Markets extend gains led by buying in realty, auto stocks

Sensex and Nifty gained from strength-to-strength in early noon session after heavy buying seen in realty, auto and industrials. The sentiments on the street were on optimistic mood with a private report stating that economic activity is indeed improving after robust services PMI data showed that the manufacturing sector is growing at a robust pace, providing a big boost to the government at the centre.  On the sectoral front, in the 50-share NSE index, Nifty Realty was gaining the most followed by Nifty Auto and Nifty Metal. While, amongst the individual stocks on the BSE, Tata Motors was surging the most with gain of around 4%, followed by Hero MotoCorp and Bajaj Auto. Separately, banking sector was in focus after a latest data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), showed that the banks’ credit growth increased 12.84% to Rs 86,16,408 crore as on June 22.

On the global front, most of Asian counters recovered from the initial losses and entered positive terrain, even after the U.S. proceeded with tariff increases on a swathe of Chinese imports. On the domestic front, in scrip specific development, Varroc Engineering lists with 7% premium on the BSE, while Welspun Enterprises advanced on receiving LoA for road project in Tamil Nadu.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 35773.79, up by 199.24 points or 0.56% after trading in a range of 35532.21 and 35799.46. There were 23 stocks advancing against 8 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 0.75%, while Small cap index up by 0.57%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 1.81%, Auto up by 1.65%, Industrials up by 1.39%, Energy up by 1.31%, Oil & Gas up by 1.08% while, Telecom down by 0.28% and TECK down by 0.06% were the only losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Motors up by 3.96%, Hero MotoCorp up by 3.75%, Bajaj Auto up by 2.79%, Tata Motors - DVR up by 2.77% and Reliance Industries up by 1.54%. On the flip side, Wipro down by 0.94%, Bharti Airtel down by 0.50%, Infosys down by 0.48%, Coal India down by 0.41% and ICICI Bank down by 0.41% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has prescribed amendments to the interconnect regulations, proposing certain alterations in terms and conditions for an operator to seek fresh call connect ports from other telcos. It said that a service provider can ask another operator for additional ports in case the projected utilisation of the capacity at the interconnect point is likely to exceed 85 percent over a 60-day period, according to the Telecommunication Interconnection (Amendment) Regulations, 2018.

Telecom regulator has stated that the time-frame for provisioning of ports for initial interconnection and augmentation of ports at POls (points of interconnect) is increased to 42 working days. It also said that every operator will have to give a forecast of outgoing call traffic of busy hours for each interconnect point once every six months -- April 1 and October 1 each year -- to the interconnecting service provider. 

An issue of inter-connectivity had emerged between Reliance Jio and old telecom operators like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular, at the time when the newcomer launched its services in 2016. Reliance Jio had accused other operators of not providing it sufficient points of interconnect leading to call failures, while operators blamed the free calls offered by the newcomer for the tsunami of network traffic.

In 2016, TRAI had also recommended imposing Rs 1,050 crore penalty each on Airtel and Vodafone and Rs 950 crore on Idea Cellular for violating quality of service rules. TRAI, in its recommendation to DoT, said it has found the trio non-compliant with licence conditions and service quality norms, given the high rate of call failures and congestion at interconnect points for Reliance Jio.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 10803.10, up by 53.35 points or 0.50% after trading in a range of 10735.05 and 10815.95. There were 33 stocks advancing against 17 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Hero MotoCorp up by 3.88%, Tata Motors up by 3.86%, HPCL up by 3.39%, Bajaj Auto up by 2.90% and BPCL up by 2.19%. On the flip side, Tech Mahindra down by 1.49%, Zee Entertainment down by 1.32%, Bharti Infratel down by 1.15%, Infosys down by 0.86% and Wipro down by 0.66% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in green; Nikkei 225 increased 241.15 points or 1.11% to 21,788.14, Hang Seng rose 227.19 points or 0.8% to 28,409.28, KOSPI advanced 19.13 points or 0.84% to 2,276.68 and Shanghai Composite was up 32.29 points or 1.17% to 2,766.17.

On the flip side, Taiwan Weighted decreased 3.24 points or 0.03% to 10,608.57, Straits Times decreased 70.88 points or 2.22% to 3,185.83 and Jakarta Composite decreased 36.05 points or 0.63% to 5,703.28.