Local equities continue firm trade

Local equity benchmarks continued their firm trade in the morning session on account of buying in front line counters. Barring Oil & Gas stocks, there was buying across all sectoral indices. Among heavy-weights Yes Bank, Vedanta and SBI exhibited a smart performance. Traders took encouragement with a private report which indicated that although 2018 brought some cyclical challenges, India maintains top ranking in overall consumer sentiment, while Brazil has overtaken China to come second. Traders shrugged off a report that former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan expressed doubts over Indian economy growing at 7% when not enough jobs were being created. He said the current cloud over the GDP numbers must be cleared by appointing an impartial body to look at the data. Besides, a report stated that Congress President Rahul Gandhi's minimum income scheme, aiming to lift five crore families or 25 crore people out of poverty, reflects a commitment to social security, but financing it may be an uphill task.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mixed, as strong lead from Wall Street offset by lingering concerns about the global economy, while oil prices extended gains after Russia reassured over its intention to cut output. Back home, a private report state that India will launch $5 billion of transmission-line tenders in phases, beginning in June, to route a targeted 175 gigawatts (GW) of power from renewable sources into the country’s grid by 2022.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 38401.71, up by 168.30 points or 0.44% after trading in a range of 38319.64 and 38456.86. There were 24 stocks advancing against 5 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index gained 0.98%, while Small cap index was up by 0.64%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Basic Materials up by 0.98%, Bankex up by 0.96%, Metal up by 0.82%, Capital Goods up by 0.79% and Industrials was up by 0.68%, while Oil & Gas down by 0.18% was the only losing index on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were IndusInd Bank up by 4.17%, Yes Bank up by 3.72%, Vedanta up by 1.90%, SBI up by 1.70% and Bajaj Finance was up by 1.05%. On the flip side, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 0.38%, HDFC Bank down by 0.26%, Hero MotoCorp down by 0.24%, NTPC down by 0.21% and Asian Paints was down by 0.16% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan has expressed doubts over Indian economy growing at 7% when not enough jobs were being created.  He said the current cloud over the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) numbers must be cleared by appointing an impartial body to look at the data. He further said that he had no idea what statistics are pointing at currently and a revamp was needed to really figure out what India's true growth rate is.

Recently, the government had revised the economic growth rate upwards to 7.2% for 2017-18 from 6.7% estimated earlier. Besides, Rajan said a stronger broad-based growth is needed that creates more jobs.

On doubts being raised by some over economic data after revision in growth rate, he said a cleanup act is needed and an impartial body appointed to look at the numbers. He said ‘I just think that we need now to essentially clean up, find out what in fact is the source of confusion with the new GDP numbers, with the revisions etc. I would say setting up an impartial body to look at it is an important step to resorting confidence’.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 11526.55, up by 43.30 points or 0.38% after trading in a range of 11500.30 and 11538.50. There were 33 stocks advancing against 17 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were IndusInd Bank up by 4.28%, Yes Bank up by 3.76%, Indiabulls Housing Finance up by 3.40%, Vedanta up by 1.84% and SBI was up by 1.65%. On the flip side, HPCL down by 1.62%, Eicher Motors down by 0.95%, Tech Mahindra down by 0.88%, BPCL down by 0.74% and NTPC was down by 0.57% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mixed; Nikkei 225 slipped 75.27 points or 0.35% to 21,353.12, Jakarta Composite dropped 16.95 points or 0.26% to 6,453.05, Taiwan Weighted dropped 4.82 points or 0.05% to 10,554.38 and KOSPI was down by 0.99 points or 0.05% to 2,147.81. On the flip side; Straits Times advanced 8.91 points or 0.28% to 3,209.19, Shanghai Composite gained 16.47 points or 0.55% to 3,013.57 and Hang Seng was up by 173.88 points or 0.61% to 28,740.79.