Local bourses hold gains in early afternoon deals

Indian equity benchmarks held their gains in early afternoon session, on positive global leads and sustained buying by domestic institutional investors. The indices remained in green with taking support from External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar’s statement that India was closely monitoring the situation arising out of Trump’s announcement to pull the US out of the Iran deal. India will take necessary measures to offset any adverse impact on its interests due to US President Donald Trump’s decision to dump the Iran nuclear deal. Besides, appreciation in Indian rupee against dollars along with buying in Oil & Gas, Metal and Energy stocks, too provided support to the major indices. However, further gains got restricted as traders remained cautious ahead of Index of Industrial Production (IIP) data for March scheduled to be released today. On the sectoral front, telecom stocks such as Idea Cellular and Bharti Airtel dropped after Reliance Jio, the telecom arm of Reliance Industries, introduced an unlimited domestic post-paid plan for Rs 199 and international calling at Rs 0.50 per minute.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in green, as softer-than-forecast US inflation data tempered expectations for faster Federal Reserve interest rate rises this year. Investor sentiment also got a small boost after US President Donald Trump said he had high hopes of “doing something very meaningful” to curtail North Korea's nuclear ambitions at a summit in Singapore next month.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 35335.89, up by 89.62 points or 0.25% after trading in a range of 35262.06 and 35389.40. There were 19 stocks advancing against 12 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.60%, while Small cap index was up by 0.09%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Oil & Gas up by 1.02%, Metal up by 0.83%, Energy up by 0.82%, Basic Materials up by 0.67% and PSU up by 0.57%, while Telecom down by 3.47%, Consumer Durables down by 0.46%, TECK down by 0.34%, Healthcare down by 0.30% and Realty down by 0.04% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Asian Paints up by 5.50%, Tata Steel up by 1.17%, ICICI Bank up by 1.03%, Kotak Mahindra Bank up by 0.89% and Reliance Industries up by 0.64%. On the flip side, Bharti Airtel down by 4.77%, Sun Pharma down by 2.57%, Tata Motors - DVR down by 1.41%, Hero MotoCorp down by 0.73% and Bajaj Auto down by 0.57% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra), a subsidiary of Fitch Ratings, has stated that India’s trade deficit will widen to a four-year high of $178.1 billion or 6.4% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2018-19 (FY19), due to rupee depreciation coupled with higher crude and gold imports. Besides, trade deficit had stood at $156.8 billion or 6% of GDP in FY18. The estimate comes amid depreciation in the rupee against the dollar, wherein it has shed over 5% to breach the Rs 67-mark to the dollar.

The rating agency has said that factors which are putting pressure on the rupee include escalation in commodity prices, particularly crude, coupled with expectation of the US Fed raising its rates further. It also said that due to sluggish growth in export markets and rising protectionism for the dip, contribution of trade as a percentage of GDP has slid to 40.6% in FY18 from a high of 55.8% in FY13.

Talking about exports, Ind-Ra said that the recent Reserve Bank of India (RBI) ban on letter of undertakings will not significantly hurt the overall export performance. It added that the ban will impact those export items where inputs or intermediates are imported, due to higher import financing cost and cited the example of the fraud-hit gems and jewellery sector exporters, as the ones who will be highly affected by the LoU/LC ban.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 10752.30, up by 35.75 points or 0.33% after trading in a range of 10724.45 and 10762.80. There were 35 stocks advancing against 15 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Asian Paints up by 5.25%, HPCL up by 3.93%, Indiabulls Housing Finance up by 2.37%, BPCL up by 2.15% and UPL up by 1.85%. On the flip side, Bharti Airtel down by 4.72%, Sun Pharma down by 2.70%, Bharti Infratel down by 1.51%, Titan down by 1.06% and Hero MotoCorp down by 0.98% were the top losers.

The Asian markets were trading mostly in green; KOSPI Index increased 13.55 points or 0.55% to 2,477.71, Taiwan Weighted was up by 98.77 points or 0.92% to 10,858.98, Jakarta Composite added 108.66 points or 1.84% to 6,016.60, Nikkei 225 inched up 261.3 points or 1.16% to 22,758.48 and Hang Seng rose 300.61 points or 0.98% to 31,109.83.

On the flip side, Shanghai Composite was down by 9.7 points or 0.31% to 3,164.72.