Markets maintain gaining momentum in late morning session

Indian equity benchmarks maintained their gaining momentum in late morning session, with both Sensex and Nifty holding strong gains. Positive cues from other Asian markets helped key indices to remain higher. Domestic sentiments were positive, amid reports that corporate India is stepping up to shoulder coronavirus-induced challenges by lending a helping hand through various initiatives like testing, vaccination camps, financial aid, medical help and resource access for COVID-19 care. Adding more comfort among traders, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said that India is committed to concluding negotiations for the proposed free trade agreement and investment protection pact with European Union (EU) together at an early date.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in green, after Malaysia's unemployment rate declined marginally in March. The data from the Department of Statistics showed that the jobless rate fell to 4.7 percent in March from 4.8 percent in February. The number of unemployed persons decreased to 753,200 in March from 777,500 in the previous month. The number of employed rose by 0.4 percent monthly to 15.33 million in March from 15.27 million in the prior month.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 49557.01, up by 350.54 points or 0.71% after trading in a range of 49412.05 and 49597.57. There were 26 stocks advancing against 4 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.94%, while Small cap index was up by 1.06%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Metal up by 3.20%, Healthcare up by 2.53%, PSU up by 2.34%, Realty up by 1.51% and Basic Materials up by 1.45%, while IT down by 0.34%, TECK down by 0.16% and Consumer Durables down by 0.04% were the only losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Sun Pharma up by 2.88%, ONGC up by 2.78%, Dr. Reddy’s Lab up by 2.71%, HDFC up by 2.18% and Indusind Bank up by 2.13%. On the flip side, Ultratech Cement down by 1.37%, Infosys down by 0.92%, HCL Tech down by 0.26% and Tech Mahindra down by 0.15% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the commerce ministry’s preliminary data has showed that India’s exports continued their positive growth and grew by 80 per cent to $7.04 billion during the first week of this month, as compared to exports of $3.91 billion during May 1-7 last year. The data showed that exports stood at $ 6.48 billion in the same week of May 2019.

Imports too rose by 80.7 per cent to $ 8.86 billion during May 1-7, 2021 as against $4.91 billion in the same period last year and $10.39 billion in 2019. India's exports in April jumped nearly three-folds to $30.21 billion from $10.17 billion in the same month last year. Major export commodities which are recording healthy growth include gems and jewellery, jute, carpet, handicrafts, leather, electronic goods, oil meals, cashew, engineering, petroleum products, marine products and chemicals.

Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) President S K Saraf said that the exports growth is encouraging and order books of exporters are healthy. He said ‘I will urge the government to look into the issues of MEIS (merchandise export from India scheme). RoDTEP (remission of duties and taxes on export products) rates should also be announced immediately to further push the shipments as profitability of exporters are getting impacted’.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 14941.05, up by 117.90 points or 0.80% after trading in a range of 14892.50 and 14951.25. There were 41 stocks advancing against 9 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Coal India up by 5.37%, UPL up by 4.23%, Divis Lab up by 3.94%, Hindalco up by 3.84% and Sun Pharma up by 2.95%. On the flip side, Shree Cement down by 1.76%, Ultratech Cement down by 1.35%, Britannia down by 0.95%, Infosys down by 0.93% and Grasim Industries down by 0.58% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in green; Nikkei 225 surged 157.68 points or 0.54% to 29,515.50, KOSPI advanced 41.39 points or 1.29% to 3,238.59, Jakarta Composite jumped 44.15 points or 0.74% to 5,972.46 and Shanghai Composite was up by 2.03 points or 0.06% to 3,420.90.  On the other hand, Straits Times fell 20.48 points or 0.64% to 3,179.78, Hang Seng declined 148.69 points or 0.52% to 28,461.96 and Taiwan Weighted slipped 23.38 points or 0.14% to 17,261.62.