Markets trade in fine-fettle in early deals; Bajaj Finance leads gainers

Indian equity benchmarks made gap-up opening on Thursday tracking firm global cues. Markets are trading in fine-fettle in early deals on account of broad based buying in sectors such as Realty and IT, which are up by over 1% each. Sensex and Nifty surpassed their crucial levels of 56,200 and 16,750, respectively. Some support came in as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) report showed that digital payments across the country registered a growth of nearly 29 per cent in a year through March 2022. The RBI's digital payment index (RBI-DPI) stood at 349.3 in March 2022 against 270.59 in March 2021. Traders took note of a private report that the Reserve Bank of India’s rate-setting panel will go for a 0.35 per cent hike in the key repo rate at its meeting next week. Meanwhile, Sebi has extended the deadline by three months to November 1, for commencing the validation of all KYC records by KYC Registration Agencies (KRAs).

Most of the Asian markets are trading higher, following the broadly positive cues from global markets overnight, as traders reacted to the US Fed's widely anticipated interest rate hike and Fed Chair Jerome Powell's comments that he does not think the U.S. is currently in a recession and added that the central bank will likely slow rate increases at some point.

Back home, telecom industry stocks were in action as India's first 5G auction received bids worth Rs 1.49 trillion on day two, as aggressive bidding across bands by players like Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel pushed the sale over to the third day. In stock specific developments, Bajaj Finance spikes after net profit more than doubles in Q1, while Tata Motors slipped after its Q1 consolidated loss widened more than expected to Rs 5,007 crore as compared to Rs 4,451 crore a year earlier.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 56270.11, up by 453.79 points or 0.81% after trading in a range of 56236.45 and 56391.41. There were 23 stocks advancing against 7 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 0.35%, while Small cap index was up by 0.37%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 1.18%, IT up by 1.14%, Bankex up by 0.95%, TECK up by 0.89%, Capital Goods up by 0.55%, while Healthcare down by 0.66%, Auto down by 0.44%, Telecom down by 0.08%, FMCG down by 0.07% were the few losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bajaj Finance up by 7.49%, Bajaj Finserv up by 5.63%, Indusind Bank up by 2.48%, Tata Steel up by 1.78% and Infosys up by 1.57%. On the flip side, Dr. Reddy's Lab down by 1.39%, Sun Pharma down by 1.13%, Bharti Airtel down by 0.82%, Ultratech Cement down by 0.48% and ITC down by 0.31% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its latest report has showed that digital payments across the country registered a growth of nearly 29 per cent in a year through March 2022. The newly constituted RBI's digital payment index (RBI-DPI), which measures the adoption of online transactions, stood at 349.3 in March 2022 against 304.06 in September 2021 and 270.59 in March 2021.

The RBI-DPI index has demonstrated significant growth, representing the rapid adoption and deepening of digital payments across the country in recent years. The RBI-DPI comprises 5 broad parameters that enable the measurement of the deepening and penetration of digital payments in the country over different periods.

These parameters are Payment Enablers (weight 25 per cent); Payment Infrastructure - Demand-side factors (10 per cent); Payment Infrastructure - Supply-side factors (15 per cent); Payment Performance (45 per cent); and Consumer Centricity (5 per cent). The index is published on a semi-annual basis from March 2021 onwards with a lag of 4 months.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 16758.95, up by 117.15 points or 0.70% after trading in a range of 16746.25 and 16791.75. There were 37 stocks advancing against 13 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Bajaj Finance up by 7.51%, Bajaj Finserv up by 6.00%, Indusind Bank up by 2.52%, Tata Steel up by 1.83% and Infosys up by 1.63%. On the flip side, Tata Motors down by 2.67%, Dr. Reddy's Lab down by 1.42%, Sun Pharma down by 0.95%, Bharti Airtel down by 0.84% and Cipla down by 0.73% were the top losers.

Asian markets are trading mostly in green; Nikkei 225 rose 49.13 points or 0.18% to 27,764.88, Straits Times added 6.33 points or 0.20% to 3,211.47, Taiwan Weighted gained 24.94 points or 0.17% to 14,946.53, KOSPI advanced 19.44 points or 0.80% to 2,434.97, Jakarta Composite increased 67.24 points or 0.97% to 6,965.46 and Shanghai Composite was up by 18.66 points or 0.57% to 3,294.42, while Hang Seng was down by 123.09 points or 0.60% to 20,546.95.