Indian equities remain in green terrain

Mirroring positive global cues, Indian equity benchmarks continued their trade in green territory in afternoon session, with Nifty firmly trading above 11,100 mark. The indices remained positive with taking support from report that the overall exports from India to BRICS saw an upswing of 7.5% in Q1 2018 Y-o-Y in terms of total volumes, while the country’s imports from BRICS nations is reduced by 3.5%. Some optimism also came in with Union Finance Minister Piyush Goyal’s statement that rising tax collections will further help reduce the tariffs. He said the Directorate General of Anti-Profiteering has been directed to keep a tab on manufacturers of sanitary napkins, so that benefits of the GST rate cut are passed on to consumers. However, further up move got restricted as anxiety remained among the local traders with the Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (SEBI) data indicating that investments through participatory notes into Indian capital markets plunged to over nine-year low of Rs 83,688 crore at June-end amid stringent norms put in place by the SEBI to check the misuse of these instruments. On the sectoral front, Automobile sector remained in focus with report that Automobile industry in India is opting for inorganic route to balance investments to support current growth cycles and prepare for future global disruptions. 

On the global front, Asian Markets were trading in green, led by better-than-expected U.S. corporate earnings and a lack of bad news on trade tensions. Back home, the BSE Sensex is currently trading at 36800.61, up by 82.01 points or 0.22% after trading in a range of 36776.26 and 36902.06. There were 21 stocks advancing against 10 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.97%, while Small cap index was up by 1.75%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Basic Materials up by 3.49%, Telecom up by 2.80%, Metal up by 2.33%, Realty up by 2.00% and Capital Goods up by 1.65%, while Bankex down by 0.19% was the lone losing index on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Vedanta up by 2.58%, Larsen & Toubro up by 2.07%, Maruti Suzuki up by 1.77%, Coal India up by 1.56% and Bharti Airtel up by 1.24%. On the flip side, Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 1.78%, Hindustan Unilever down by 0.78%, TCS down by 0.65%, Wipro down by 0.63% and Yes Bank down by 0.58% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the government has said the defence budget as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) may appear to be falling due to a rising trend of India’s economic growth. In the Union budget, the government had allocated Rs 2.95 lakh crore to defence forces which is estimated to be around 1.58% of the country's GDP. A separate amount of Rs 1.08 lakh crore was set aside for the paying pension to defence personnel. This defence budget, in terms of percentage of the GDP, was lowest since 1962. 

Minister of State for Defence Subhash Bhamre has said that the defence budget, including allocation for miscellaneous expenditure and pensions, was Rs 4.04 lakh crore, which is 16.6% of total expenditure of government for the year 2018. He also said that capital budget of ministry of Defence for 2018-19 is approximately 33% of the total capital expenditure of the central government. 

Bhamre further said that allocated budgetary resources are optimally utilised towards meeting the operational requirements of the armed forces. He also said that depending upon the allocated resources schemes are also reprioritised to ensure that urgent and critical capabilities are acquired without compromise of operational preparedness.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 11124.55, up by 39.80 points or 0.36% after trading in a range of 11103.50 and 11143.40. There were 34 stocks advancing against 16 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Grasim Industries up by 7.93%, Hindalco up by 4.41%, Ultratech Cement up by 4.30%, Indiabulls Housing Finace up by 3.37% and Vedanta up by 2.50%. On the flip side, Bajaj Finance down by 1.91%, Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 1.67%, Bajaj Finserv down by 1.17%, Hindustan Unilever down by 0.92% and Cipla down by 0.82% were the top losers.

All the Asian Markets were trading in green; Taiwan Weighted increased 48.50 points or 0.44% to 10,995.39, Hang Seng rose 393.25 points or 1.37% to 28,649.37, Shanghai Composite surged 45.89 points or 1.58% to 2,905.43, Jakarta Composite added 16.51 points or 0.28% to 5,932.31, KOSPI increased 10.89 points or 0.48% to 2,280.20, Straits Times inched up 2.62 points or 0.08% to 3,296.33 and Nikkei 225 was up by 113.49 points or 0.5% to 22,510.48.