Markets trade in fine fettle in early deals

Indian equity benchmarks are trading with marginal gains in early deals on Monday, as investors await the next batch of corporate earnings, macroeconomic data and the RBI policy meeting for directional cues. Traders took some encouragement with report that foreign investors have put in over Rs 1,800 crore in the Indian equity markets so far in July after pulling out massive funds in the preceding month. The latest inflow comes after such investors had taken out more than Rs 20,000 crore from the stock market during April-June. Investors took note of Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant’s statement that the country needs to improve its human development index (HDI) to achieve a growth of around 10 per cent. Traders shrugged off a private report that the RBI’s rate-setting panel will go for a status quo on key policy rates at the August monetary policy review.

On the global front, Asian markets are trading mostly in red at this point of time with focus shifting to the Bank of Japan and other central banks that are holding meetings this week. The US markets ended lower on Friday, as traders remained concern on account of mixed batch of earnings news from big-name companies. Investors failed to get any relief with report from the Commerce Department showing a significant acceleration in the pace of U.S. economic growth in the second quarter.

Back home, ACs and televisions manufacturers remain in focus after Union Minister Arun Jaitley exuded confidence that GST rates on cement, ACs and televisions will be cut as tax revenues increase, and only luxury and sin goods will attract the highest slab of 28 per cent. In scrip specific developments, Asian Paints moved up on reporting 31% rise in Q1 consolidated net profit and Wockhardt gained on setting up first manufacturing unit in Middle East.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 37430.91, up by 94.06 points or 0.25% after trading in a range of 37352.65 and 37496.80. There were 19 stocks advancing against 12 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 0.05%, while Small cap index was up by 0.54%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were PSU up by 1.92%, Oil & Gas up by 1.60%, Energy up by 1.38%, Metal up by 0.95% and Bankex was up by 0.56%, while IT down by 0.38%, TECK down by 0.32%, Auto down by 0.03% and FMCG was down by 0.02% were the few losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were SBI up by 3.11%, ONGC up by 2.54%, ICICI Bank up by 2.32%, Vedanta up by 2.30% and Coal India up by 1.39%. On the flip side, Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 1.03%, Infosys down by 0.92%, Wipro down by 0.84%, HDFC Bank down by 0.74% and ITC down by 0.60% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, in order to achieve growth rate of around 10%, Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant has said that India needs to improve its human development index (HDI). In the 2016 UN Human Development Report, India had slipped one place to rank 131st among 188 countries in the HDI.

Kant said ‘We are growing at around 7.5% and if our ambition is to grow at high rates like 10% over a three-decade period, (then) it is not possible to do this if we don’t improve the HDI for India’. He added that such growth was not possible if infant-mortality and maternal-mortality rates were at very high rates and if one in three children was stunted. Stating that there were around 200 backward districts in India, he underlined that it was not possible for the government alone to transform. Therefore, he said non-governmental organisations (NGOs) play a very important role.

Recently, Niti Aayog CEO had said that for India to grow at 9-10% for three decades consistently and reap the dividend of demographic advantage, promoting entrepreneurship among women has to be the key strategy. Noting that whenever the opportunity has been provided to women they have performed much better than men, he said, ‘Our belief is that if you want to transform India, then you need to give a huge fillip to women entrepreneurship’.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 11304.05, up by 25.70 points or 0.23% after trading in a range of 11283.70 and 11309.35. There were 27 stocks advancing against 23 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were HPCL up by 3.23%, SBI up by 2.95%, ONGC up by 2.63%, BPCL up by 2.39% and Vedanta up by 2.34%. On the flip side, Infosys down by 1.02%, Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 0.94%, Eicher Motors down by 0.90%, Bajaj Finserv down by 0.90% and Grasim Industries down by 0.82% were the top losers.

Asian markets are trading mostly in red; Nikkei 225 declined 151.90 points or 0.67% to 22,560.85, Taiwan Weighted dropped 55.78 points or 0.51% to 11,020.00, Straits Times decreased 19.58 points or 0.59% to 3,305.40, Hang Seng fell 194.16 points or 0.68% to 28,610.12, KOSPI fell -2.64 points or 0.12% to 2,292.35 and Shanghai Composite was down by 4.68 points or 0.16% to 2,868.91.