Bourses maintain gains in late afternoon session

Indian benchmarks sustained their gains in late afternoon session in-line with global peers. The broader indices, the BSE Mid cap index and Small cap index are trading with over half a percent gains. Traders took note of a private report stating that Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is going to hold a review meeting with the heads of public sector lenders later on Thursday to discuss various issues and to review the progress of various government schemes related to agriculture and allied sectors. Besides, Finance ministry released the fourth instalment of revenue deficit grant of Rs 7,183 crore to 14 states for the current fiscal. On the global front, all Asian markets were trading higher despite the U.S Federal Reserve's minutes of the meeting held last month indicating a hawkish stance. European markets were trading higher amid investors awaited minutes of the European Central Bank (ECB) meeting for clues on rate hikes.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 54080.67, up by 329.70 points or 0.61% after trading in a range of 53927.26 and 54254.79. 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 0.71%, while Small cap index was up by 0.90%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Consumer Durables up by 3.23%, Realty up by 1.90%, Capital Goods up by 1.45%, Bankex up by 1.28% and PSU was up by 1.28%, while Telecom was down by 0.14% were the only losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Titan Company up by 5.79%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 2.54%, Larsen & Toubro up by 2.29%, Indusind Bank up by 2.01% and ICICI Bank up by 1.89%. On the flip side, Bajaj Finance down by 1.43%, Reliance Industries down by 1.24%, Bajaj Finserv down by 1.05%, Dr. Reddy's Lab down by 0.98% and Bharti Airtel down by 0.93% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, reviewing the status of the National Master Plan in the meeting, Commerce and Industry Minister, Piyush Goyal has said that the PM GatiShakti National Master Plan and Institutional Framework are necessary for laying the foundation of India’s multimodal infrastructure network. Goyal further said that under the PM GatiShakti’s transformative approach, the government is committed to resolve user issues by overcoming various departmental silos.

The meeting discussed plans for faster integration of data into the portal. With over 900 data layers updated by Central Ministries and 316 essential layers by States/UTs, the meeting took note of various Ministries/Departments using the same to share their proposed projects after having been mapped and aligned digitally.

Meanwhile, the PM GatiShakti is already beginning to fast-track a number of infrastructure projects across the country with some states beginning to use it for better implementation of social sector projects. The Prime Minister launched PM GatiShakti-National Master Plan (NMP) for infrastructure development in October, 2021 with the objective to bring different Ministries/ Utilities & infrastructure planning under a single unified vision, across all sectors such as  Highways, Railways, Aviation, Gas, Power transmission, Renewable Energy etc.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 16093.75, up by 103.95 points or 0.65% after trading in a range of 16045.95 and 16143.25. There were 40 stocks advancing against 10 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Titan Company up by 5.88%, Larsen & Toubro up by 2.57%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 2.42%, UPL up by 2.33% and BPCL up by 2.30%. On the flip side, Bajaj Finance down by 1.36%, Reliance Industries down by 1.20%, Dr. Reddy's Lab down by 0.93%, Bharti Airtel down by 0.92% and Bajaj Finserv down by 0.92% were the top losers.

All Asian markets were trading higher, Nikkei 225 surged 382.88 points or 1.47% to 26,490.53, Taiwan Weighted strengthened 350.76 points or 2.51% to 14,336.27, Hang Seng increased 56.92 points or 0.26% to 21,643.58, KOSPI rose 42.26 points or 1.84% to 2,334.27, Straits Times advanced 15.85 points or 0.51% to 3,119.51, Shanghai Composite gained 9.05 points or 0.27% to 3,364.40 and Jakarta Composite was up by 6.18 points or 0.09% to 6,652.59.

European markets were trading higher, UK’s FTSE 100 increased 53.37 points or 0.75% to 7,161.14, France’s CAC increased 78.62 points or 1.33% to 5,991.00 and Germany’s DAX was up by 183.19 points or 1.45% to 12,777.71.