Bourses continue to move in green territory

Key benchmark indices continued to move in green territory in early afternoon session, on account of buying in front line blue chip counters. Sentiment remained positive with a private report which highlighted brighter growth prospects for India by FY20 and beyond. However, it said that India’s growth prospect is likely to see a slowdown in the next two years followed by recovery in the medium term, with 2019-20 GDP expected at around 7.6 per cent. Some support also came with Union Finance Ministry’s latest report stating that overall fundamentals of the economy remained strong for the Year 2017-18. The report also noted that manufacturing, electricity, gas, water supply & other utility services and trade, hotels, transport & communication and services related to broadcasting sectors registered growth of over 6.0 percent in Q2 of 2017-18 over Q2 of 2016-17. Besides, recovery in the rupee value also supported the sentiments. The rupee was trading strong at 64.14 on increased selling of the American currency by exporters. Barring IT, all other BSE sectoral indices were trading in the positive zone. In scrip specific development, KEC International (KEC) was up by around three and half percent on securing new orders worth Rs 2,424 crore across all its business units.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mixed, after a record-setting session on Wall Street on bets that US lawmakers would pass sweeping tax legislation. Back home, the BSE Sensex is currently trading at 33700.07, up by 98.39 points or 0.29% after trading in a range of 33666.62 and 33746.73. There were 20 stocks advancing against 11 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.97%, while Small cap index was up by 1.18%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Consumer Durables up by 1.87%, Auto up by 1.72%, Consumer Disc up by 1.39%, Basic Materials up by 1.05% and Industrials up by 1.04%, while IT down by 0.18% was the only losing index on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Hero MotoCorp up by 2.81%, Tata Motors up by 1.85%, Bajaj Auto up by 1.82%, Maruti Suzuki up by 1.63% and Tata Motors - DVR up by 1.61%. On the flip side, Infosys down by 0.82%, Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 0.75%, Indusind Bank down by 0.65%, HDFC down by 0.37% and Wipro down by 0.36% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, a Joint study carried out by the industry body Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and KPMG has found out that the healthcare insurance industry in India needs to develop infrastructure along with delivering effective and affordable healthcare to the micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) sector, which has a 117 million strong work force. It also elaborated that the country’s health insurance penetration is less than 30 percent of the population covered by any type of health insurance policy in India.

The study titled ‘MSME group health insurance penetration in India’ stated that MSMEs form larger part of the country’s unorganized sector, which leaves a majority of the sector's workforce without any social security. It noted that this section of the society along with their families needs to be brought in the fold of healthcare protection not only as a part of a social initiative but also as a lever for improving workforce productivity. Adding further, it said that providing healthcare coverage is also an important aspect of employee welfare and this remains underpenetrated among MSMEs. It also highlighted that around 90 percent MSMEs do not offer any financial aid for medical purposes to the families of employees and almost no micro and medium enterprises offer financial support to their employees and their families.

FICCI-KPMG study further said that MSMEs preferred a basic cover of personal accident and critical illness with a focus on a reduction in premiums and coverage of employees only and they primarily prefer to purchase insurance through broking channels and bancassurance, with group health insurance penetration through online channels at minimal level of about 6 percent. The report explained that reaching out to MSME for health insurance has remained a massive challenge for the industry owing to lack of data, diversity and unstructured framework of organization. It also indicated that customisation of group health insurance products, standard advisories and putting up a distributions channel has been some of the many challenges that one has to face.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 10422.35, up by 33.60 points or 0.32% after trading in a range of 10406.00 and 10431.50. There were 33 stocks advancing against 16 stocks declining on the index, while 1 stock remained unchanged.

The top gainers on Nifty were Eicher Motors up by 3.01%, UPL up by 2.92%, Hero MotoCorp up by 2.88%, Bajaj Auto up by 1.91% and Aurobindo Pharma up by 1.84%. On the flip side, HCL Tech. down by 1.73%, Infosys down by 0.84%, Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 0.67%, Bajaj Finance down by 0.66% and Wipro down by 0.66% were the top losers.

The Asian markets were trading mixed; Shanghai Composite increased 25.34 points or 0.78% to 3,293.26, Jakarta Composite was up by 30.41 points or 0.5% to 6,164.37 and Hang Seng added 254.76 points or 0.88% to 29,305.17. On the flip side, Taiwan Weighted decreased 39.18 points or 0.37% to 10,467.34, Nikkei 225 was down by 33.77 points or 0.15% to 22,868.00, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI shed 13.15 points or 0.75% to 1,738.49 and KOSPI Index dipped 3.35 points or 0.13% to 2,478.53.