Firm trade continues over Dalal Street

Firm trade continued over the Dalal Street in late morning session, with both Sensex and Nifty trading higher, despite negative cues from other Asian markets. Sentiments remained positive, amid a private report stating that India received the highest aid for trade in 2020 at $2.7 billion from developed countries even as the receipts declined during the pandemic year compared to $3.9 billion received in 2019. The World Trade Organisation-led aid for trade flows is particularly meant for the least developed economies. It consists of official development support to build supply-side capacity and trade-related infrastructure to enable such countries to participate in international trade. Adding more comfort among traders, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said that the Government aims to put India ‘among top 5 in terms of quality of research outcome’ by the year 2030.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in red, as overall consumer prices in the Tokyo region of Japan were up 2.5 percent on year in July. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said that exceeded expectations for an increase of 2.4 percent and was up from 2.3 percent in June. Core CPI, which excludes volatile food prices, climbed an annual 2.3 percent - topping forecasts for 2.2 percent and accelerating from 2.1 percent in the previous month.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 57396.40, up by 538.61 points or 0.95% after trading in a range of 57104.81 and 57531.75. There were 22 stocks advancing against 8 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.81%, while Small cap index was up by 1.11%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Metal up by 4.22%, Basic Materials up by 2.17%, IT up by 1.67%, TECK up by 1.60% and Consumer Durables up by 1.52%, while Healthcare down by 0.35% and FMCG down by 0.04% were the only losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Steel up by 7.67%, Indusind Bank up by 2.69%, Bajaj Finserv up by 2.26%, Infosys up by 2.11% and NTPC up by 1.90%. On the flip side, Dr. Reddy's Lab down by 3.72%, Sun Pharma down by 0.82%, Hindustan Unilever down by 0.61%, SBI down by 0.48% and Nestle down by 0.42% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Power Minister R K Singh has said that power deficit, a gap between energy requirement and energy supplied, had been reduced considerably from 2 percent in April 2022 to 0.4 percent in May 2022 and 0.6 percent in June 2022, despite the significant increase in energy requirement during these months as compared to the corresponding months of May 2021 and June 2021.

The minister stated that electricity supplied grew 12.8 per cent in April 2022, as compared to the year-ago month, across India. Power requirement, on the other hand grew 14.7 per cent in April on all-India basis, resulting in a deficit of 2 per cent.  He explained that the gap between energy demand and supply is generally on account of factors other than inadequacy of power availability in the country e.g. constraints in distribution network, financial constraints, commercial reasons, forced outage of generating units etc.

Singh further said the industrial consumers consume the maximum electricity at 41.16 per cent followed by domestic consumer (25.77 per cent), agriculture consumers (17.67 per cent) and commercial 8.29 per cent. He also that the power supply hours in urban areas and rural areas as on July 8, 2022, was 23.78 hours and 21.48 hours, respectively.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 17098.40, up by 168.80 points or 1.00% after trading in a range of 17018.15 and 17141.75. There were 38 stocks advancing against 12 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were SBI Life Insurance up by 8.61%, Tata Steel up by 7.72%, Hindalco up by 4.32%, JSW Steel up by 2.59% and ONGC up by 2.57%. On the flip side, Dr. Reddy's Lab down by 3.76%, Cipla down by 0.81%, Sun Pharma down by 0.77%, Hindustan Unilever down by 0.62% and SBI down by 0.49% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Straits Times trembled 16.01 points or 0.5% to 3,204.64, Shanghai Composite declined 23.72 points or 0.72% to 3,258.86, Nikkei 225 slipped 67.32 points or 0.24% to 27,748.16 and Hang Seng decreased 473.78 points or 2.3% to 20,148.90. On the flip side, Taiwan Weighted strengthened 87.85 points or 0.59% to 14,979.75, Jakarta Composite soared 32.62 points or 0.47% to 6,989.44 and KOSPI rose 10.92 points or 0.45% to 2,446.19.