Benchmarks make gap-up opening; Nifty reclaims 9,900 mark

Indian equity benchmarks have made a gap-up opening and are trading in fine fettle in early deals on Monday, with frontline gauges recapturing their crucial 9,900 (Nifty) and 31,700 (Sensex) levels. Sentiments remained up-beat with industry body Assocham’s statement that biometric cards have facilitated disbursement of as much as Rs 83,184 crore to beneficiaries of Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) schemes without the notorious leakages of the past. Traders also took some encouragement with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s statement that the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana and the related Jan Dhan- Aadhaar and Mobile number (JAM) trinity has the potential to link all Indians into one common financial, economic, and digital space.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in red at this point of time, as investors weighed the damage from Tropical Storm Harvey on U.S. oil refining centers and as the Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen failed to provide clues on monetary-policy tightening, focusing on the topic of financial stability a decade after the onset of the financial crisis. The US markets made a mixed closing in the last session, with tech-heavy Nasdaq ending marginally in the red.

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. Report that Nandan Nilekani returned to Infosys as non-executive chairman, promising to bring back stability to the beleaguered company following the exit of Vishal Sikka as CEO, too aided sentiments. The market breadth remained in favor of advances, as there were 1,307 shares on the gaining side against 544 shares on the losing side while 84 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 31740.75, up by 144.69 points or 0.46% after trading in a range of 31701.67 and 31775.06. There were 22 stocks advancing against 9 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index gained 0.57%, while Small cap index was up by 0.71%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were IT up by 1.09%, Realty up by 1.08%, Healthcare up by 0.96%, TECK up by 0.96% and Power up by 0.80%, while there were no losers on the BSE sectoral front.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Infosys up by 3.15%, Sun Pharma up by 1.94%, NTPC up by 1.86%, Adani Ports up by 1.82% and Cipla up by 1.15%. On the flip side, TCS down by 1.16%, Power Grid down by 0.80%, Dr. Reddy’s Lab down by 0.62%, Bajaj Auto down by 0.51% and Mahindra & Mahindra down by 0.23% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, amidst the debate on possible fall-outs of the Supreme Court judgement pronouncing privacy as fundamental right, the industry body Assocham has highlighted the significance of Aadhaar and said that biometric cards have facilitated disbursement of as much as Rs 83,184 crore to beneficiaries of Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) schemes without the notorious leakages of the past.

The industry body in an ASSOCHAM-Thought Arbitrage Report Card of three years of the Narendra Modi Government, pointed that “Real benefit of Jan Dhan and Aadhaar is finally reflected in the number of beneficiaries of government DBT schemes. The amount of funds transferred under DBT schemes between 1st January 2013 and 31st March 2017 is Rs 83183.79 crores but the real achievement lies not in the amount disbursed, rather in the fact that these amounts were disbursed with minimum leakages or malpractices and that is important in terms of good governance.”

The report card also noted that the ‘Prime Minister Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY)’  is the back bone of financial inclusion, and the first step of creating bank accounts for hitherto uncovered population has been done quite efficiently within a short span of time.   Even the Brookings Institute in its Financial and Digital Inclusion Report has rated India with among the top countries on score with high government commitment and regulatory environment but in their view adoption of financial and digital inclusion needs to be enhanced. 

It also pointed that total savings under DBT has been Rs 49,500 crores till December 2016. DBT savings have been highest under the PaHaL scheme, amounting to Rs 26,408 crores till December 2016 and said that Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) schemes have resulted into weeding out 3.34 crore duplicate consumers under PaHAL and a further 2.33 crore ration cards being deleted, bringing transparency in governance of subsidy.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 9908.85, up by 51.80 points or 0.53% after trading in a range of 9882.00 and 9909.25. There were 40 stocks advancing against 11 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Infosys up by 3.36%, Eicher Motors up by 2.76%, Sun Pharma up by 2.15%, NTPC up by 2.13% and Adani Ports up by 2.08%. On the flip side, Power Grid down by 1.27%, TCS down by 1.19%, BPCL down by 0.83%, Indiabulls Housing down by 0.50% and Dr. Reddy’s Lab down by 0.44% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Nikkei 225 slipped 20.84 points or 0.11% to 19,431.77, Taiwan Weighted decreased 10.33 points or 0.1% to 10,505.18, Jakarta Composite shed 9.78 points or 0.17% to 5,905.58 and KOSPI Index was down by 9.16 points or 0.39% to 2,369.35.

On the flip side, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI rose 1.47 points or 0.08% to 1,770.64, Shanghai Composite increased 28.65 points or 0.86% to 3,360.17 and Hang Seng was up by 155.2 points or 0.56% to 28,003.36.