Benchmarks trade in fine fettle in early deals; Nifty reclaims 9,900 mark

Indian equity benchmarks have made a positive start and are trading in fine fettle in early deals on Thursday, with frontline gauges recapturing their crucial 31,800 (Sensex) and 9,900 (Nifty) levels, as traders took some encouragement with the government raising estimate on food grain output for the crop year ended June on an increase in the estimated yields of paddy and wheat. Traders also reacted positively to minutes from the last meeting of Monetary Policy Committee whose members said easing inflation had supported the need for a rate cut at its August meeting, but warned consumer prices could start accelerating. Some support also came with report that American think-tank Council on Foreign Relations’ Senior Fellow for India Alyssa Ayers has said that the country has emerged as a strong world power but still has 'a long way to go'.

Positive cues from global markets too aided sentiments with most of the Asian peers trading in green at this point of time led by technology shares. The US markets moved higher in the last session, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up for a fourth day despite political turmoil in Washington DC.

Back home, there was broad based buying witnessed in the markets and apart from the blue chips, the broader markets too participated strongly in the rally. The market breadth remained in favor of advances, as there were 1,349 shares on the gaining side against 457 shares on the losing side while 61 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 31832.22, up by 61.33 points or 0.19% after trading in a range of 31783.82 and 31937.51. There were 17 stocks advancing against 14 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index gained 0.64%, while Small cap index was up by 0.94%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Metal up by 1.94%, IT up by 1.75%, TECK up by 1.51%, Realty up by 1.35% and Energy was up by 1.12%, while FMCG down by 0.25%, Bankex down by 0.22% and Auto was down by 0.01% were the few losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Coal India up by 3.71%, Infosys up by 3.68%, Reliance Industries up by 1.39%, Dr. Reddys Lab up by 1.27% and Bharti Airtel up by 0.72%. On the flip side, Hindustan Unilever down by 1.34%, Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 0.99%, HDFC down by 0.72%, HDFC Bank down by 0.56% and Cipla down by 0.54% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the power ministry after the  completion of more than 18 months of operation of Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana (UDAY) scheme for revival of debt-stressed discoms, launched in November, 2015 has said that the debt-laden power distribution companies (DISCOMs) in states which participated in this scheme have achieved net savings of approximately Rs 15,000 crore till March 2017. It added that the Average Cost of Supply (ACS) and Average Revenue Realised (ARR) gaps have come down by almost 14 paise per unit and the aggregate technical and commercial (AT&C) losses have reduced by almost 1 percent in fiscal 2017.

The ministry said these states have taken over the targeted debt of Rs 2.09 lakh crore of their Discoms under borrowing exemption from the FRBM Act given in UDAY for the years 2015-16 and 2016-17. The process of states taking over the targeted debts and issuing them as SDL Bonds has now been completed. As of now, the participating discoms have to issue Bonds worth approximately Rs 37,000 crores, which would be done in due course. Rest of the debt with discoms is mostly in the nature of capex, which pays for itself, or Scheme based debt, which converts into grants fully or partially. Thus, they are not required to be taken over by the States.

As per the provisions of the UDAY Scheme, the states would start taking over losses of discoms in a graded manner from now on, starting with taking over 5 percent of the losses of FY17 from the current financial year. The ministry further said that continued, concerted and coordinated efforts by the Centre, States and discoms, in the spirit of cooperative and competitive federalism, would help turn around the Distribution Sector by fiscal 2019.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 9923.65, up by 26.35 points or 0.27% after trading in a range of 9900.40 and 9947.80. There were 27 stocks advancing against 22 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Infosys up by 3.91%, Vedanta up by 3.42%, Coal India up by 3.28%, Bank of Baroda up by 2.62% and Tech Mahindra up by 2.01%. On the flip side, Hindustan Unilever down by 1.31%, Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 0.89%, HDFC down by 0.78%, Zee Entertainment down by 0.67% and HDFC Bank down by 0.62% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in green; FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI rose 0.99 points or 0.06% to 1,774.74, KOSPI Index increased 12.25 points or 0.52% to 2,360.51, Shanghai Composite gained 12.46 points or 0.38% to 3,258.91 and Taiwan Weighted was up by 75.58 points or 0.73% to 10,365.97.

On the flip side, Nikkei 225 decreased 13.99 points or 0.07% to 19,715.29 and Hang Seng was down by 0.41 points or 0% to 27,408.66.