Key gauges pare losses to turn green in noon deals

Indian equity benchmarks pared all of their losses and reclaimed green terrain in noon deals, as traders opted to buy beaten down but fundamentally strong stocks. Traders took some support with SBI Ecowrap report stating that India has benefited from the US-China trade war by exporting more items to China. Overall exports to the US grew 9.46 per cent to $52.4 billion in 2018-19, for China the growth was 25.6 per cent to $16.7 billion. Buying in healthcare and software counters too aided sentiments, while selling was witnessed in metal and realty counters. Firm opening in Asian counters too supported the domestic sentiments with most of the Asian peers trading in green terrain at this point of time as investors prepared for an expected US interest rate cut this week. Back home, Coffee Day Enterprises tanks 20% as co-founder VG Siddhartha goes missing, while Strides Pharma soared after Company announces JV with Chinese firm.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 37769.91, up by 83.54 points or 0.22% after trading in a range of 37617.50 and 37950.21. There were 18 stocks advancing against 12 stocks declining, while 1 stock remain unchanged on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index lost 0.45%, while Small cap index was down by 0.74%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Healthcare up by 0.62%, IT up by 0.44%, Capital Goods up by 0.42%, TECK up by 0.41% and Energy up by 0.17%, while Metal down by 0.68%, Basic Materials down by 0.61%, Realty down by 0.44%, PSU down by 0.32% and FMCG was down by 0.20% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were TCS up by 1.62%, Bharti Airtel up by 1.57%, Tata Motors - DVR up by 1.43%, Maruti Suzuki up by 1.38% and ICICI Bank was up by 1.29%. On the flip side, Hero MotoCorp down by 2.33%, Yes Bank down by 1.90%, Tech Mahindra down by 1.61%, Axis Bank down by 1.25% and Vedanta was down by 1.19% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, fixing a uniform fee of Rs 5,000 for the trial licence, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has issued guidelines for 5G trials across all available spectrum bands and is likely to allocate up to 400 MHz of radio waves for the purpose.

The trial licence validity will range between three months and two years, depending on the purpose for which the trial is being conducted. The department has set a deadline for itself to grant permit for the trails between 4 and 8 weeks.

After the expiry of the deadline, the applicant will be required to send a notice for trial if the DoT has not given any response. If the applicant does not receive any reply within two weeks after giving application, it will be deemed approval. Indian entities can also apply for trial licence for demonstrating the product in the country. The guidelines bar companies from offering any commercial service using the trial licence.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 11198.95, up by 9.75 points or 0.09% after trading in a range of 11161.55 and 11267.45. There were 20 stocks advancing against 30 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Indiabulls Housing up by 3.01%, Bharti Airtel up by 1.93%, TCS up by 1.58%, Eicher Motors up by 1.42% and ICICI Bank was up by 1.22%. On the flip side, Bharti Infratel down by 3.39%, Grasim Industries down by 3.34%, Hero MotoCorp down by 2.99%, Britannia Industries down by 1.81% and Yes Bank was down by 1.79% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in green; Hang Seng increased 60.83 points or 0.22% to 28,167.24, Nikkei 225 surged 92.51 points or 0.43% to 21,709.31, Straits Times advanced 4.41 points or 0.13% to 3,350.80, Jakarta Composite soared 54.31 points or 0.86% to 6,353.35, KOSPI rose 9.20 points or 0.45% to 2,038.68 and Shanghai Composite was up by 10.47 points or 0.36% to 2,951.48. On the other hand, Taiwan Weighted was down by 54.83 points or 0.5% to 10,830.90.