Markets gather momentum to trade near day’s high

The local equity benchmarks gathered momentum in late afternoon session to trade near intraday highs, with Sensex and Nifty surpassing their crucial levels of 35,400 and 10,850, respectively. Sentiments remained buoyed with GST Council’s decision to cut rates on 29 items and 54 categories of services with effect from 25 January. Encouraging quarterly results and a firm trend in other Asian bourses also boosted the trading sentiment. Traders remained optimism with the rating agency, Ind-Ra’s projection that the country's economic growth will improve to 7.1 percent in the next fiscal year 2018-19 from 6.5 percent in the current year 2017-18, supported by robust consumption demand and low commodity prices. The markets were also getting support with Union Minister Suresh Prabhu’s statement that the commerce ministry is working on a strategy to diversify India's export basket in a bid to boost shipments. Besides, continued buying in Banking, Capital Goods and Industrials together with firm industry majors like Adani Ports & SEZ and Yes Bank, too added strength to the markets.

On the global front, European markets were trading slightly in green, as investors watch out for developments in US politics, new earnings and fresh data. There's uncertainty as to whether the US Senate will approve a bill to avoid the shutdown of the US government later on Friday. Asian markets were trading in green. Back home, in scrip specific development, Jubilant FoodWorks traded jubilantly after the company reported over 3-fold jump in its net profit at Rs 66.02 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2017 as compared to net profit of Rs 19.97 crore for the same quarter in the previous year.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 35420.30, up by 160.01 points or 0.45% after trading in a range of 35221.16 and 35434.08. There were 14 stocks advancing against 17 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading mixed; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.11%, while Small cap index was up by 0.03%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Bankex up by 0.79%, Capital Goods up by 0.52%, Industrials up by 0.45%, Energy up by 0.44% and PSU up by 0.29%, while Basic Materials down by 0.57%, Power down by 0.51%, Auto down by 0.48%, Utilities down by 0.46% and Consumer Disc down by 0.31% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Adani Ports & SEZ up by 3.78%, Yes Bank up by 2.07%, Kotak Mahindra Bank up by 1.21%, ICICI Bank up by 1.13% and Larsen & Toubro up by 1.13%. On the flip side, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 1.28%, Sun Pharma down by 1.17%, Infosys down by 1.05%, Power Grid Corporation down by 0.96% and Hero MotoCorp down by 0.95% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, a day after government decided to lower its additional borrowing from Rs 50,000 crore to Rs 20,000 crore, global credit rating agency, Moody's Investors Service’s Vice President Marie Diron has said that the move will not have impact on India's sovereign rating of Baa2 that they have upgraded recently with a stable outlook.

Further, noting that restructuring of the borrowing is a relatively small amount with respect to the size of India's economy, Diron said that a change in borrowing adjustments from one year to the other will also not have impact on its overall cost of debt in the long run, due to the country’s long maturity time debt frame.  Vice President is also not expecting any impact of the borrowing cut over the fiscal deficit target estimate.

Moody’s Vice President further listed benefits of the governments’ significant move of GST implementation in the country and described it as revenue neutral. She said simplified tax system will lead to greater compliance and greater productivity and this will result into revenue accretion, although the rating agency is not expecting an immediate impact of the GST move in the next fiscal year.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 10856.75, up by 39.75 points or 0.37% after trading in a range of 10793.90 and 10861.95. There were 26 stocks advancing against 24 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Adani Ports & SEZ up by 3.28%, Indiabulls Housing Finance up by 2.65%, Yes Bank up by 1.83%, Indian Oil Corporation up by 1.36% and ICICI Bank up by 1.14%. On the flip side, Ambuja Cement down by 3.07%, Ultratech Cement down by 2.88%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 1.32%, Sun Pharma down by 1.29% and Aurobindo Pharma down by 1.09% were the top losers.

Asina markets were trading mostly in green; FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI increased 4.35 points or 0.24% to 1,825.95, KOSPI Index increased 4.45 points or 0.18% to 2,520.26, Shanghai Composite increased 13.11 points or 0.38% to 3,487.86, Nikkei 225 increased 44.69 points or 0.19% to 23,808.06, Taiwan Weighted increased 79.28 points or 0.72% to 11,150.85 and Hang Seng increased 132.95 points or 0.41% to 32,254.89. On the flip side, Jakarta Composite decreased 14.91 points or 0.23% to 6,457.75.

European markets were trading mostly in green, France’s CAC increased 5.23 points or 0.1% to 5,500.06 and Germany’s DAX increased 56.9 points or 0.43% to 13,338.33. On the flip side, UK’s FTSE 100 decreased 0.93 points or 0.01% to 7,700.03.