Local equities keep their head above water

Local equity benchmarks continued their trade in positive territory in morning session, led by gains in IT, Healthcare and Telecom stocks amid positive global cues. Sentiment remain encouraged with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s statement that the government has succeeded in keeping ‘complete control’ over retail inflation. The government has achieved success in not allowing inflation to raise its ‘dirty’ head to cause inconvenience to the consumers. Some optimism also came with the Reserve Bank’s report that the forex kitty continued to surge for the fourth successive week to scale a new lifetime high of $429.911 billion, after a heavy increase in the value of gold and currency assets during the week to July 5. Besides, NABARD reported that the credit disbursal for the farm sector may exceed Rs 13 lakh crore in 2019-20 against Rs 12.5 lakh crore disbursed during last fiscal. However, gains remain capped with former finance commission chairman and former finance secretary, Vijay Kelkar’s statement that he has cautioned against the dangers of government borrowing from abroad.

On the global front, Asian markets are trading mostly in green, as traders divested China’s weakest quarterly GDP growth in at least 27 years. Back home, former Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan stated that India’s plan to issue foreign currency debt has no real benefit and is fraught with risks. He said a global bond sale won’t reduce the amount of domestic government bonds the local market has to absorb and the country should worry about short-term ‘faddish investors buying when India is hot, and dumping us when it is not’.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 38816.69, up by 80.46 points or 0.21% after trading in a range of 38796.04 and 39023.97. There were 14 stocks advancing against 17 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index declined 0.79%, while Small cap index was down by 0.33%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were IT up by 2.37%, TECK up by 2.08%, Healthcare up by 0.58%, Telecom up by 0.46% and Realty was up by 0.09%, while Metal down by 1.28%, PSU down by 0.89%, Consumer Durables down by 0.86%, Capital Goods down by 0.83% and FMCG down by 0.65% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Infosys up by 5.68%, Yes Bank up by 4.04%, Sun Pharma up by 3.47%, Kotak Mahindra Bank up by 0.62% and Maruti Suzuki was up by 0.58%. On the flip side, Vedanta down by 2.47%, Hero MotoCorp down by 1.43%, Tata Steel down by 1.36%, SBI down by 1.36% and Larsen & Toubro was down by 1.08% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers' Welfare has said farmers planted 41.3 million hectares with summer crops, down 8.6 per cent year-on-year after delayed monsoon. However, the gap in sowing narrowed from the previous week as monsoon rains picked up. Farmers start planting their summer-sown crops from June 1 when monsoon rains are expected to reach India, where nearly half of farmlands lack irrigation. Planting usually continues until the end of July.

The ministry highlighted that planting of rice, the key summer crop, was at 9.8 million hectares as of July 10 versus 11 million hectares in the previous year. Corn planting was at 4.1 million hectares. The area planted with cotton was also unchanged at 7.8 million hectares. Sowing of soybean was at 5.2 million hectares, down from 6.4 million hectares the previous year. Other crop plantings such as pulses and sugar cane were also down versus last year.

The figures are provisional and subject to revision as updates arrive with the progress of the June-September monsoon season. Besides, according to the government data, water levels in India's main reservoirs were at 22% of their storage capacity against 23% a year earlier. The last 10 years' average stood at 23%.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 11557.60, up by 5.10 points or 0.04% after trading in a range of 11555.35 and 11618.40. There were 16 stocks advancing against 34 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Infosys up by 5.65%, Yes Bank up by 3.72%, Sun Pharma up by 3.41%, Kotak Mahindra Bank up by 0.61% and Tech Mahindra was up by 0.56%. On the flip side, Indiabulls Housing Finance down by 3.48%, Zee Entertainment down by 2.30%, Vedanta down by 2.27%, Titan Company down by 1.57% and SBI down was by 1.44% were the top losers.

Asian markets are trading mostly in green; Jakarta Composite soared 52.81 points or 0.83% to 6,426.16, Taiwan Weighted strengthened 41.00 points or 0.38% to 10,865.35, Hang Seng increased 19.87 points or 0.07% to 28,491.49 and Shanghai Composite was up by 17.80 points or 0.61% to 2,948.35.

On the other side, Straits Times trembled 0.25 points or 0.01% to 3,357.09 and KOSPI was down by 3.04 points or 0.15% to 2,083.62.