Sensex, Nifty trade in green in late morning session

Indian equity benchmarks were trading in green terrain during late morning session, with both Sensex and Nifty holding their notable gains. Positive cues from other Asian markets supported key indices to trade higher. Domestic sentiments were positive, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the 'Survey of Villages and Mapping with Improvised Technology in Village Areas' (SVAMITVA) scheme will bring ‘historical changes’ in the villages across the country. However, the broader indices were trading lower in late morning deals.

Asian markets were trading mostly in green, after the value of core machine orders in Japan gained a seasonally adjusted 0.2 percent on month in August, standing at 752.5 billion yen. That beat forecasts for a decline of 1.0 percent following the 6.3 percent increase in July. On a yearly basis, core machine orders sank 15.2 percent - beating expectations for a loss of 15.6 percent following the 16.2 percent drop in the previous month.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 40618.84, up by 109.35 points or 0.27% after trading in a range of 40562.22 and 40905.49. There were 17 stocks advancing against 13 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index lost 0.39%, while Small cap index was down by 0.38%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were IT up by 1.17%, TECK up by 1.00%, FMCG up by 0.26%, Telecom up by 0.15% and Bankex up by 0.13%, while Metal down by 3.63%, Basic Materials down by 1.50%, Oil & Gas down by 0.82%, Auto down by 0.66% ad Realty down by 0.45% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were ITC up by 2.89%, Power Grid up by 1.87%, Infosys up by 1.66%, SBI up by 1.39% and Asian Paints up by 1.24%. On the flip side, ONGC down by 1.42%, Tata Steel down by 1.35%, HDFC Bank down by 1.11%, Ultratech Cement down by 1.07% and Indusind Bank down by 0.71% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has decided to move to the Next Generation Treasury Application (NGTA) for managing the country’s foreign exchange and gold reserves, with an aim to improve functioning. According to the RBI, the NGTA would be a web-based application providing scalability, maneuverability and flexibility to introduce new products and securities, besides supporting multi-currency transactions and settlements. The NGTA, for which the RBI has invited bids from eligible vendors, would be supporting various transactions in asset classes like Fixed Income (FI), Forex (FX), Money Market (MM) and Gold.

RBI proposes to implement the NGTA which would be used for managing the foreign exchange reserves in a more efficient way, mitigate risk, achieve operational efficiencies, dealing in various asset classes and reporting. The RBI said the objectives of the proposed system includes, dealing in various asset classes (like Fixed Income Securities, Forex, Money Market, Gold); portfolio management; workflow management; reserve management; integration with various third party and in-house systems; and dashboards, reports, widgets.

Besides other things, the propose NGTA should automatically fetch all the relevant details of a security/contract from a trading platform. It should support all internationally accepted conventions pertaining to day count, interest computation, holiday logic, shut period-dividend, ex-dividend, cash flows, and odd coupon. With respect to transactions in gold, the NGTA should support purchase, sale, deposit (including rollover and premature withdrawal). On maturity of a gold deposit, there can be exact, under or over delivery.

As per the document, the prime bidder should be a registered Indian entity under the respective Acts of India. Also, the prime bidder should have a minimum annual turnover of at least Rs 475 crore 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20. India’s foreign exchange reserves rose by $3.618 billion to reach a life-time high of $545.638 billion in the week ended October 2, 2020. The gold reserves were up by $486 million in the reporting week to $36.486 billion. The special drawing rights with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) rose by $4 million to $1.476 billion and reserve position with the IMF was also up by $23 million to $4.631 billion during the reporting week.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 11925.85, up by 11.65 points or 0.10% after trading in a range of 11915.65 and 12022.05. There were 20 stocks advancing against 29 stocks declining on the index, while 1 stock remains unchanged on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were ITC up by 2.83%, Infosys up by 1.80%, Power Grid up by 1.80%, Hindalco up by 1.74% and SBI up by 1.51%. On the flip side, JSW Steel down by 3.32%, GAIL India down by 2.51%, Tata Motors down by 1.63%, Coal India down by 1.57% and HDFC Life Insurance down by 1.38% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in green; Taiwan Weighted strengthened 32.91 points or 0.26% to 12,920.10, Jakarta Composite soared 37.98 points or 0.75% to 5,091.64, KOSPI rose 6.10 points or 0.26% to 2,398.06, Straits Times advanced 14.11 points or 0.56% to 2,547.07, Shanghai Composite gained 74.18 points or 2.27% to 3,346.26 and Hang Seng increased 489.58 points or 2.03% to 24,608.71. On the flip side, Nikkei 225 slipped 69.87 points or 0.3% to 23,549.82.