Markets trade higher in early deals on firm global cues

With a positive opening Indian equity markets extended their previous session’s gains and are trading in fine fettle early deals on firm global cues. Sensex climbed over 500 points in opening deals, Nifty breached 12,000-mark. Traders were taking encouragement as the finance ministry has said the economy has been recovering at a fast pace and would likely to reach pre-Covid-19 levels by the end of the current fiscal year. Further, Support came in as the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has said while October data looked promising for exports, the situation will improve further in the coming months due to collaborative efforts of all the stakeholders. Director General of Foreign Trade Amit Yadav has said since April, when there was a huge downfall in exports, it has made good progress and is going to rise in the coming months.  On the global front, the US markets rallied on Wednesday as election results continued to roll in. Asian markets are trading mostly higher in early deals on Thursday following positive close from US markets.

Back home, the BSE Sensex is currently trading at 41143.58, up by 527.44 points or 1.30% after trading in a range of 41030.17 and 41198.27. There were 29 stocks advancing against 1 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.89%, while Small cap index up by 0.90%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were IT up by 2.04%, PSU up by 1.86%, TECK up by 1.83%, Bankex up by 1.45% and Energy up by 1.18%, while there were no losers.

The top gainers on the Sensex were SBI up by 5.80%, HCL Tech. up by 3.77%, Tech Mahindra up by 2.24%, Infosys up by 2.05% and Asian Paints up by 1.97%. On the flip side, ONGC down by 0.30% was the only losers.

Meanwhile, Director General of Foreign Trade -- Amit Yadav has said that while October data looked promising for exports, the situation will improve further in the coming months due to collaborative efforts of all the stakeholders. Since April, when there was a huge downfall in exports, it has made good progress and is going to rise in the coming months. He said that presently, availability of containers for exports is the biggest challenge the EXIM fraternity is facing.

Yadav said that trade facilitators like ports are making their best efforts to make containers available to exporters. He noted that the government has plans to create district export hubs for which a draft report has been prepared. He said that this will require district-level data and export potential of products and the various bottlenecks that are being faced. He added that the new Foreign Trade Policy will be implemented from April 2021 as the current one has been extended by one year.

Regarding the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS), he said although it is blocked at the moment, it will probably open shortly keeping in view the overall fiscal position of the country. He noted that the MIES is a scheme designed to provide rewards to exporters to offset infrastructural inefficiencies and associated costs. 

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 12058.40, up by 149.90 points or 1.26% after trading in a range of 12027.60 and 12077.30. There were 47 stocks advancing against 3 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were SBI up by 6.18%, HCL Tech. up by 3.87%, Grasim Industries up by 2.52%, Tech Mahindra up by 2.34% and UPL up by 2.11%. On the flip side, Hero MotoCorp down by 0.55%, ONGC down by 0.15% and Titan Co down by 0.06% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading in green; Nikkei 225 surged 293.76 points or 1.24% to 23,988.99, Straits Times rose 53.20 points or 2.11% to 2,569.18, Taiwan Weighted jumped 15.24 points or 0.12% to 12,883.14, KOSPI advanced 41.07 points or 1.74% to 2,398.39, Jakarta Composite gained 104.98 points or 2.06% to 5,210.18 Shanghai Composite rose 28.75 points or 0.88% to 3,306.19 andHang Seng was down by 676.19 points or 2.72% to 25,562.33.