Markets continue to hold gains in afternoon deal

Indian equity benchmarks continued to hold their earlier gains of around half a per cent each in afternoon session despite weak Asian cues. The markets got some support with International Monetary Fund’s (IMF’s) report that India’s growth outlook has improved as the impact of last year’s demonetization exercise seems to be fading and recent key structural reforms continue to pay off. Adding the optimism among investors, the study done by ASSOCHAM-Ashvin Parekh Advisory Services showed that the industry is expected to contribute $280 billion to India’s GDP in eight to nine years due to a positive fallout of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) as structural changes in the ease of doing business will propel growth. Moreover, the gains in Realty, PSU and FMCG stocks also provided support to the domestic equity benchmarks. However, some caution prevailed ahead of this week's G20 summit and Friday's U.S. jobs report. In scrip specific development, NIIT was up by over three percent after forming a strategic relationship with Cornerstone OnDemand, a global leader in cloud-based learning and human capital management software.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in red, after minutes from the Federal Reserve's last meeting showed a lack of consensus on the future pace of US interest rate increases, while oil prices inched higher following a steep decline a day earlier. Back home, the BSE Sensex is currently trading at 31405.54, up by 159.98 points or 0.51% after trading in a range of 31264.86 and 31428.03. There were 20 stocks advancing against 11 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.54%, while Small cap index was up by 0.84%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 2.34%, PSU up by 0.88%, FMCG up by 0.74%, Industrials up by 0.70% and Telecom up by 0.60%, while Oil & Gas down by 0.26%, Utilities down by 0.24%, Consumer Durables down by 0.22% and IT down by 0.14% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were SBI up by 2.71%, Coal India up by 1.68%, ITC up by 1.48%, HDFC up by 1.20% and Tata Motors up by 1.19%. On the flip side, Bajaj Auto down by 1.47%, ONGC down by 1.14%, NTPC down by 0.50%, Sun Pharma down by 0.48% and Axis Bank down by 0.44% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Union Minister of State for Power, Coal, New & Renewable Energy and Mines, Piyush Goyal has launched the ‘Merit Order Dispatch of Electricity for Rejuvenation of Income and Transparency (MERIT) app’ and the e-bidding portal for providing e-Bidding solution to States to select Independent Power Producers (IPPs), which would entail savings of nearly Rs 20,000 crore to consumers in the coming five years. Both the initiatives were taken for procurement of power by transferring their domestic coal under the scheme of flexibility in utilization of domestic coal.

The advantage of MERIT app included empowerment of the Consumer and participative governance, transparent information dissemination pertaining to marginal variable cost and source wise purchase of electricity and promotes economy and efficiency in operations. Besides, it would also help understand the utility portfolio and its complexity and optimization of the power procurement costs and would also facilitate renewable integration and handling of the variability and uncertainty of renewable.

Moreover, the app would also indicate about supply side reliability, adequacy, and co and the flexibility in utilization of domestic coal scheme envisages transferring coal to more efficient IPPs generating stations, leading to lower generation costs and ultimately lesser cost of electricity for the consumers. Besides, the e-Bidding portal, which has been designed to facilitate States in inviting bids for procurement of power from the prospective IPPs in transparent and fair manner. The successful bidder shall be selected through an e-reverse bid process.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 9680.65, up by 43.05 points or 0.45% after trading in a range of 9639.95 and 9682.85. There were 31 stocks advancing against 20 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were SBI up by 2.67%, Bank of Baroda up by 2.46%, Indiabulls Housing Finance up by 2.06%, Coal India up by 1.72% and ITC up by 1.37%. On the flip side, Bajaj Auto down by 1.49%, ONGC down by 1.20%, GAIL India down by 0.90%, Indian Oil Corp. down by 0.74% and Bharti Infratel down by 0.67% were the top losers.

The Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Nikkei 225 decreased 87.57 points or 0.44% to 19,994.06, Hang Seng shed 41.87 points or 0.16% to 25,480.10, Taiwan Weighted was down by 36.59 points or 0.35% to 10,368.20, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI declined 1.79 points or 0.1% to 1,766.37 and KOSPI Index dipped 0.54 points or 0.02% to 2,387.81.

On the flip side, Shanghai Composite increased 4.03 points or 0.13% to 3,211.16 and Jakarta Composite rose 17.55 points or 0.3% to 5,842.60.