Markets extend gains in late afternoon session

Indian equity benchmarks extended their gains in late afternoon session, with the Sensex and the Nifty gaining over 250 and 75 points, respectively. Traders took encouragement, as overall capacity utilization in manufacturing has witnessed a rise to 74 per cent as compared to 65 per cent in previous quarter. The future investment outlook, however, looks slightly better as 30 per cent respondents reported plans for capacity additions for the next six months as compared to 18 per cent in the previous quarter. Sector wise, Infrastructure sector remained in focus, as Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has introduced the National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development (NaBFID) Bill 2021 in the Lok Sabha to pave the way for setting up of a government-owned development finance institution to help fund about 7,000 infra projects under the National Infrastructure Pipeline. On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in red as investors extended recent sell-offs owing to long-running fears that the expected global recovery will force central banks to wind down their easy-money programmes earlier than hoped. European markets were trading lower as a new wave of coronavirus infection and fresh lockdown in Germany raised fears of a slow economic recovery from the pandemic shock.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 50042.94, up by 271.65 points or 0.55% after trading in a range of 49661.92 and 50227.03. There were 21 stocks advancing against 9 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index gained 1.10%, while Small cap index was up by 0.80%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Industrials up by 1.39%, Energy up by 1.19%, Realty up by 0.95%, Bankex up by 0.94% and Consumer Durables was up by 0.89%, while Metal down by 0.59% and Oil & Gas was down by 0.25% were the only losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Titan Company up by 3.63%, Ultratech Cement up by 1.95%, Indusind Bank up by 1.95%, Reliance Industries up by 1.52% and Axis Bank up by 1.42%. On the flip side, ONGC down by 2.05%, NTPC down by 1.50%, Power Grid down by 1.43%, HDFC down by 1.13% and ITC down by 1.08% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, in a big relief to infrastructure sector, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has introduced the National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development (NaBFID) Bill 2021 in the Lok Sabha to pave the way for setting up of a government-owned development finance institution to help fund about 7,000 infra projects under the National Infrastructure Pipeline.

The proposed legislation will give effect to the Budget announcement made by the finance minister on February 1. The government has proposed Rs 20,000 crore to capitalise the institution. The Union Cabinet had last week approved the Budget proposal of setting up a development finance institution (DFI), which will have tax benefits to enable fund raising from investors.

The National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development will be set up with a corpus of Rs 20,000 crore and the government will give an initial grant of Rs 5,000 crore. The government expects the DFI to leverage this fund to raise up to Rs 3 lakh crore in the next few years.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 14815.45, up by 79.05 points or 0.54% after trading in a range of 14707.00 and 14867.75. There were 32 stocks advancing against 18 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Shree Cement up by 3.60%, Titan Company up by 3.55%, Adani Ports up by 3.23%, Divis Lab up by 2.52% and Ultratech Cement up by 2.08%. On the flip side, Indian Oil down by 2.32%, ONGC down by 2.01%, Hindalco down by 1.77%, Power Grid down by 1.48% and NTPC down by 1.23% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red, Hang Seng decreased 387.96 points or 1.34% to 28,497.38, Nikkei 225 slipped 178.23 points or 0.61% to 28,995.92, Jakarta Composite lost 48.42 points or 0.77% to 6,252.71, Shanghai Composite declined 31.93 points or 0.93% to 3,411.51, KOSPI fell 30.72 points or 1.01% to 3,004.74 and Taiwan Weighted was down by11.63 points or 0.07% to 16,177.59. On the flip side, Straits Times was up by1.09 points or 0.03% to 3,129.17.

European markets were trading lower, UK’s FTSE 100 decreased 36.75 points or 0.55% to 6,689.35, France’s CAC decreased 35.85 points or 0.6% to 5,932.63 and Germany’s DAX was down by 92.36 points or 0.63% to 14,564.85.