Indian bourses continue to trade in positive territory

Key benchmark indices continued to trade in positive territory in early afternoon session, on buying by investors amid firm trend in Asian markets. The sentiments remained on positive note with RBI Governor Urjit Patel’s statement that the economy is recovering, after growth slowed to a three-year low of 5.7 percent in the April-June quarter. He added that the GDP growth will pick up in the third and fourth quarters (of the current fiscal year) to above 7 per cent. Moreover, healthy buying which was witnessed in Energy, Utilities and IT stocks also helped key indices to trade with gains. However, gains were limited as investors remained caution ahead the release of macro-economic data on October 12. In scrip specific development, South Indian Bank fell over six and half percent after reporting 96.09% fall in its net profit at Rs 4.32 crore for second quarter ended September 30, 2017 as compared to Rs 110.52 crore for the same quarter in the previous year.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in green, as investors shrugged off the weak cues overnight from Wall Street and looked ahead of the start of the earnings season this week. Back home, the BSE Sensex is currently trading at 31934.47, up by 87.58 points or 0.28% after trading in a range of 31898.20 and 31994.77. There were 19 stocks advancing against 11 stocks declining on the index, while 1 stock remained unchanged.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.72%, while Small cap index was up by 0.82%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Energy up by 0.90%, Utilities up by 0.85%, IT up by 0.81%, Power up by 0.64% and Capital Goods up by 0.61%, while Realty down by 0.36%, Metal down by 0.23%, Telecom down by 0.18% and FMCG down by 0.08% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Lupin up by 2.36%, Reliance Industries up by 1.59%, Infosys up by 1.42%, Power Grid up by 1.24% and Coal India up by 0.80%. On the flip side, Bharti Airtel down by 1.38%, Tata Steel down by 0.87%, Hindustan Unilever down by 0.83%, Tata Motors down by 0.74% and ICICI Bank down by 0.68% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, India’s pharmaceutical exports has registered a negative growth of 4 percent during the first five months of the financial year 2017-18, mainly due to increased regulatory issues along with pricing pressure in global markets. Udaya Bhaskar, the Director General of the Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council of India (Pharmexcil), has said that the pharma exports to other countries declined by 7.9 percent during the April-July period, while recovered to 4 percent in the month of August leaving the overall growth at minus 4 percent till August this year.

Bhaskar has pointed out that pricing pressure is one of the factors for decline in exports. He also noted that factors such as import alerts by US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) on Indian plants, regulatory issues and currency fluctuation, also contributed to downward growth. However, he hoped that the overall exports will recover and come into positive zone for the full year as exports are expected to take an uptick from September.

Pharmexcil’s Director General further said that initially, rollout of Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime also created some confusion among the manufacturers leading to stoppage of production by some companies, but now they are seeing some growth. According to statistics, India exported $16.90 billion worth of pharma products during 2015-16 and the same was slightly declined to $16.64 billion in 2016-17.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 10015.80, up by 27.05 points or 0.27% after trading in a range of 10002.55 and 10034.00. There were 30 stocks advancing against 20 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Lupin up by 2.32%, UPL up by 1.95%, Reliance Industries up by 1.60%, Power Grid up by 1.42% and Infosys up by 1.39%. On the flip side, Vedanta down by 0.80%, Tata Motors down by 0.75%, Zee Entertainment down by 0.75%, Hindustan Unilever down by 0.74% and Tata Steel down by 0.72% were the top losers.

The Asian markets were trading mostly in green; Shanghai Composite increased 3.09 points or 0.09% to 3,377.47, KOSPI Index rose 39.34 points or 1.64% to 2,433.81, Hang Seng was up by 120.41 points or 0.43% to 28,447.00 and Nikkei 225 added 132.8 points or 0.64% to 20,823.51.

On the flip side, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 3.36 points or 0.19% to 1,760.67 and Jakarta Composite was down by 0.4 points or 0.01% to 5,914.54.