Bourses wipe out losses in late afternoon session

Indian equity markets erased all their losses and traded near neutral lines with positive bias in late afternoon session. Indusind Bank was the biggest mover among the Sensex 30 stocks. Traders took note of report that days after the US Fed raised the interest rate, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) may go in for its third consecutive policy rate hike by at least 35 basis points to check high retail inflation. Besides, RBI is set to hold the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting for the financial year 2022-23 this week on August 3-5, 2022. Sector wise, power industry remained in focused, as Power ministry data has showed that India's power consumption grew marginally by 3.8 per cent year-on-year to 128.38 billion units (BU) in July 2022 amid widespread rains across the country in July with the onset of the Monsoon. On the global front, Asian markets and European markets were trading mostly in red as jitters about an escalation in Sino-U.S. tension with U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi set to begin a trip to Taiwan, adding to fears about the risk of global recession.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 58200.84, up by 85.34 points or 0.15% after trading in a range of 57744.70 and 58213.48. There were 18 stocks advancing against 12 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index gained 0.44%, while Small cap index was up by 0.38%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Power up by 1.78%, Utilities up by 1.62%, PSU up by 1.16%, FMCG up by 0.73% and Consumer Discretionary was up by 0.58%, while Realty down by 1.57%, IT down by 0.61%, TECK down by 0.57%, Metal down by 0.45% and Capital Goods was down by 0.25% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Indusind Bank up by 2.59%, NTPC up by 1.98%, SBI up by 1.89%, Maruti Suzuki up by 1.69% and Asian Paints up by 1.64%. On the flip side, HDFC down by 1.47%, Tech Mahindra down by 1.43%, Tata Steel down by 1.25%, HDFC Bank down by 1.17% and Larsen & Toubro down by 1.00% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, supported by growth across therapies both in terms of volume and value, Credit rating agency, India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra) in its latest report has showed that the Indian pharmaceutical market (IPM) grew strongly at 16.6% year on year (yoy) in June 2022.

According to the report, COVID-19 influenced drug growth stood at 8.1% yoy while non-COVID-19 growth was 21.7% yoy in June 2022. Therapy wise (yoy basis), cardiac (13.7%), gastro-intestinal (21.4%), anti-diabetic (14.0%), respiratory (16.4%), pain management (23.1%), derma (23.9%), CNS (19.1) and gynaec (33.2%) reported a robust performance during the month, except anti-Infectives (2.1%).

The rating agency further noted that the acute therapy segment strongly recovered at 16% yoy in June 2022, after the weak performance from February to May 2022. Post normalisation of the high growth months of April 2021 (51.5% growth) and May 2021 (47.8%), led by the lockdown-related lower base last year and higher volume growth, the average IPM growth from June 2021 to January 2022 was healthy at 11.1% yoy, while the average IPM growth was at 1.3% during February to June 2022.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 17346.60, up by 6.55 points or 0.04% after trading in a range of 17215.85 and 17356.65. There were 28 stocks advancing against 22 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Indusind Bank up by 2.71%, NTPC up by 2.11%, SBI up by 1.87%, Maruti Suzuki up by 1.76% and Asian Paints up by 1.67%. On the flip side, UPL down by 3.20%, Hero MotoCorp down by 2.81%, SBI Life down by 2.00%, Britannia down by 1.86% and HDFC Life Insurance down by 1.68% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red, Hang Seng decreased 476.63 points or 2.36% to 19,689.21, Nikkei 225 slipped 398.62 points or 1.42% to 27,594.73, Taiwan Weighted dropped 234.46 points or 1.56% to 14,747.23, Shanghai Composite declined 73.69 points or 2.26% to 3,186.27, KOSPI fell 12.63 points or 0.52% to 2,439.62 and Straits Times was down by 2.66 points or 0.08% to 3,236.09. On the flip side, Jakarta Composite was up by 19.38 points or 0.28% to 6,988.16.

European markets were trading mostly in red, France’s CAC decreased 32.51 points or 0.51% to 6,404.35 and Germany’s DAX was down by 80.88 points or 0.6% to 13,398.75. On the flip side, UK’s FTSE 100 was up by 5.33 points or 0.07% to 7,418.75.