Markets ascend to day’s high on broad based buying activities

Going from strength to strength, the local equity indices gathered further ground and hit fresh intraday highs in afternoon trade, on the back of exit polls data that indicate comfortable win for the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) with their tally of 336 seats. Sentiments on the street improved further with report that the RBI's 'Payment Systems Vision 2021' document would act as a catalyst for promoting digital economy and instill confidence among the general public. Markets also drew some support with RBI’s report that the country’s foreign exchange reserves rose by $1.368 billion to reach $420.055 billion in the week to May 10 on account of a rise in foreign currency assets. In the previous week, the reserves had increased by $171.9 million to $418.687 billion. Appreciation in Indian rupee against dollars too provided strength to domestic benchmarks. The markets overlooked joint report by India Ratings and Fitch stating that trade tensions between Washington and Beijing are unlikely to aid Indian exports as there is a stark difference in the nature of commodities exported by the two economies.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mixed, as investors awaited the next chapter in the Sino-American trade dispute. Back home, the BSE Sensex is currently trading at 38992.19, up by 1061.42 points or 2.80% after trading in a range of 38570.04 and 38995.78. There were 29 stocks advancing against 2 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 3.08%, while Small cap index was up by 2.96%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were PSU up by 4.89%, Capital Goods up by 4.54%, Industrials up by 4.38%, Realty up by 4.23% and Basic Materials was up by 4.08%, while there were no losing indices on BSE sectoral front.

The top gainers on the Sensex were SBI up by 6.79%, Yes Bank up by 5.98%, Larsen & Toubro up by 5.29%, ICICI Bank up by 5.29% and Indusind Bank was up by 5.27%. On the flip side, Bajaj Auto down by 0.78% and Infosys was down by 0.39% were the few top losers.

Meanwhile, Industry body Indian Ports Association (IPA) in its latest data has indicated that the 12 major ports in India recorded a growth of 5.65 percent and together handled 60.07 million tonnes (MT) of cargo during the period April 2019 as against 56.86 MT handled during the corresponding period of previous year. The growth in the cargo traffic was mainly attributed to increase in demand from various sectors, including coal, containers and petroleum, oil and lubricants (POL).

According to the data, coking coal volumes handled by the 12 ports surged by 30.62 percent to 5.51 MT during the first month this fiscal, while thermal and steam coal grew 12.65 percent to 10.91 MT. Container volumes too rose 5.74 percent to 12.54 MT in terms of tonnage handled. POL handling during April jumped by 11 per cent to 18.99 MT as compared to previous fiscal.

Data further indicated that among the 12 major ports, Deendayal Port, earlier known as Kandla port, recorded the highest growth in traffic at 11.30 MT in April, followed by Paradip Port 9.55 MT, JNPT 5.99, Visakhapatnam 5.69 and Mumbai Port 5 MT. Kolkata Port, including Haldia, handled 4.95 MT of cargo, while Chennai port handled 3.94 MT of cargo. 

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 11723.05, up by 315.90 points or 2.77% after trading in a range of 11591.70 and 11723.40. There were 45 stocks advancing against 5 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Adani Ports &SEZ up by 8.00%, SBI up by 7.03%, Grasim Industries up by 6.81%, Indiabulls Housing Finance up by 6.47% and Yes Bank was up by 6.26%. On the flip side, Dr. Reddys Lab down by 6.40%, Zee Entertainment down by 2.54%, Tech Mahindra down by 1.78%, Bajaj Auto down by 0.76% and Infosys was down by 0.37% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mixed; Nikkei 225 surged 51.64 points or 0.24% to 21,301.73, Jakarta Composite soared 48.26 points or 0.83% to 5,875.13 and Taiwan Weighted was up by 14.30 points or 0.14% to 10,398.41. On the flip side, KOSPI fell 0.09 points or 0% to 2,055.71, Shanghai Composite declined 22.59 points or 0.78% to 2,859.71 and Hang Seng was down by 166.62 points or 0.6% to 27,779.84.