Sensex, Nifty trade range-bound; Energy stocks lose spark

The local benchmarks continued range-bound trade in green in late afternoon session, as investors remained on sidelines ahead of RBI monetary policy meeting which is scheduled to begin on December 05. The sentiments remained positive with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s statement that the GST has made doing business easier for traders, to spread business activities in the country. He added the market place for traders had opened the horizons and there is lesser tax compliance burden. Traders were also taking support with Niti Aayog Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar’s statement that the growth rebound shows that the economy has come out of the woods and economic expansion for the full year will come in at 6.5-7 percent. However, some gains got trimmed amid reports that CPI inflation is expected to firm up in the coming months driven by cyclical recovery in the economy and further implementation of pay commission-related hikes by states. Besides, the broader markets failed to hold their head in green and slip in red terrain, showing contrary trend, while Energy stocks lost the spark by falling the most among the all sectors.

On the global front, European markets were trading in green, as investors digested news that the US Senate narrowly passed a major tax bill over the weekend. Asian markets were also trading in green. Back home, in scrip specific development, Bharti Airtel was trading in green after the company acquired a strategic stake in Juggernaut Books, a popular digital platform to discover and read high quality, affordable books and to submit amateur writing.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 32885.19, up by 52.25 points or 0.16% after trading in a range of 32785.76 and 33008.47. There were 15 stocks advancing against 16 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.16%, while Small cap index was down by 0.40%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were IT up by 1.42%, TECK up by 1.17%, Healthcare up by 0.43%, Metal up by 0.42% and Oil & Gas up by 0.32%, while Energy down by 0.55%, Realty down by 0.50%, Telecom down by 0.49%, Power down by 0.44% and Bankex down by 0.40% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Infosys up by 3.14%, Tata Motors up by 1.38%, Hindustan Unilever up by 1.33%, HDFC up by 1.32% and ONGC up by 1.03%. On the flip side, Coal India down by 2.02%, Reliance Industries down by 1.06%, Sun Pharma down by 1.05%, Maruti Suzuki down by 1.04% and Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 0.99% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, pegging strong double-digit growth for India's media and entertainment industry, a joint report of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has said that the industry is likely to grow in the range of 11-12 percent over next five year, on the back of growing rural demand and media consumption. Along with growth, the report also expects creation of seven to eight lakh new jobs from the M&E industry over the same period.

The report stated that the industry will need 40K-160K trained/employable individuals on the workforce every year for the next 5 years, amid rising consumer demands, changing business models and digital disruptions and in view of this, industry should prepare itself for such completely different workforce.  The CII-BCG report pointed that the industry should also look on their business strategies to fit in the digital era and to accelerate growth of the industry.

As per report, the media industry workforce will see significant shift in 2022. Major shifts will be around adoption of technology, big data and analytics as well as structural changes, which would mean many new job roles and a massive re-skilling of the current workforce. Besides, it noted that the demand for talent and functional skills in the industry will outstrip supply, given the pace of growth in the industry.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 10129.75, up by 7.95 points or 0.08% after trading in a range of 10095.70 and 10179.20. There were 26 stocks advancing against 24 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Infosys up by 2.91%, Indiabulls Housing Finance up by 2.28%, Zee Entertainment up by 1.91%, Hindalco up by 1.76% and HCL Tech. up by 1.45%. On the flip side, UPL down by 2.36%, Coal India down by 2.33%, Bharti Infratel down by 2.18%, Bajaj Finance down by 1.85% and Yes Bank down by 1.39% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in green; KOSPI Index increased 26.26 points or 1.06% to 2,501.67, Taiwan Weighted increased 50.74 points or 0.48% to 10,651.11, Hang Seng increased 64.04 points or 0.22% to 29,138.28 and Jakarta Composite increased 66.96 points or 1.13% to 6,019.10. On the flip side, Nikkei 225 decreased 111.87 points or 0.49% to 22,707.16, Shanghai Composite decreased 8 points or 0.24% to 3,309.62 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 5.87 points or 0.34% to 1,711.99.

All European markets were trading in green; France’s CAC increased 46 points or 0.87% to 5,362.89, UK’s FTSE 100 increased 57.33 points or 0.79% to 7,357.82 and Germany’s DAX increased 158.97 points or 1.24% to 13,020.46.