Bulls continue to hold their grip on Dalal Street

Bulls continued to hold their grip on Dalal Street with bourses trading with gains of around a percent. Traders were optimism as growth in eight core sectors - coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertilizer, steel, cement and electricity, which comprise nearly 40% of the weight of items included in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), expanded at a faster pace to a six-month high of 5.2% in September 2017, from 4.9% in August. Some support also came with World Bank’s latest report stating that India has jumped 30 spots to number 100 in the latest Ease of Doing Business report for 2018. The report highlighted that India stands out this year as one of the 10 economies that improved the most in the areas measured by Doing Business. The markets participants paid no heed towards the report that growth in India’s manufacturing sector lost momentum in October month. The Nikkei India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index fell from 51.2 in September to 50.3 in October. Meanwhile, investors await the outcome of the US Federal Reserve’s two-day policy meeting later in the session for clues about future tightening.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in green, on optimism about global economic growth after data showed that US consumer confidence in October rose to its highest level in nearly 17 years and as China's Caixin manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index for October matched expectations. Back home, in scrip specific development, Bajaj Finance gained after the company raised funds aggregating to Rs 485 crore through private placement. The Debenture Allotment Committee of the company at its meeting held on October 31, 2017, has allotted 4850 Secured redeemable non-convertibles debentures of face value of Rs 10 lakh each aggregating to Rs 485 crore.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 33589.88, up by 376.75 points or 1.13% after trading in a range of 33340.62 and 33595.74. There were 25 stocks advancing against 6 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.85%, while Small cap index was up by 0.90%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Telecom up by 4.01%, Realty up by 3.55%, Bankex up by 2.09%, Metal up by 1.68% and FMCG up by 1.14%, while IT down by 0.12% was the lone losing index on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bharti Airtel up by 7.11%, ICICI Bank up by 5.02%, SBI up by 3.27%, Axis Bank up by 2.66% and HDFC up by 1.89%. On the flip side, Dr. Reddy’s Lab down by 2.44%, TCS down by 1.08%, Power Grid Corporation down by 0.35%, ONGC down by 0.31% and Maruti Suzuki down by 0.30% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, India’s fiscal deficit, the gap between expenditure and revenue, in the first half of financial year 2018 (H1 FY18), touched 91.3% of the budget estimate (BE), mainly because of increase in expenditure. As per the data released by the Controller General of Accounts, in absolute terms, the fiscal deficit was Rs 4.99 trillion during the April-September period of 2017-18. It also showed that during the same period of last financial year, the deficit was 83.9% of the target.

For the current fiscal, the government aims to further bring down the fiscal deficit to 3.2% of the gross domestic product (GDP). Revenue deficit during the last fiscal was 3.5% of GDP. As per the data, the government’s revenue receipts were at Rs 6.23 trillion in the first six month of the current fiscal, which amounts to 41.1% of the BE of Rs 15.15 trillion for the whole year. In the comparable period last fiscal, revenue receipts comprising taxes and other items were 41.2% of the target.

The CGA data further revealed that the government’s total expenditure had been increasing on sequential basis and totalled Rs11.49 lakh crore at September-end or 53.5% of the budget estimates. It was 52% of the budget estimate a year ago. Besides, it noted that capital expenditure during April-September 2017-18 was only 47.3% of BE as compared to 54.7% in the same period of last fiscal. It also indicated that the revenue expenditure, including interest payment, was 54.6% of the BE during April-Septemer 2017-18. This compares with 51.6% in the corresponding period of 2016-17.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 10434.70, up by 99.40 points or 0.96% after trading in a range of 10383.05 and 10437.55. There were 37 stocks advancing against 13 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Bharti Airtel up by 7.30%, ICICI Bank up by 4.85%, SBI up by 3.20%, Axis Bank up by 2.70% and Vedanta up by 2.26%. On the flip side, Dr. Reddy’s Lab down by 2.34%, UPL down by 1.83%, TCS down by 1.41%, HCL Tech down by 1.16% and Indiabulls Housing Finance down by 0.94% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in green; Jakarta Composite increased 9.43 points or 0.16% to 6,015.21, Taiwan Weighted increased 12.56 points or 0.12% to 10,806.36, KOSPI Index increased 28.57 points or 1.13% to 2,552.00, Hang Seng increased 161.03 points or 0.57% to 28,406.57 and Nikkei 225 increased 380.53 points or 1.73% to 22,392.14.

On the flip side, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 3.88 points or 0.22% to 1,744.04 and Shanghai Composite decreased 3.01 points or 0.09% to 3,390.34.