Markets near seven-month high; Nifty inching closer to 5,450 mark

Indian equity markets trading near seven-month high amid constant buying across the board in the late morning session on Thursday. The BSE Sensex rose 45.87 points, while the NSE Nifty was inching closer to 5,450 level. Investors have been making strong positions on hopes of another economic stimulus by the Federal Reserve today in its policy meeting. In the currency market, rupee drifted down against the US dollar, due to persistent dollar demand. On sectoral front, oil stocks were on buyer’s radar amid fuel price hike hopes ahead of a meeting of cabinet committee on political affairs today in the evening. Select shares from capital goods, power, PSU and automobile sectors were trading higher, while Healthcare and metal stocks were trading weak. In global markets, Asian shares were trading mixed. Back home, the market breadth favoring positive trend; there were 1,315 shares on the gaining side against 1,088 shares on the losing side while 115 shares remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 18,045.90 up by 45.87 points or 0.25% after touching a high of 18,062.68 and low of 17,993.97. There were 17 stocks advancing against 12 declines on the index, while 1 remain unchanged.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.43% and Small cap index was up by 0.35%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Oil and Gas up by 1.15%, PSU up by 1.03%, CG up by 0.91%, Power up by 0.51% and Bankex up by 0.49%. While, HC down by 0.61%, Metal down by 0.28% and Realty down by 0.03% were top losers on the index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Hero MotoCorp up by 2.08%, Gail India up by 2.00%, ONGC up by 1.95%, BHEL up by 1.69% and Bajaj Auto up by 1.37%.

On the flip side, Cipla was down by 2.77%, Jindal Steel was down by 1.50%, Bharti Airtel was down by 1.28%, HDFC was down by 1.22% and Tata Motors was down by 1.01% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, apex industry body, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has expressed its deepest concern on the dismal Index of Industrial Production (IIP) figures and asked for early implementation of non-legislative policy measures. It said that continuing slowdown of the industrial sector, with manufacturing growth in the negative territory is even lower than expectations. IIP grew at 0.1 per cent in July, way below the growth rate of 3.7 percent in the corresponding period last year.

The apex industry body while saying that monetary intervention in the form of repo rate cut has been due for a while, stressed on the need to cut interest rates by the Reserve Bank in order to boost the sentiment.

Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII said that it is imperative that non legislative policy measures are announced at the earliest, which could help improve confidence levels in the economy. ‘At this juncture, announcements on FDI, fiscal consolidation, manufacturing policy implementation, etc would be of great help.’

Further, he said that impediment to manufacturing growth such as issues of land, power and business regulatory environment need to be addressed. The manufacturing sector, which constitutes over 75% of the index, witnessed a contraction in output by 0.2% in July, as against growth of 3.1% in the same month last year.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,441.50, up by 10.50 points or 0.19% after trading in a range of 5,447.45 and 5,425.10. There were 27 stocks advancing against 22 declines on the index, while 1 remain unchanged.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Hero MotoCorp up by 1.95%, BPCL up by 1.87%, ONGC up by 1.82%, GAIL up by 1.81% and Reliance Infra up by 1.69%.

On the flip side, Cipla down by 3.02%, Jindal Steel down by 1.70%, Sesa Goa down by 1.54%, Ranbaxy down by 1.52% and Bharti Airtel down by 1.32% were the major losers on the index.

Asian equity indices were trading mixed; Hang Seng index up by 0.25%, Jakarta Composite up by 0.10%, KLSE Composite up by 0.46%, Nikkei 225 up by 0.39%, and Taiwan surged up by 0.11%, while Shanghai Composite down by 0.22%, Strait Times down by 0.25% and Kospi Composite Index down by 0.21%.