Bulls run continue on Dalal Street in late morning deals

Bulls continued to tighten their grip on Dalal Street with frontline gauges inching towards their crucial 46,000 (Sensex) and 13,500 (Nifty) levels. Sentiments remained jubilant as traders consider approving coronavirus vaccines for the public, raising hopes of early economic recovery. Some support also came with report that Corporate India is showing ‘healthy signs of recovery’ and plans to hire more people in the first three months of 2021 compared to the quarter ending December. According to report, the employment trends in the first quarter of 2021 are expected to be on the rise with a Net Employment Outlook of 5 percent.

Positive trade in Asian counterparts too were providing support to Indian markets. Most of the Asian peerts were trading in green at this point of time as investors cheered news that the White House had put forward a fresh stimulus proposal of more than $900 billion, lifting hopes US lawmakers could pass a deal before Christmas. Back home, buying in public sector and energy stocks too helped markets to trade higher. Meanwhile, shares of defence sector companies were in focus on report that the Union government on Tuesday issued another notification regarding changes in the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) permitting foreign direct investment (FDI) in defence production up to 74 per cent under the automatic route.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 45922.68, up by 314.17 points or 0.69% after trading in a range of 45792.01 and 45965.03. There were 24 stocks advancing against 6 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index gained 0.60%, while Small cap index was up by 0.73%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were PSU up by 1.22%, Energy up by 1.22%, Utilities up by 1.06%, FMCG up by 0.98% and Oil & Gas was up by 0.93%, while there were no losers on the BSE sectoral front.

The top gainers on the Sensex were ITC up by 2.40%, ONGC up by 1.43%, HCL Tech up by 1.39%, Asian Paints up by 1.37% and Reliance Industries up by 1.27%. On the flip side, Maruti Suzuki down by 0.56%, Tata Steel down by 0.42%, ICICI Bank down by 0.38%, Bharti Airtel down by 0.25% and Bajaj Auto down by 0.08% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Union Minister of Road Transport Nitin Gadkari has highlighted that Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) is backbone of Indian economy and said the government's aim is to increase the sector's contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to 50 per cent from the existing 30 per cent. He added that the MSME sector currently constitutes 48 per cent of total exports from India and the government aims to take it to 60 per cent in future.

Gadkari said ‘at the same time up till now MSME created 11 crore jobs. And that is one of the reasons why MSME is the backbone of the country’. He also said ‘Now we have decided to make this 30 per cent contribution to GDP to 40 per cent and 48 per cent of the exports contribution to 60 per cent. And we want to create five crore jobs’.

The union minister said currently village industries such as handlooms, handicrafts, Khadi Gram Udyog are generating Rs 80 thousand crore revenues which needs to be taken up to Rs five lakh crore in the next few years. Requesting industrialists to invest in India, he said that the country currently has an excellent network of roads, abundantly available power and water and reformed labour and other administrative laws. He said his ministry was planning to take up 22 new green highway road projects across the country.

According to him, though there is an impact of COVID- 19 globally, the Indian industry may get some opportunities out of it. Lauding the achievements of the Indian automobile industry, Gadkari said the sector witnesses Rs 4.5 lakh crore turnover annually and the country can become a global hub for automobile manufacturing. He said currently research is going on to use hydrogen fuel cells as an alternative source of energy for automobiles.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 13484.40, up by 91.45 points or 0.68% after trading in a range of 13449.60 and 13494.85. There were 36 stocks advancing against 14 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were UPL up by 2.77%, ITC up by 2.25%, Coal India up by 1.97%, Tata Motors up by 1.71% and Indian Oil Corporation up by 1.70%. On the flip side, Hindalco down by 1.04%, HDFC Life Insurance down by 0.55%, Maruti Suzuki down by 0.51%, Shree Cement down by 0.45% and ICICI Bank down by 0.32% were the top losers.

Most of the Asian markets were trading higher; Nikkei 225 surged 350.86 points or 1.33% to 26,817.94, Hang Seng gained 258.48 points or 0.98% to 26,563.04, KOSPI soared 53.02 points or 1.96% to 2,753.95, Straits Times advanced 18.04 points or 0.64% to 2,843.67 and Taiwan Weighted strengthened 29.74 points or 0.21% to 14,390.14. However, Shanghai Composite was down by 17.70 points or 0.52% to 3,392.48.