45.