Local bourses add gains; Nifty inches closer to 11,500 mark

Adding some gains, Indian equity benchmarks continued their trade in green in afternoon session, on unabated buying by foreign and domestic institutional investors and encouraging Q1 earnings. The sentiments were positive with IMF in its latest report stating that India is projected to clock an economic growth of 7.5 percent in the 2019-2020 fiscal year on strengthening of investment and robust private consumption. Some comfort also came in with report that India’s average per capita income in the last four financial years was higher at Rs 79,882 as compared to the preceding four fiscals. As per the report, the per capita income grew by 4.6% in 2013-14 to Rs 68,572; 6.2% to Rs 72,805 in 2014-15; 6.9% to Rs 77,826 in 2015-16 and by 5.7% to Rs 82,229 in 2016-17. On the sectoral front, real estate sector remained in limelight with private report stating that Indian real estate sector is seeing an encouraging growth across assets class with returning confidence in the market. While, corporate occupies and institutions investors are seen actively investing and leasing office space in the country.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mixed after muted moves in the U.S. Back home, the BSE Sensex is currently trading at 38049.69, up by 162.13 points or 0.43% after trading in a range of 37939.28 and 38061.06. 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 0.47%, while Small cap index was up by 0.29%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 1.84%, Bankex up by 1.19%, PSU up by 0.97%, Industrials up by 0.57% and IT up by 0.56%, while Telecom down by 1.36%, Consumer Durables down by 0.71% and Oil & Gas down by 0.05% were the only losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were ICICI Bank up by 4.45%, Axis Bank up by 2.88%, SBI up by 2.72%, Infosys up by 1.73% and Tata Motors up by 1.73%. On the flip side, Bharti Airtel down by 4.50%, ONGC down by 1.48%, HDFC Bank down by 1.12%, Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 0.73% and Indusind Bank down by 0.70% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has amended the licences of telecom operators and internet service providers to incorporate net neutrality rules in the country, which bar service providers from discriminating against internet content and services by blocking, throttling or granting them higher speed access. In a notification, DoT said that the government is committed to the fundamental principles and concepts of net neutrality.

Therefore, internet access services need to be governed by a principle that restricts any form of discrimination, restriction or interference in the treatment of content, including practices like blocking, degrading, slowing down or granting preferential speeds of treatment to any content. The telecom department has mentioned to keep critical internet of things services, which shall be identified by DoT, to be excluded from the restrictions of net neutrality. The amendments are to be issued by division managing particular licences.

The new amendment states that a telecom licence holder providing internet access service shall not engage in any discriminatory treatment of content, including based on sender or receiver, the protocols being used in or the user equipment. The amendment prohibits from entering into any arrangement, agreement or contract by whatever name called, with any person, natural or legal that has the effect of discriminatory treatment of content. According to the note, the amendments will include specific points around principle of non-discriminatory treatment, definition of specialised services and reasonable traffic management and other exceptions.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 11486.25, up by 36.25 points or 0.32% after trading in a range of 11454.10 and 11495.20. There were 26 stocks advancing against 24 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were ICICI Bank up by 4.55%, Axis Bank up by 2.95%, SBI up by 2.88%, Infosys up by 1.74% and Tata Motors up by 1.67%. On the flip side, Bharti Airtel down by 4.65%, Titan Co down by 2.19%, ONGC down by 2.06%, Indiabulls Housing Finance down by 1.11% and Zee Entertainment down by 1.02% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mixed; Hang Seng increased 322.02 points or 1.12% to 28,681.16, Shanghai Composite increased 52.42 points or 1.87% to 2,796.49 and KOSPI increased 2.26 points or 0.1% to 2,303.71.

On the flip side, Nikkei 225 decreased 45.92 points or 0.2% to 22,598.39, Jakarta Composite decreased 4.03 points or 0.07% to 6,090.80 and Taiwan Weighted decreased 47.18 points or 0.43% to 11,028.07.