Markets continue to trade above neutral line in late afternoon session

The Indian equity benchmarks continued to trade above neutral line in late afternoon session amid a day of weekly F&O expiry, which also happens to be current month’s derivative expiry. Traders took support after Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) has said that the country’s exports are expected to register healthy growth rate in the next financial year (FY23) might touch $530 billion as exporters are flushed with orders. FIEO further stated that additional exports will come from some of the PLI (production-linked incentive) sectors in the next fiscal. Sector wise, telecom sector remained in focus, as credit rating agency ICRA has revised its outlook of the telecom services sector from Negative to Stable. The rating agency stated the telecom tariff hike along with the recent relief package offers sufficient headroom for the industry to undertake deleveraging as well as fund capex for 5G tech upgrade.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in red despite U.S. shares edging up to another record high overnight amid light volumes in the final days of the year. European markets were trading mostly in red, as Russia’s service sector continued to shrink in December but the pace of contraction slowed from the previous month.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 57870.30, up by 63.81 points or 0.11% after trading in a range of 57578.99 and 58010.03. There were 19 stocks advancing against 11 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading mixed; the BSE Mid cap index declined 0.31%, while Small cap index was up by 0.35%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were IT up by 0.98%, TECK up by 0.88%, Healthcare up by 0.64%, Consumer Durables up by 0.36% and Telecom was up by 0.34%, while Energy down by 1.34%, Oil & Gas down by 1.11%, Metal down by 0.87%, Realty down by 0.78% and PSU was down by 0.55% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were HCL Tech up by 1.90%, NTPC up by 1.79%, Wipro up by 1.58%, Dr. Reddy's Lab up by 1.47% and Tech Mahindra up by 1.03%. On the flip side, Reliance Industries down by 1.58%, Tata Steel down by 0.95%, Bajaj Finserv down by 0.81%, SBI down by 0.59% and Maruti Suzuki down by 0.49% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) has said that the country’s exports are expected to register healthy growth rate in the next financial year (FY23) might touch $530 billion as exporters are flushed with orders. FIEO further stated that additional exports will come from some of the PLI (production-linked incentive) sectors in the next fiscal.

FIEO President A Sakthivel said ‘Since India will be adding over $130 billion or so in the current fiscal, we should aim to build on the same and thus aim much higher. Since we are likely to cross $400 billion in 2021-22, we should focus and aim for exports in the vicinity of $525-530 billion in 2022-23.’ Sakthivel said exporters across sectors are flushed with orders for the next fiscal, which will push the growth prospects in the next fiscal.

Besides, the Commerce and industry ministry data recently had showed that India’s exports rose by 36.2 per cent to $23.8 billion during the first three weeks of December 2021 (during December 1-21), over the same period of 2020-21 ($17.49 billion). It was up by 27.70 per cent over the same period of 2019-20 ($18.65 billion).

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 17223.35, up by 9.75 points or 0.06% after trading in a range of 17146.35 and 17264.05. There were 25 stocks advancing against 25 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were HCL Tech up by 1.87%, NTPC up by 1.75%, Wipro up by 1.53%, Dr. Reddy's Lab up by 1.39% and Cipla up by 1.30%. On the flip side, Bajaj Auto down by 1.67%, Reliance Industries down by 1.49%, Tata Motors down by 1.28%, Coal India down by 1.26% and Indian Oil down by 1.21% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red, Nikkei 225 slipped 115.17 points or 0.4% to 28,791.71, Taiwan Weighted dropped 29.44 points or 0.16% to 18,218.84, Jakarta Composite lost 19.20 points or 0.29% to 6,581.48, KOSPI fell 15.64 points or 0.52% to 2,977.65 and Straits Times was down by 4.13 points or 0.13% to 3,133.89. On the flip side, Shanghai Composite gained 22.19 points or 0.62% to 3,619.19 and Hang Seng was up by 25.47 points or 0.11% to 23,112.01.

European markets were trading mostly in red, UK’s FTSE 100 decreased 9.46 points or 0.13% to 7,411.23 and Germany’s DAX was down by 2.50 points or 0.02% to 15,849.75. On the flip side, France’s CAC was up by 2.95 points or 0.04% to 7,164.47.