The Indian market rallied in the last session and the benchmarks touched new record highs on earnings optimism. Today, the start of the holiday truncated week is likely to be in green on positive global cues and traders on domestic front will be getting encouragement with report that India's exports recorded a robust growth of 25.67 percent to $ 28.61 billion in September, mainly on account of rise in shipments of engineering, chemicals, and petroleum products. Imports too rose by 18.09 percent to $ 37.59 billion in September from $ 31.83 billion in the year-ago month and the trade deficit narrowed to 7-month low of $ 8.98 billion in the month under review from $ 9.07 billion in September 2016. Also there will be some support with IMF chief Christine Lagarde’s statement, who just days after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) slashed India's GDP growth rate to 6.7 percent in 2017, slower than the 7.2% it had forecast in April, has said that the Indian economy is on a firm footing. Meanwhile, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said that he never talked about any stimulus package for boosting economy. Noting that his government had inherited a huge fiscal deficit just three-and-a-half years ago of 4.6 per cent, he said that gradually India has been moving on a glide path, which will continue. There will be lots of result reactions, while there will be buzz from the primary markets too, as the Godrej Agrovet will make its debut today, the initial public offer was oversubscribed 95.41 times.
The US markets bounced back and ended higher in the last session, supported by some upbeat economic data, including a Commerce Department report showing a substantial increase in retail sales in the month of September. The Asian markets have made a green start with some indices trading higher by about a percent in early deals after inflation data in the U.S. added to evidence that global growth is continuing steadily with limited price pressures in the American economy.
Back home, extending previous session’s rally, boisterous benchmarks once again showcased an enthusiastic performance on Friday, with frontline gauges surpassing their crucial 32,400 (Sensex) and 10,150 (Nifty) levels on sustained buying by fund and retail investors ahead of Diwali. Sentiments remained jubilant since start, as key bourses made a gap up opening and traded with traction through the session. Sentiments remained up-beat with traders taking encouragement from double dose of good economic news. India's industrial production grew at a nine-month high of 4.3% in August due to good performance of mining, electricity and capital goods sectors, while the retail inflation declined to 3.28% in September, compared to 4.39% during the same month last year and 3.36% in the previous month. Adding to the optimism, the International Monetary Fund lauded government’s recent efforts to lower the compliance burden under the Goods and Services Tax, but it also said that efforts should also be made to lower the tax slabs and minimise exemptions. Some support also came after the World Bank chief said that the reforms undertaken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi have been significant and the results would be reflected in the mid and long-term growth figures, days after the global lender forecast that India’s GDP may slowdown to 7% in 2017. Investors took note of CRISIL’s report which highlighted that banks are likely to need nearly Rs 3.3 lakh crore this fiscal as provisioning for large NPA accounts in the current financial year. The report said with the economic value of assets underlying NPAs eroding with time, and resolutions are hard to come by, banks would need to step up on provisioning, mainly for large corporate NPAs. However, small amount of profit booking which took place in dying hour of trade pulled markets to end off day’s high. Finally, the BSE Sensex surged 250.47 points or 0.78% to 32,432.69, while the CNX Nifty was up by 71.05 points or 0.70% to 10,167.45.
