Markets trade firm in early deals

Indian equity benchmarks made positive start on Wednesday tracking global peers coupled with easing inflation numbers. Markets were trading firm in early deals with gains of over half a percent each. Buying in Telecom, PSU and Oil & Gas counters were supporting the domestic indices. Sentiments got a boost with the government data showing that Consumer Price Index (CPI)-based inflation eased to 4.59 per cent in December 2020 compared to 6.93 per cent in November. Food inflation declined to 3.41 per cent in December, compared to 9.5 per cent in the previous month. Some support also came in with report that a mega immunisation drive against Covid-19 has kicked off with nine flights transporting over 5.6 million doses of the vaccine to 13 cities across the country on Tuesday. Kerala will get the first consignment of over 400,000 coronavirus vaccines today. market participants overlooked the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation data showing that the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) contracted by 1.9 per cent in November as against 3.6 per cent growth in October.

On the global front, most of the Asian markets were trading higher tracking the modest gains overnight on Wall Street amid optimism about additional U.S. fiscal stimulus. Nevertheless, investors remained cautious as they monitored the political developments in Washington after U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said he will not remove President Donald Trump from office. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the Democratic-held chamber will vote later today to impeach Trump. Back home, Oil-linked companies stocks were trading higher reacting to a sharp jump in crude prices to 11-month high level of $57 a barrel. In scrip specific development, Infosys and Wipro were in limelight ahead of their Q3 numbers to be out later in the day. Bharti Airtel surged as it is initiating the process to revise its foreign investment limit to 100 per cent with immediate effect.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 49777.43, up by 260.32 points or 0.53% after trading in a range of 49676.11 and 49784.02. There were 18 stocks advancing against 12 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 0.52%, while Small cap index up was by 0.64%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Telecom up by 3.47%, PSU up by 1.70%, Oil & Gas up by 1.59%, Capital Goods up by 1.22%, Industrials up by 1.12%, while Consumer Durables down by 0.63%, IT down by 0.27% were the only losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bharti Airtel up by 4.30%, ONGC up by 2.42%, SBI up by 2.03%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.67% and ICICI Bank up by 1.53%. On the flip side, Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 0.96%, Titan Company down by 0.92%, Dr. Reddy’s Lab down by 0.62%, Bajaj Auto down by 0.39% and Asian Paints down by 0.37% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, after registering two consecutive months of growth, India’s factory output or Index of Industrial Production (IIP) contracted 1.9 percent for November 2020 mainly due to poor showing by manufacturing and mining sectors. Industrial production of the country had grown at 3.6 per cent in October 2020 and 2.1 per cent in November 2019. Meanwhile, the IIP growth for October has been revised upwards to 4.9 per cent from last month's provisional estimates of 3.6 per cent. The data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) under Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation showed that for the month of November 2020, the Quick Estimates of Index of Industrial Production (IIP) with base 2011-12 stood at 126.3.

The manufacturing sector -- which constitutes 77.63 per cent of the IIP -- recorded a contraction of 1.7 per cent in November 2020. Mining sector output too witnessed a decline, shrinking 7.3 per cent. However, power generation grew 3.5 per cent in the month under review. The Indices of Industrial Production for the Mining, Manufacturing and Electricity sectors for the month of November 2020 stand at 104.5, 128.4 and 144.8 respectively. The IIP for the April-November period has contracted by 15.5 per cent, according to the data. It had registered a flat growth of 0.3 per cent during the same period last fiscal.

The output of capital goods, which is a barometer of investment, fell by 7.1 per cent in November 2020 as against a contraction of 8.9 per cent earlier. Consumer durables output fell by 0.7 per cent, compared to 1.4 per cent contraction in November 2019. Consumer non-durable goods production fell by 0.7 per cent, compared to a growth of 1.1 per cent a year ago. As per Use-based classification, the indices stand at 121.3 for Primary Goods, 84.6 for Capital Goods, 136.7 for Intermediate Goods and 135.5 for Infrastructure/ Construction Goods for the month of November 2020. Further, the indices for Consumer durables and Consumer non-durables stand at 115.9 and 149.1 respectively for the month of November 2020.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 14645.40, up by 81.95 points or 0.56% after trading in a range of 14617.65 and 14653.35. There were 36 stocks advancing against 14 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Bharti Airtel up by 5.21%, ONGC up by 4.06%, BPCL up by 3.47%, Tata Motors up by 3.13% and IOC up by 2.86%. On the flip side, TCS down by 1.08%, Titan Company down by 1.05%, HCL Technologies down by 0.95%, Infosys down by 0.80% and Britannia Industries down by 0.60% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in green; Nikkei surged 287.60 points or 1.02% to 28,451.94, Straits Times rose 10.89 points or 0.37% to 2,988.06, Taiwan Weighted jumped 232.11 points or 1.50% to 15,732.81, KOSPI advanced 26.23 points or 0.84% to 3,152.18 and Jakarta Composite added 27.04 points or 0.42% to 6,422.71. On the other hand, Hang Seng fell 6.07 points or 0.02% to 28,270.68 and Shanghai Composite was down by 3.01 points or 0.08% to 3,605.33.