Bulls tighten grip on Dalal Street

The local benchmarks remained strong in late afternoon session, as bulls tighten grip on the street, following higher opening in European markets. Gains in Metal, Oil & Gas and PSU stocks along with firm Asian markets, helped the indices to continue the rally. Some support also came with buying in industry majors like ONGC, ICICI Bank and Tata Steel along with optimism in broader markets. Traders continue to take encouragement with International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) projection that India will grow at 7.4% in 2018 as against China’s 6.8%, making it the fastest growing country among emerging economies following last year's slowdown due to demonetisation and the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST). It has also projected a 7.8% growth rate for India in 2019. The market participant were also positive with a private survey report stating that India has emerged as the fifth most attractive market for investments and the optimism over global economic growth is at a record level. Meanwhile, as the new stringent EU rice import rule kicked in this month, India has asked Germany to use its good offices to resolve the issue at the earliest.

On the global front, European markets were trading in green, following news that lawmakers had secured a deal to allow US government operations to get back into action. Asian markets were also trading in green. Back home, in scrip specific development, Axis Bank was trading higher after the bank reported 25.34% rise in its net profit at Rs 726.44 crore for third quarter ended December 31, 2017, as compared to Rs 579.57 crore for the same quarter in the previous year.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 36064.60, up by 266.59 points or 0.74% after trading in a range of 35863.98 and 36147.75. There were 22 stocks advancing against 9 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.98%, while Small cap index was up by 0.10%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Metal up by 4.17%, Oil & Gas up by 1.67%, PSU up by 1.62%, Energy up by 1.40% and Bankex up by 1.32%, while Consumer Durables down by 0.27% was the sole losing index on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were ONGC up by 3.68%, ICICI Bank up by 3.62%, Tata Steel up by 3.04%, SBI up by 2.82% and Coal India up by 2.69%. On the flip side, Wipro down by 1.95%, Tata Motors down by 1.22%, HDFC Bank down by 0.92%, Asian Paints down by 0.66% and Yes Bank down by 0.53% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its latest World Economic Outlook (WEO) has projected that India will grow at 7.4% in 2018 as against China’s 6.8%, making it the fastest growing country among emerging economies following last year's slowdown due to demonetisation and the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST). It has also projected a 7.8% growth rate for India in 2019.

As per WEO, the aggregate growth forecast for the emerging markets and developing economies for 2018 and 2019 is unchanged, with marked differences in the outlook across regions. Emerging and developing Asia will grow at around 6.5% over 2018-19, broadly the same pace as in 2017 and added that the region continues to account for over half of world growth. The IMF said that growth is expected to moderate gradually in China (though with a slight upward revision to the forecast for 2018 and 2019 relative to the fall forecasts, reflecting stronger external demand), pick up in India, and remain broadly stable in the ASEAN-5 region.

According to the report, in the year gone by, China (6.8%) was ahead of India (6.7%), giving China the tag of being the fastest growing emerging economies, as has been the case for major parts of the past several decades. Notably, with a growth rate of 7.1%, India was the fastest growing country among emerging economies in the year 2016. But, India’s economy slowed down a little bit to 6.7% in 2016, due to the demonetisation in late 2016 and implementation of the GST. In 2017, India’s growth rate dropped to 6.7%.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 11055.50, up by 89.30 points or 0.81% after trading in a range of 10994.55 and 11087.70. There were 36 stocks advancing against 14 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Vedanta up by 5.37%, Hindalco up by 3.80%, Tech Mahindra up by 3.22%, Cipla up by 3.21% and ICICI Bank up by 3.16%. On the flip side, Wipro down by 2.22%, Eicher Motors down by 2.06%, Ambuja Cement down by 2.03%, HPCL down by 1.92% and UPL down by 1.78% were the top losers.

All Asian markets were trading in green; FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI increased 3.24 points or 0.18% to 1,836.39, Taiwan Weighted increased 21.65 points or 0.19% to 11,253.11, KOSPI Index increased 34.49 points or 1.38% to 2,536.60, Shanghai Composite increased 45.14 points or 1.29% to 3,546.51, Jakarta Composite increased 84.09 points or 1.29% to 6,584.62, Nikkei 225 increased 307.82 points or 1.29% to 24,124.15 and Hang Seng increased 537.29 points or 1.66% to 32,930.70.

All European markets were trading in green; France’s CAC increased 11.72 points or 0.21% to 5,553.71, UK’s FTSE 100 increased 11.99 points or 0.16% to 7,727.43 and Germany’s DAX increased 126.39 points or 0.94% to 13,590.08.