Benchmarks add traction in morning session

Frontline equity indices enticing some more traction and have added some more points on the street in morning session, with Sensex and Nifty trading over gains of one and half a percent each. Buoyant Mid-caps and Small-caps also elevated around 1% gains on their respective front line stocks. Among heavy-weights Yes Bank, Power Grid Corporation and Sun Pharma have exhibited a smart performance. Traders took some solace, as Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das came up with two key measures to improve the liquidity condition of the Indian economy and financial markets. RBI will conduct another 6-month dollar/rupee swap on March 23 later this month along with conducting Long-Term Repo Operations (LTRO) of up to Rs 1 lakh crore at the policy rate in multiple tranches. Traders shrugged off Care Ratings’ report that corporate India is expecting a 0.5% hit on economic growth in FY2020-21 if the coronavirus pandemic lasts longer, pushing up fiscal deficit and creating more bad loans for the bank. Sector wise, power sector stocks trading higher despite report that reversing the trend witnessed in the first two months of 2020, power demand has recorded a negative growth in the first half of March.

On global front, Asian markets are trading mixed after U.S. stock market plunged to its worst day in more than three decades and huge swaths of many economies came to a standstill, with businesses and travel shut down due to the virus outbreak. Back home, in scrip specific development, Lasa Supergenerics moved up on joining hand with ICT, and BHEL zoomed on wining order for supply of electric buses for Gorakhpur City.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 31898.19, up by 508.12 points or 1.62% after trading in a range of 30745.19 and 32047.98. There were 26 stocks advancing against 4 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index gained 1.42%, while Small cap index was up by 0.84%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Metal up by 4.56%, Power up by 4.20%, PSU up by 3.77%, Energy up by 3.53% and Utilities was up by 3.11%, while there were no looser on sectoral indices on the BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Power Grid Corporation up by 6.23%, Sun Pharma up by 5.75%, HCL Tech up by 5.71%, Hindustan Unilever up by 4.74% and NTPC up by 4.24%. On the flip side, Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 1.07%, Infosys down by 1.01%, HDFC Bank down by 0.71% and ICICI Bank down by 0.67% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur has said that India's near-term macroeconomic outlook is vulnerable to disruption of trade with China on account of coronavirus outbreak. The coronavirus outbreak, first in China and now having being confirmed in more than 100 countries, has emerged as a key risk to human health as well as global growth outlook through numerous channels like trade, production and supply chain disruptions as well as decline in demand.

However, he said the latest available data on trade and domestic output indicators do not suggest any adverse impact on the economy. Additionally, a positive impact on India's economy may arise from decline in global oil prices triggered by the outbreak of COVID-19.

In order to address the possibility of trade-induced adverse impact on the economy, the government is constantly engaging with export promotion councils and trade bodies, particularly in pharmaceutical, electronics and automobile sectors where the supply chains are sourcing imports from China. He said these agencies have been put in touch with Indian Missions abroad to secure and transport inventories available with the existing suppliers. Indian Missions abroad have also been asked to explore alternative sources of supply of raw materials in their respective countries for supporting India's domestic production.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 9376.00, up by 178.60 points or 1.94% after trading in a range of 9016.85 and 9403.80. There were 42 stocks advancing against 8 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Yes Bank up by 45.15%, Adani Ports up by 7.25%, Coal India up by 7.23%, Power Grid up by 6.93% and HCL Tech up by 6.11%. On the flip side, Zee Entertainment down by 5.32%, UPL down by 1.62%, Bharti Infratel down by 1.46%, ICICI Bank down by 0.82% and Infosys down by 0.82% were the top losers.

Asian markets are trading mixed; Taiwan Weighted dropped 227.46 points or 2.34% to 9,490.31, Jakarta Composite lost 195.97 points or 4.18% to 4,494.69, KOSPI fell 25.47 points or 1.49% to 1,689.39, Straits Times trembled 9.30 points or 0.37% to 2,486.47. On the flip side, Shanghai Composite gained 0.75 points or 0.03% to 2,790.00, Nikkei 225 surged 163.29 points or 0.96% to 17,165.33 and Hang Seng was up by 185.06 points or 0.8% to 23,248.63.