Local equities trade in fine fettle in morning deals

Local equity benchmarks are trading in fine fettle in morning session, with Sensex garnering gains of around quarter a percent and Nifty trading just above the neutral lines. Domestic sentiments remained upbeat after commerce and industry minister Suresh Prabhu said that in the age of the changing world order, India will go beyond trade relationships to strategic partnerships. Traders took note of Government think tank Niti Aayog’s statement that he has advocated setting up a separate debt management office to manage the Union government’s borrowings and finances. On the sectoral front Realty stocks were in focus, as Finance Minister Arun Jaitley stated that GST Council has approved the proposal for lowering the tax rate on real estate projects. For under-construction properties, the GST rate has been cut to 5 per cent from 12 per cent earlier. On the other hand, the tax rate on affordable housing projects will be levied at 1 per cent.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in green, after President Donald Trump said he would postpone a March 1 deadline for a US tariff hike on Chinese imports following weekend talks on a battle over Beijing’s technology ambitions. Back home, the draft national e-commerce policy, to be released soon, has suggested a series of conditions for operating online retail business in India through marketplace model, including mandatory mentioning of seller details on the website for all products and financial disincentives if vendors found to be selling counterfeit products.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 35961.97, up by 90.49 points or 0.25% after trading in a range of 35901.06 and 36033.51. There were 17 stocks advancing against 14 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index gained 0.38%, while Small cap index was up by 0.61%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Auto up by 0.93%, Realty up by 0.67%, Basic Materials up by 0.61%, Consumer Disc up by 0.60% and IT was up by 0.59%, while Telecom down by 0.95%, Oil & Gas down by 0.65%, PSU down by 0.47%, Utilities down by 0.44% and Power was down by 0.30% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were ICICI Bank up by 1.35%, Bajaj Auto up by 0.92%, Infosys up by 0.86%, HDFC Bank up by 0.73% and Yes Bank was up by 0.72%. On the flip side, ONGC down by 1.28%, Bajaj Finance down by 0.72%, Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 0.68%, Axis Bank down by 0.65% and Coal India was down by 0.60% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Financial Services Secretary Rajiv Kumar has said that the major challenges for the future for the banking sector remains ensuring intermediation by financial institutions is clean be it public sector banks (PSBs), private sector or Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFC). Kumar further added that making credit rating agencies more accountable is also another challenge.

Besides, he mentioned that the government has taken various efforts that have resulted in reduction of non-performing assets (NPAs) and an improvement in recovery. Recoveries in the last four years have increased to Rs 3.62 lakh crore and Rs 1.2 lakh crore in the current fiscal (FY19).

With an aim to improve the health of PSBs which saddled with NPAs, he stated the government has infused Rs 3 lakh crore since March 2015.  Additionally, he said that the synergy and scale is another area. The government last month approved merger of Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank with Bank of Baroda to create the third largest lender after SBI and ICICI Bank. The new will come into being from April 1, 2019.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 10799.70, up by 8.05 points or 0.07% after trading in a range of 10788.05 and 10830.10. There were 24 stocks advancing against 26 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were UPL up by 1.73%, ICICI Bank up by 1.39%, JSW Steel up by 1.28%, Dr. Reddy’s Lab up by 0.97% and Bajaj Auto was up by 0.82%. On the flip side, Adani Ports & SEZ down by 6.53%, Bharti Infratel down by 2.71%, BPCL down by 2.53%, HPCL down by 1.91% and ONGC was down by 1.45% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in green, Nikkei 225 surged 117.93 points or 0.55% to 21,543.44, Hang Seng increased 107.33 points or 0.37% to 28,923.63, Shanghai Composite gained 93.12 points or 3.32% to 2,897.35, Taiwan Weighted strengthened 44.42 points or 0.43% to 10,367.34 and Jakarta Composite was up by 12.83 points or 0.2% to 6,514.21.

On the other hand; KOSPI fell 0.78 points or 0.03% to 2,229.72 and Straits Times was down by 9.89 points or 0.3% to 3,260.01.