Benchmarks trade in fine fettle; Nifty moves towards 10k mark

Indian equity benchmarks have made a positive start and are trading in fine fettle in early deals, with frontline gauges moving towards their crucial 10,000 (Nifty) and 32,300 (Sensex) levels. Sentiments remained upbeat with report that the government approved an addition of 7.47 lakh new registration applications under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime. However, gains remained capped with traders eyeing the US Federal Reserve’s policy decision later in the day for more clues on its tightening plans.

On the global front, Asian markets were exhibiting mixed trend at this point of time as traders opted to book some of their early gains at higher levels. The US markets came out of their sluggishness in last session and with the upward move on the day, the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 reached new record closing highs.

Back home, power stocks remained on buyers' radar, as the Ministry of Power has said that outstanding liabilities of power distribution companies to central public sector undertaking power producers have halved under the Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana. Moreover, the banking and telecom stocks remained buzzing, as the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said banks have an exposure of Rs 97,681 crore in the telecom sector, which is grappling with financial stress. Total outstanding (funded) advances by public sector banks to the 'communications' sector stood at Rs 63,415 crore, while total exposure to the sector worked out to be Rs 97,681 crore.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 32295.63, up by 67.36 points or 0.21% after trading in a range of 32226.08 and 32311.08. There were 23 stocks advancing against 8 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index gained 0.50%, while Small cap index was up by 0.69%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Metal up by 1.82%, Realty up by 1.08%, Utilities up by 0.99%, Basic Materials up by 0.95% and Power was up by 0.64%, while Telecom down by 0.71%, TECK down by 0.27% and IT was down by 0.08% were the few losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Steel up by 1.89%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.30%, NTPC up by 0.91%, Adani Ports up by 0.91% and ICICI Bank up by 0.89%. On the flip side, Asian Paints down by 1.72%, Axis Bank down by 1.62%, Bharti Airtel down by 0.78%, Bajaj Auto down by 0.42% and TCS down by 0.41% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, for the development of National Highways (NHs) in the country, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has estimated a fund requirement of about Rs 6.92 lakh crore during the next five years. This requirement will be met from the Gross Budgetary Support of the Ministry, the Central Road Fund, Toll remittance, Monetization of National Highways through Toll-Operate-Transfer (TOT) model, external borrowings by National Highway Authority of India and private sector investment.

Minister of State for Road, Transport and Highways, Mansukh Lal Mandavia has said that the estimated fund requirement for development of NHs/roads under various schemes and proposed phase 1 of Bharatmala Pariyojna is about Rs 6,92,324 crore up to financial year 2021-22. The estimated share of private sector investment and expected monetisation through TOT route during this period are about Rs 1,06,000 crore and about Rs 34,000 crore respectively, total of these form about 20.22 percent of total estimated fund requirement of Rs 6,92,324 crore.

The Ministry has identified 208 level crossings on National Highways for construction of Road Over Bridges (ROBs) under Setu Bharatam Scheme and feasibility study of 87 ROB projects has been completed so far. The government has envisaged to increase the existing National Highway network of 1.15 lakh km in the country to 2 lakh km. Besides, the government encourages the use of plastic waste in construction of National Highways specially within 50 km periphery of the urban areas having population of five lakh or more. However, at present, no National Highway has been constructed using plastic waste.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 9987.50, up by 22.95 points or 0.23% after trading in a range of 9965.95 and 9989.55. There were 36 stocks advancing against 15 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Vedanta up by 2.75%, Tata Steel up by 1.98%, Eicher Motors up by 1.79%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.29% and GAIL India up by 1.23%. On the flip side, Bharti Infratel down by 1.65%, Axis Bank down by 1.48%, Asian Paints down by 1.41%, Ambuja Cement down by 1.25% and Zee Entertainment down by 1.13% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mixed; Taiwan Weighted decreased 22.34 points or 0.21% to 10,440.81, Shanghai Composite declined 11.95 points or 0.37% to 3,231.74, KOSPI Index slipped 7.33 points or 0.3% to 2,432.57 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was down by 0.01 points or 0% to 1,763.33.

On the flip side, Jakarta Composite rose 8.65 points or 0.15% to 5,822.18, Hang Seng gained 9.04 points or 0.03% to 26,861.09 and Nikkei 225 was up by 77.93 points or 0.39% to 20,033.13.