Indian bourses continue to trade in positive territory

Mirroring positive global cues, key benchmark indices continued to trade in positive territory in early afternoon session, on account of buying in frontline counters. The sentiments remained positive with a report that foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth Rs 344.16 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) made purchases worth Rs 731.17 crore on March 20. Traders took note of the reports stating that the government has extended the facility of hiring workers on fixed-term employment to all sectors to improve the ease of doing business. It has also agreed to the trade unions demand that no permanent employee be moved to fixed term employment. All the sectoral indices were trading higher on the BSE with Realty and Telecom stocks rising the most. However, some gains got trimmed as investors remained cautious ahead of US Federal Reserve's key policy outcome scheduled later in the day. In scrip specific development, Ashok Leyland was up by around one and half percent on bagging an order from the IRT, Tamil Nadu for supply of 2000 Passenger Chassis and 100 of Fully built Small Buses to various STUs in the state of Tamil Nadu.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading in green, with energy firms boosted by a rush into oil after data indicated a jump in US demand and OPEC provided an optimistic outlook for supplies. Back home, the BSE Sensex is currently trading at 33244.89, up by 248.13 points or 0.75% after trading in a range of 33090.82 and 33354.93. There were 24 stocks advancing against 6 stocks declining on the index, while 1 stock remained unchanged.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.81%, while Small cap index was up by 0.81%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 1.91%, Telecom up by 1.83%, Consumer Durables up by 1.11%, PSU up by 0.86% and Energy up by 0.83%, while there were no losers on the BSE sectoral front.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bharti Airtel up by 3.76%, NTPC up by 2.17%, Axis Bank up by 1.55%, Maruti Suzuki up by 1.25% and HDFC up by 1.22%. On the flip side, Dr. Reddy’s Lab down by 0.57%, Hero MotoCorp down by 0.52%, Tata Steel down by 0.51%, Tata Motors down by 0.37% and Adani Ports & SEZ down by 0.26% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, in order to boost shipments, the government has scrapped the export duty of 20 percent on raw sugar, white or refined sugar. The 20 percent export duty was in force since June 2016. Earlier, the government had doubled import duty to 100 percent to check cheaper imports from overseas markets.

According to industry body Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA), India’s sugar production is estimated to rise by 45 percent to record 29.5 million tonnes (MT) in the 2017-18 marketing year (October-September), on the back of higher cane output in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh. Sugar output of India, the world's second largest producer after Brazil, stood at 20.3 MT in the 2016-17 marketing year.

With domestic prices falling below cost of production, ISMA and National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories (NFCSF) had been demanding scrapping of export duty to liquidate surplus domestic stock. As per ISMA, cane arrear to sugarcane farmers touched Rs 14,000 crore at the end of January and might rise further in wake of slide in sugar prices. Mills have produced 25.80 MT sugar till March 15 of the 2017-18 marketing year (October-September).

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 10188.25, up by 63.90 points or 0.63% after trading in a range of 10173.20 and 10227.30. There were 34 stocks advancing against 16 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Bharti Airtel up by 3.63%, Ultratech Cement up by 2.48%, Indiabulls Housing Finance up by 2.16%, NTPC up by 1.86% and Axis Bank up by 1.67%. On the flip side, Eicher Motors down by 1.54%, Bharti Infratel down by 1.11%, Tech Mahindra down by 1.08%, Hero MotoCorp down by 0.69% and Dr. Reddy’s Lab down by 0.69% were the top losers.

The Asian markets were trading mostly in green; Taiwan Weighted increased 0.23 points or 0% to 11,011.07, Shanghai Composite was up by 3.42 points or 0.1% to 3,294.06, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI inched up 5.34 points or 0.29% to 1,861.73, Jakarta Composite added 50.43 points or 0.81% to 6,294.01 and Hang Seng rose 159.43 points or 0.51% to 31,709.36.

On the flip side, KOSPI Index was down by 0.55 points or 0.02% to 2,484.97.