Local bourses add gains in afternoon deals

Adding some gains, Indian equity benchmarks continued their trade in green in afternoon session, on the back of buying by funds and retail investors despite weak global cues. Investors’ sentiment got a support with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s statement that the government planned steps to improve the state of the economy fairly quickly after getting inputs from business leaders. Moreover, better-than-expected quarterly earnings by some companies too added some thrust on the street. Meanwhile, to protect the interest of online shoppers, the Department of Consumer Affairs has released draft guidelines on e-commerce that state that an e-commerce entity cannot directly or indirectly influence the price of the goods or services. On the sectoral front, Auto sector remained in focus with report that the recent draft notification by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, which proposes to increase the registration charge of new vehicles, is expected to further aggravate the slowdown in the automobile industry.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading in red, following Wall Street’s worst day of the year as trade tensions between the U.S. and China grew even worse. Back home, the BSE Sensex is currently trading at 36931.79, up by 231.95 points or 0.63% after trading in a range of 36536.59 and 36936.06. There were 20 stocks advancing against 11 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 0.99%, while Small cap index was up by 1.10%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 1.63%, Capital Goods up by 1.29%, Metal up by 1.26%, Basic Materials up by 1.24% and Bankex was up by 0.99%, while Energy down by 0.26%, Power down by 0.14% and Oil & Gas was down by 0.08% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tech Mahindra up by 4.35%, Indusind Bank up by 2.20%, HCL Tech. up by 2.16%, Yes Bank up by 2.03% and Asian Paints was up by 1.82%. On the flip side, Tata Motors - DVR down by 2.04%, Power Grid down by 2.04%, Tata Motors down by 1.13%, ONGC down by 0.88% and Bajaj Auto was down by 0.64% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Power has introduced mechanism ‘Trust Retention Account’ (TRA) for certain stressed power plants to utilize their surplus after meeting operating expense, for servicing debt in the first place. It noted that in case the developers using coal linkage of amended SHAKTI policy, TRA must be put in place, if it is not there already.

According to the Ministry, all the revenues generated shall be deposited to the TRA. Generally, the lead banker would act as a TRA agent. However, it said that in case of a non-banking financial company (NBFC), like PFC or REC, which is a lead financier, any bank, which is one of the lenders, can be appointed as the TRA agent. The companies will first pay statutory payment (taxes) followed by fuel cost, transmission expenses, operation and maintenance expenses and then pay interest on loan and principal payments.

In November 2018, the high level empowered committee on stressed thermal power plants in its report had suggested that the net surplus after meeting operating expenses generated shall be used for servicing debt in the first place. The recommendations were implemented in earlier in March 2019. Now, the Ministry of Power has brought out the mechanism for that. 

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 10933.90, up by 71.30 points or 0.66% after trading in a range of 10813.80 and 10938.65. There were 35 stocks advancing against 14 stocks declining, while 1 stock remain unchanged on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Indiabulls Housing Finance up by 5.20%, Tech Mahindra up by 3.87%, Coal India up by 3.29%, Dr. Reddy's Laboratories up by 2.59% and Yes Bank was up by 2.59%. On the flip side, Zee Entertainment down by 5.64%, Cipla down by 2.88%, Power Grid down by 2.06%, ONGC down by 0.99% and Tata Motors was down by 0.93% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading in red; Hang Seng decreased 275.88 points or 1.05% to 25,875.44, Taiwan Weighted dropped 28.66 points or 0.27% to 10,394.75, Shanghai Composite declined 50.45 points or 1.79% to 2,771.05, Straits Times trembled 24.44 points or 0.77% to 3,170.07, KOSPI fell 29.48 points or 1.51% to 1,917.50, Jakarta Composite lost 51.87 points or 0.84% to 6,123.83 and Nikkei 225 was down by 134.98 points or 0.65% to 20,585.31.