Indian stock markets continue upward trend

Mirroring Asian peers, Indian equity markets were trading in fine fettle with Sensex and Nifty crossing 39,150 and 11,500 levels in the afternoon session. Majority of the sectoral indices on BSE were into positive territory, stocks from IT, realty and consumer durables counters were the prominent gainers. On the flip side, stocks from telecom and FMCG counters were the only losers on the index at this point of time. Traders were encouraged as Chief Economic Adviser K V Subramanian exuded confidence that retail inflation will come down in the days ahead with the easing of lockdowns, attributing the rise in inflation to supply-side frictions. Some support also came as the Union Ministry of Finance informed that an amount of Rs 30,000 crore Special Liquidity Scheme has been progressed for non-banking, housing finance companies and Monetary Financial Institutions (MFI) as part of the Atmanirbhar Bharat package.

On the global front; Asian markets were trading mostly higher after the news that Drug maker AstraZeneca resumed the late-stage trial of its coronavirus vaccine in UK. Back home; TCS becomes the second Indian company to cross Rs 9 trillion m-cap. The information technology (IT) giant is the second Indian company, after Reliance Industries (RIL), to achieve the milestone. In scrip specific developments; Aurionpro Solutions touched roof as its arm wins order from largest bank in Singapore and SpiceJet gained on entering into partnership with Liberty General Insurance.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 39166.75, up by 312.20 points or 0.80% after trading in a range of 39070.86 and 39230.16. There were 20 stocks advancing against 9 stocks declining, while 1 stock remains unchanged on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 2.11%, while Small cap index was up by 4.19%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were IT up by 4.35%, Realty up by 3.95%, Consumer Durables up by 3.89%, TECK up by 3.52% and Industrials up by 2.39%, while Telecom down by 0.39% and FMCG down by 0.15% were the only losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were HCL Tech up by 10.53%, Infosys up by 4.00%, Tech Mahindra up by 3.54%, TCS up by 3.03% and Bajaj Auto was up by 2.09%. On the flip side, Bajaj Finance down by 1.35%, Hindustan Unilever down by 1.24%, Sun Pharma down by 1.09%, Nestle down by 1.07% and Bharti Airtel was down by 1.06% were the top losers.

Meanwhile; Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) is working on two schemes -- credit guarantee and seed funds -- to support startups in the country. Both the schemes would require the approval of the finance ministry and then the DPIIT would seek the nod of the Union Cabinet for these two schemes. DPIIT Secretary Guruprasad Mohapatra said that an inter-ministerial consultation process is on to work out the contours of the two schemes. He also said there would be a corpus in the credit guarantee scheme which would be given to banks and they will leverage that to lend to startups.

Mohapatra said this scheme would give banks a comfort to lend and it is for credit not for venture capital. On the seed fund scheme, he said that most startups actually face problems in raising finance or funds in the ideation to the proof of concept stage. Some states like Gujarat and Kerala already have schemes like seed funds, but they are small. He also said ‘the central government ministries also have, but we want to put a pan India scheme.’

Talking about the next edition of the ranking of states and union territories (UTs) on their startup ecosystem, the secretary said that the department has already started the process for that. He added that the department is encouraging states to develop their startup policy to promote budding entrepreneurs.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 11542.15, up by 77.70 points or 0.68% after trading in a range of 11516.90 and 11568.90. There were 31 stocks advancing against 19 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were HCL Tech up by 10.73%, Infosys up by 4.05%, Tech Mahindra up by 3.44%, Wipro up by 3.34% and Tata Motors was up by 3.22%. On the flip side, Bajaj Finance down by 1.48%, BPCL down by 1.48%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.35%, Sun Pharma down by 1.14% and Hindustan Unilever was down by 1.13% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in green; Hang Seng increased 175.67 points or 0.72% to 24,678.98, Jakarta Composite soared 133.13 points or 2.65% to 5,149.84, Shanghai Composite gained 6.93 points or 0.21% to 3,267.28, Nikkei 225 surged 152.81 points or 0.65% to 23,559.30, KOSPI rose 31.22 points or 1.3% to 2,427.91 and Taiwan Weighted was up by 111.87 points or 0.88% to 12,787.82. On the flip side; Straits Times was down by 5.64 points or 0.23% to 2,484.45.