Benchmarks trade higher in early deals

After making a negative start, Indian equity markets soon gained lost grounds and are trading higher in early deals on Wednesday, with Sensex and Nifty garnering gains of around one third of a percent each. Except Consumer Durables and Oil & Gas, all the sectoral indices were trading higher. Traders took encouragement with Federation of Indian Export Organisations’ (FIEO) statement that the government's focus to improve logistics, ease of doing business and modern trade infrastructure will help exports to touch $1 trillion in the next three years. It added that India has huge potential to boost its exports of goods and services from the current $535 billion. Traders took note of report that the government will come out with a national e-commerce policy within 12 months to facilitate achieving holistic growth of the sector. However, there was some cautiousness in the beginning of markets amid weak global cues. Former RBI deputy governor Rakesh Mohan said manufacturing growth is not consistent with India's overall economic growth figures. He added that the country cannot grow at 8 per cent without manufacturing sector recording 10 per cent growth.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mixed after US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell tempered expectations for a potential interest rate cut. The US markets had closed lower on Tuesday as investors weighed commentary from Federal Reserve officials and shares of technology companies slumped. Back home, the banking stocks were buzzing with Crisil’s report that higher recoveries and slowdown in fresh bad loans are likely to reduce banks non-performing loans (NPAs) to nearly 8 percent by March 2020. Power stocks were in focus with the government’s statement that India plans to add 500 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy to its electricity grid by 2030, in a bid to clean up air in its cities and increase the share of renewables in its electricity grid. In scrip specific development, NTPC surged on bagging 40 MW solar projects in UPNEDA's auction.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 39569.55, up by 134.61 points or 0.34% after trading in a range of 39319.64 and 39599.40. There were 25 stocks advancing against 6 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index gained 0.35%, while Small cap index was up by 0.39%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Power up by 1.42%, Utilities up by 1.21%, Capital Goods up by 0.81%, Industrials up by 0.76%, PSU up by 0.49%, while Consumer Durables down by 0.21%, Oil & Gas down by 0.11% were the only losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Power Grid up by 2.08%, NTPC up by 1.51%, Sun Pharma up by 1.44%, ICICI Bank up by 1.18% and Larsen & Toubro up by 1.10%. On the flip side, Tata Steel down by 0.36%, HDFC down by 0.35%, Bajaj Finance down by 0.28%, Indusind Bank down by 0.26% and TCS down by 0.21% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, expressing optimism over exports growth, exporters body Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) has said that exports are likely to touch $1 trillion in the next 3 years with the help of the government's focus to improve logistics, ease of doing business and modern trade infrastructure. FIEO President Ganesh Kumar Gupta stated that the country has huge potential to boost its exports of goods and services from the current $535 billion.

He said with steps like special focus on cutting logistics cost and time, further improvement in ease of doing business, proper implementation of government policies for exporters and timely refund of taxes will helps the country touch $1 trillion exports in the next three years. He said the logistics time, cost and inadequate trade-related infrastructure are impacting the exports. He added that reduction of logistics cost by 10% will help boost the country's exports by about 5-8%.

In order to develop logistics sector in an integrated way, Gupta said that it is important to focus on new technology, improved investment, skilling, removing bottlenecks, improving intermodal transportation, automation, single window system for giving clearances, and simplifying processes. He also said that timely refund of taxes such as goods and services tax will help exporters deal with the liquidity crunch problem. There is also a need to focus on the export of Geographical Indication (GI) products and the government should give adequate funds for the marketing of these goods to push their shipments.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 11832.55, up by 36.10 points or 0.31% after trading in a range of 11757.55 and 11839.10. There were 33 stocks advancing against 17 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Power Grid up by 2.13%, NTPC up by 1.84%, Larsen & Toubro up by 1.47%, Sun Pharma up by 1.27% and ICICI Bank up by 0.98%. On the flip side, BPCL down by 1.32%, Indiabulls Housing Finance down by 1.05%, Britannia Industries down by 0.88%, UPL down by 0.79% and Titan Company down by 0.63% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mixed; Nikkei 225 slipped 128.28 points or 0.61% to 21,065.53, Taiwan Weighted dropped 55.57 points or 0.52% to 10,651.15, Straits Times trembled 9.73 points or 0.29% to 3,294.54 and Shanghai Composite declined 6.98 points or 0.23% to 2,975.09. on the other hand, KOSPI rose 0.25 points or 0.01% to 2,121.89, Jakarta Composite soared 1.63 points or 0.03% to 6,322.08 and Hang Seng was up by 12.70 points or 0.05% to 28,198.68.