Bourses add gains; Healthcare top gainer

Key benchmark indices added some gains in late afternoon session, following a positive opening in European market. Traders continued to take support from a private research that the implementation of the new Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code is expected to give a big push to credit growth as international experience shows that laws to resolves bad assets have helped boost credit growth. Some support also came with the Retailers Association of India’s (RAI) statement that the implementation of goods and service tax (GST) could possibly increase overall benefits for retailers by up to 5% over the next three years. RAI further said that the single window tax will increase the ability to grow sales. Besides, any item can be shipped to any part of the country without the cascading impact of tax. This will in turn ensure availability of items to customers.

On the global front, European markets were trading in green, as investors awaited comments on monetary policy from the Jackson Hole meeting. Asian markets were also trading in green. Back home, in scrip specific development, NIIT gained after the company entered into partnership with EdCast, the award-winning, Al-powered Knowledge Cloud provider with customers that include GE, HPE, Dell EMC and Accenture. The two companies will collaborate in the areas of corporate training and consulting, learning management and administration, and content management and creation for businesses around the world.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 31633.03, up by 65.02 points or 0.21% after trading in a range of 31546.05 and 31678.19. There were 17 stocks advancing against 12 stocks declining on the index, while 2 stocks remained unchanged.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.74%, while Small cap index was up by 0.56%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Healthcare up by 2.66%, IT up by 0.81%, Metal up by 0.70%, TECK up by 0.55% and PSU up by 0.53%, while Realty down by 0.24%, Telecom down by 0.21% and Energy down by 0.11% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Lupin up by 4.32%, Sun Pharma up by 3.53%, Dr. Reddy’s Lab up by 3.35%, Infosys up by 2.21% and Cipla up by 1.87%. On the flip side, Adani Ports & SEZ down by 1.31%, Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 0.98%, Bajaj Auto down by 0.90%, Hindustan Unilever down by 0.88% and Wipro down by 0.46% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, raising concerns over calls of double digit Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Deputy Governor Viral Acharya has said that the faster growth rate is always debt-driven and could crash down at some point with disastrous consequences. Acharya said that “I think, invariably, the episodes of 9 to 10 per cent growth are all laden with massive debt-based funding of some asset class”. He added that, “I get scared when an economy grows at 9 to 10 per cent because it is not that easy to generate sustainable growth of 9 to 10 per cent. You got to have generated tremendous improvement in your productivity in a short period to be able to deliver that kind of growth.”

Acharya further said that the RBI’s hard work with focus on inflation control and other measures to correct the balance sheets of companies and banks is paving the way for more sustainable growth for over next three to five year horizon down the road and he stressed over immediate clean up of balance sheets with an efficient manner to start growing fast in a sustainable way.

The RBI Deputy Governor also said that the country should not expect that private capex will suddenly and quickly come back after giving the large bad assets in the system, noting that it’s too much to expect. However, he hoped that the companies would start investing again.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 9868.90, up by 16.40 points or 0.17% after trading in a range of 9848.85 and 9881.50. There were 25 stocks advancing against 26 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Lupin up by 4.13%, Aurobindo Pharma up by 3.76%, Sun Pharma up by 3.40%, Dr. Reddy’s Lab up by 3.23% and Infosys up by 2.37%.

On the flip side, HCL Tech. down by 1.41%, Adani Ports & SEZ down by 1.29%, ACC down by 1.19%, Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 1.06% and Bajaj Auto down by 1.02% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in green; FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI increased 1.49 points or 0.08% to 1,774.43, KOSPI Index increased 9.44 points or 0.4% to 2,375.84, Taiwan Weighted increased 82.15 points or 0.79% to 10,488.96 and Hang Seng increased 116.93 points or 0.43% to 27,518.60. On the flip side, Nikkei 225 decreased 80.87 points or 0.42% to 19,353.77, Jakarta Composite decreased 34.29 points or 0.58% to 5,879.73 and Shanghai Composite decreased 16.19 points or 0.49% to 3,271.51.

European markets were trading in green; France’s CAC increased 19.15 points or 0.37% to 5,134.54, UK’s FTSE 100 increased 31.16 points or 0.42% to 7,413.81 and Germany’s DAX increased 48.62 points or 0.4% to 12,222.92.