Key benchmark pare some initial gains

The Indian benchmarks trimmed some of their initial gains in late morning session but managed to remain in green territory, taking cues from their key Asian counterparts as trade war fears eased on reports the United States and China are willing to renegotiate tariffs and trade imbalances. Investors' sentiment was buoyed after the government announced borrowing of Rs 2.88 lakh crore in the April-September period of 2018-19, lower than Rs 3.72 lakh crore it had borrowed in the first half of the current fiscal, and introduce bonds linked to CPI or retail inflation. Sentiments remained up-beat with DIIs bought shares worth Rs 2,017.95 crore, while foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares of Rs 741.19 crore on March 26.

On the global front, traders got some support from the talks between the United States and China rekindled hopes a damaging trade war could be averted, in turn sapping the strength of the dollar and yen. Back on domestic turf, telecom stocks remained under pressure after Telecom regulator Trai said that license fee collected by it had declined from Rs 32.49 billion for the quarter ended September 2017 to Rs 31.04 billion for the quarter ended December 2017. In scrip specific development, Kalpataru Power surged on bagging new orders worth Rs 901 crore for construction of 765 kV D/C transmission lines in Tamil Nadu from TANTRANSCO and another order for design, supply, erection, testing & commissioning for railway electrification, including OHE.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 33141.36, up by 74.95 points or 0.23% after trading in a range of 33130.10 and 33311.31. There were 18 stocks advancing against 13 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index surged by 0.93%, while Small cap index was up by 1.28%

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Healthcare up by 1.16%, Metal up by 1.07%, Basic Materials up by 0.94%, Capital Goods up by 0.87% and Industrials was up by 0.81%, while Telecom was down by 1.37% were the only losing index on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were SBI up by 1.85%, Tata Steel up by 1.66%, Axis Bank up by 1.47%, Kotak Mahindra Bank up by 1.40% and Sun Pharma was up by 1.11%. On the flip side, Bharti Airtel down by 2.43%, HDFC down by 0.79%, NTPC down by 0.73%, ONGC down by 0.59% and Hero MotoCorp was down by 0.45% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, in order to ease the pressure on the local bond markets, the Central government will borrow Rs 2.88 lakh crore in the April-September period of 2018-19 (H1FY19), which is lesser than Rs 3.72 lakh crore it had borrowed during the same period of FY18. The borrowing for the first half of 2018-19 works out to 47.56 percent of budgeted gross market borrowing which is much lower than the average of 60-65 percent in the last five years.

Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg has said that the government will also come out with inflation indexed bonds linked to consumer price index (CPI) inflation. He also informed that the government will introduce a new bucket of bonds with duration of one to four years, indicating its willingness to borrow more through short-term securities. Besides, he noted that the budgeted gross borrowing through G-Secs for fiscal 2018-19 was Rs 6.05 lakh crore which would be used to fund the fiscal deficit of 3.3 percent of GDP. He added that they are absolutely confident that they will be able to meet all expenditures without going into over draft.

Subhash Chandra Garg further said that the government also plans to reduce the G-Sec buyback by Rs 25,000 crore in the next fiscal. In addition to this, he said that the government will withdraw up to Rs 1 lakh crore from the National Small Savings Fund (NSSF) -- Rs 25,000 crore more than in the current financial year -- to fund the fiscal deficit. He added that this could reduce the overall market borrowing programme of the government for the entire fiscal.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 10163.00, up by 32.35 points or 0.32% after trading in a range of 10154.20 and 10205.50. There were 33 stocks advancing against 17 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were HPCL up by 2.97%, Indian Oil up by 2.78%, Bajaj Finance up by 2.60%, Indiabulls Housing up by 2.36% and UPL was up by 1.98%. On the flip side, Bharti Infratel down by 2.94%, Bharti Airtel down by 2.42%, Bajaj Auto down by 0.83%, ONGC down by 0.73% and HDFC was down by 0.68% were the top losers.

All the Asian markets were trading in green; FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI surged 4.73 points or 0.25% to 1,864.64, KOSPI Index gained 14.6 points or 0.6% to 2,451.68, Shanghai Composite soared 26.47 points or 0.84% to 3,160.20, Jakarta Composite jumped up by 33.82 points or 0.55% to 6,233.99, Taiwan Weighted gained 146.74 points or 1.35% to 10,986.79, Hang Seng surged 275.25 points or 0.9% to 30,824.02 and Nikkei 225 was up by 478.46 points or 2.3% to 21,244.56.