Indian bourses continue to trade in positive territory

Adding some gains, Indian equity benchmarks continued their trade in green terrain in afternoon session, tracking positive cues from other Asian markets amid buying by domestic institutional investors. Sentiments remained optimistic with report that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will again swap up to $5 billion to infuse durable liquidity in the system, a month after the first swaps saw a massive response from banks. Market participants offered up to $16.31 billion against the notified amount of $5 billion in the auction held on March 26. The next auction for three-year tenure will be held on April 23. Traders also found some support with a private report that the government has been able to contain its fiscal deficit around 3.4% of the GDP in 2018-2019 by resorting to withdrawals/cash support from public accounts and savings on expenditure. However, further up move got restricted as anxiety remained among the local traders with a private survey showing that India’s manufacturing activity slowed to a six-month low in March as orders and output expanded at a weaker rate, thereby easing job creation to its lowest in eight months. The Nikkei India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) fell to 52.6 from a 14-month high of 54.3 in February. On the sectoral front, Auto sector stocks were trading in green despite private report indicating that lower demand in rural markets slowed down the auto industry towards the end of 2018-19 as car, SUV and two-wheeler makers faced tough times, with the outlook looking more challenging over the coming months.

Asian markets were trading mostly in green, as they took up the baton from a strong Wall Street rally, cheered by healthy economic data, optimism over China-US trade talks and the prospect of no hike in borrowing costs. Back home, the BSE Sensex is currently trading at 39012.98, up by 141.11 points or 0.36% after trading in a range of 38846.96 and 39024.39. There were 23 stocks advancing against 8 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 0.36%, while Small cap index was up by 0.10%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 2.54%, Telecom up by 1.26%, Auto up by 0.88%, Power up by 0.81% and PSU up by 0.75%, while Healthcare down by 0.27%, FMCG down by 0.18%, Consumer Durables down by 0.14%, Oil & Gas down by 0.08% and Basic Materials down by 0.07% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Motors up by 4.78%, Tata Motors - DVR up by 4.27%, Bharti Airtel up by 3.66%, Indusind Bank up by 1.98% and Power Grid up by 1.69%. On the flip side, Bajaj Auto down by 1.18%, HCL Technologies down by 1.15%, Tata Steel down by 0.79%, ICICI Bank down by 0.74% and HDFC Bank down by 0.68% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Ratings agency Crisil in its half-yearly report on credit movements has said that system wide non-performing asset (NPA) ratios will improve by 180 basis points (bps) to 8.5 percent in March 2020 from FY19 levels on the back of moderation in slippages coupled with recoveries from the bankruptcy resolutions. It also noted that public sector banks (PSBs) will turn more profitable for first time in four years.

According to the report, Indian banking system will close FY19 with gross non NPAs ratio of 10.3 percent. It noted that the credit ratio, which is the ratio of upgrades to downgrades, moved up to 1.81 times in the second half of FY19 from 1.68 times in the first half. It also said that from a quantum of debt perspective, the debt-rated credit ratio moderated to 0.89 times primarily due to two telecom firms slipping. It warned that a slump in advanced economies as well as government spends on infra may lead to a moderation in the credit ratio in FY20. 

Crisil further stated that incremental slippages came down to 3.8 percent of total assets in FY19 from over 6 percent levels in the previous two fiscals. It felt that this is slated to help the state-run lenders, who are expected to return to the black after four consecutive years of losses. It added that over 60 percent of total upgrades were in investment-linked and export-linked sectors, which got a fillip from domestic infra spends and global growth.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 11702.75, up by 33.60 points or 0.29% after trading in a range of 11655.85 and 11711.55. There were 31 stocks advancing against 19 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Tata Motors up by 4.72%, Bharti Airtel up by 3.55%, Eicher Motors up by 2.38%, Indusind Bank up by 1.89% and Power Grid up by 1.71%. On the flip side, Grasim Industries down by 1.38%, HCL Technologies down by 1.34%, Bajaj Auto down by 1.22%, Britannia Industries down by 1.08% and UPL down by 0.92% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in green; Taiwan Weighted strengthened 47.67 points or 0.45% to 10,690.30, Straits Times advanced 19.81 points or 0.61% to 3,270.32, Hang Seng increased 18.21 points or 0.06% to 29,580.23, Shanghai Composite gained 10.74 points or 0.34% to 3,181.10, KOSPI rose 8.90 points or 0.41% to 2,177.18 and Jakarta Composite soared 6.69 points or 0.1% to 6,459.30.

On the flip side, Nikkei 225 slipped 3.72 points or 0.02% to 21,505.31.