Key gauges remain in green in morning deals

Indian equity benchmarks added some gains in morning deals, on the back of gains in Utilities, Realty and Power stocks. Sentiments remained positive with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement that the country's economic growth is picking up pace again and the domestic industry needs to enhance its risk-taking appetite. Noting the recent reforms taken by the government, he said that bringing reforms is a matter of conviction for his government, which is ready to take all risks in the national interest. Some support also came with Commerce Secretary BVR Subrahmanyam’s statement that the country's merchandise exports are expected to touch $1 trillion by 2027-28 and the government has laid down a road map, including district as an export hub scheme, to achieve that number. On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in red with fears about the spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus weighing on sentiment even as tame U.S. inflation eased fears the Federal Reserve would rush to reduce its economic support.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 54697.16, up by 171.23 points or 0.31% after trading in a range of 54536.65 and 54724.20. There were 20 stocks advancing against 10 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.61%, while Small cap index up by 1.63%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Utilities up by 1.59%, Realty up by 1.07%, Power up by 1.06%, IT up by 0.94% and Industrials up by 0.93%, while there were no losing sectoral indices on the BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tech Mahindra up by 3.83%, Power Grid Corp up by 2.70%, HCL Technologies up by 1.31%, Bajaj Finance up by 1.31% and Bajaj Auto up by 0.83%. On the flip side, Nestle down by 0.25%, NTPC down by 0.21%, Indusind Bank down by 0.16%, HDFC down by 0.15% and Axis Bank down by 0.14% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Commerce Secretary BVR Subrahmanyam has said that the country's merchandise exports are expected to touch $1 trillion by 2027-28 and the government has laid down a road map, including district as an export hub scheme, to achieve that number. He said this fiscal, the commerce ministry is aiming at $419 billion of exports and for that a detailed analysis has been carried out and the target was disaggregated at the level of country, commodity, region, and states across 31 commodity groups.

The secretary said that Indian exports have been roughly fluctuating between $290 billion and $330 billion for the last 10 years. He said the services exports' sector has ''no mother, and they are an orphan in many ways'' as it is distributed among 30 different departments of the government. He said ‘we are going to start an exercise. We export about $200 billion services every year. The target is actually to hit about $700 billion by 2027-28.’ Listing out steps which the ministry is going to take to achieve these targets, he said as Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS), and Services Exports from India Scheme (SEIS), are stopped now, the government will notify Remission of Duties and Taxes on Export Products (RoDTEP) rates probably by Friday.

About market intelligence, Subrahmanyam said that the export target has been given to 140 Indian embassies and 60 consulates and they would help in providing information like export opportunities in their countries. For the market intelligence network, he said a Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) kind of set up will be developed where exporters would get real time information. For special economic zones, he said ‘as these zones account for 30 per cent of India's total exports, some simplification is required for them, and by the end of August, we will be doing a couple of things for SEZs.’

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 16333.80, up by 51.55 points or 0.32% after trading in a range of 16286.90 and 16338.90. There were 37 stocks advancing against 13 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Tech Mahindra up by 3.88%, Power Grid Corporation up by 2.58%, HCL Technologies up by 1.42%, Coal India up by 1.32% and Bajaj Finance up by 1.30%. On the flip side, Eicher Motors down by 0.63%, ONGC down by 0.47%, Nestle down by 0.26%, Indusind Bank down by 0.23% and NTPC down by 0.21% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Taiwan Weighted dropped 34.79 points or 0.2% to 17,192.39, Nikkei 225 slipped 28.75 points or 0.1% to 28,041.76, Hang Seng decreased 23.24 points or 0.09% to 26,636.92, KOSPI fell 9.41 points or 0.29% to 3,211.21 and Shanghai Composite declined 4.35 points or 0.12% to 3,528.27.

On the flip side, Straits Times advanced 11.27 points or 0.35% to 3,191.27 and Jakarta Composite soared 33.13 points or 0.54% to 6,121.54.