Benchmarks trade above water in early deals

Indian equity benchmarks made slightly positive start on Wednesday and soon slipped below neutral lines amid weakness in Asian peers. But, domestic indices managed to keep their head above water in early deals on account of buying in Realty, PSU and Healthcare counters. Continues fall in Covid-19 cases likely to aid the sentiments in the markets. India's daily Covid-19 cases remained below the 100,000 again. The country reported 91,227 new infections. Though, upside remained capped as the World Bank slashed India's GDP forecast to 8.3 per cent for FY22, the fiscal year starting April 2021, as against its earlier estimate of 10.1 per cent. Besides, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is all set to chair a key meeting on June 11 to review infrastructure projects.

On the global front, most of the Asian markets were trading lower following the lack of cues overnight from Wall Street. Traders were refraining from making significant moves ahead of the release of the US inflation data, due on Thursday, for indications on the outlook for the world's biggest economy. Traders are also cautious amid the high coronavirus cases in most markets in the region.

Back home, insurance industry stocks were in focus as ICRA Ratings in a report said helped by higher growth in health and motor insurance segments, the general insurance industry is likely to clock a 7-9 per cent growth in gross direct premium income (GDPI) in the financial year 2021-22. In scrip specific development, Welspun Corp traded higher as it received multiple orders of around 164 KMT valuing close to Rs 1,725 crore. Max Financial Services gained as it Q4FY21 net profit jumped to Rs 70 crore from Rs 6.7 crore, while revenue rose 129 percent to Rs 9,760 crore from Rs 4,266 crore, YoY.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 52380.07, up by 104.50 points or 0.20% after trading in a range of 52204.99 and 52401.41. There were 19 stocks advancing against 11 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 0.47%, while Small cap index was up by 0.81%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 0.97%, PSU up by 0.86%, Healthcare up by 0.75%, Power up by 0.72%, Utilities up by 0.57%, while Auto down by 0.08% was the losing ondex on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were ONGC up by 1.76%, SBI up by 0.96%, HDFC up by 0.87%, Indusind Bank up by 0.73% and Power Grid up by 0.68%. On the flip side, Ultratech Cement down by 0.81%, Maruti Suzuki down by 0.60%, Bajaj Auto down by 0.50%, ICICI Bank down by 0.30% and Larsen & Toubro down by 0.29% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Crisil in its latest report has said large steel makers took huge strides in terms of both operations and financial performance last fiscal, increasing their market share by 500 basis points (bps) on-year to 58 per cent despite their share of industry capacity remaining unchanged. It said the improvement was driven by supply-chain efficiencies, higher exports, and captive mines that limited the impact of iron ore shortage.

It mentioned higher exports helped counter lacklustre domestic demand for large steel makers (especially in the closing quarter of last fiscal and the first quarter of FY22). They also gained domestic market share, especially in the long-steel space. Consequently, players operated at more than 80 per cent utilisation levels as against sub-optimum levels of 62 per cent by midsized and small steel makers.

Besides, it also said large steel makers also benefited more from the rally in steel prices, given the dominance of flat steel in their portfolio. Domestic flat-steel prices have nearly doubled to Rs 72,000 per tonne in June 2021 from Rs 38,000 per tonne in June 2020. In comparison, long-steel prices rose 1.4 times to Rs 57,900 per tonne in the period under review. The price rally, spurred by China’s green policy, is likely to benefit through the first half of this fiscal, too, with flat steel prices already up 70 per cent since April. While prices will soften in the second half, they would still be 40-45 per cent higher on-year.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 15771.30, up by 31.20 points or 0.20% after trading in a range of 15723.10 and 15778.40. There were 32 stocks advancing against 18 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Cipla up by 1.76%, ONGC up by 1.72%, BPCL up by 1.10%, SBI Life Insurance up by 1.09% and Coal India up by 0.99%. On the flip side, Shree Cement down by 0.99%, Ultratech Cement down by 0.96%, Britannia Industries down by 0.95%, Bajaj Auto down by 0.81% and Maruti Suzuki down by 0.76% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Nikkei 225 declined 98.18 points or 0.34% to 28,865.38, Straits Times lost 9.50 points or 0.30% to 3,157.64, Hang Seng fell 3.50 points or 0.01% to 28,784.88, Taiwan Weighted dropped 86.89 points or 0.51% to 16,989.32 and KOSPI decreased 10.10 points or 0.31% to 3,237.73. However, Jakarta Composite rose 23.90 points or 0.40% to 6,023.27 and Shanghai Composite was up by 14.42 points or 0.40% to 3,594.53.