Benchmarks continue to trade higher in morning deals

Indian equity benchmarks continued to trade higher in morning deals, tracking strength in global equities. Sentiments remained up-beat as the S&P Global Market Intelligence projected India’s real gross domestic product (GDP) growth to average 6.3 per cent annually between financial years 2021 and 2030, enabling it to overtake Japan and Germany to become the world’s third-largest economy in nominal US dollar terms. Some support also came with report stated that Indian banking system is much better placed than the last cycle, and will be able to sustain the current round of high loan growth. It also said learnings from the last cycle of high loan growth which ultimately led to a huge spurt in sour loans have been internalised by the banking system. Traders overlooked the data of the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) showed that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) equity inflows into India contracted by 14 per cent to USD 26.9 billion during the April-September this fiscal. The inflows had stood at USD 31.15 billion during the corresponding period of the previous year.

On the global front, Asian markets are trading mostly in green after the minutes of the Fed's early-November policy meeting showed a 'substantial majority' of Fed officials supported slowing down the pace of interest rate hikes at upcoming meetings. Back home, stocks related to Telecom sector remained in watch as telecom regulator Trai said telecom service providers' adjusted gross revenue grew 17.91 per cent on a year-over-year basis to Rs 60,530 crore in April-June 2022 with Jio leading in terms of revenue share.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 61798.40, up by 287.82 points or 0.47% after trading in a range of 61600.42 and 61809.36. There were 26 stocks advancing against 4 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 0.40%, while Small cap index was up by 0.51%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Oil & Gas up by 0.72%, PSU up by 0.69%, IT up by 0.69%, TECK up by 0.63% and Power up by 0.59%, while Realty down by 0.12%, Metal down by 0.08% and Telecom down by 0.04% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were HCL Technologies up by 1.23%, Infosys up by 1.05%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.00%, HDFC up by 0.95% and Power Grid Corporation up by 0.93%. On the flip side, Tata Steel down by 0.19%, Bharti Airtel down by 0.18%, Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 0.18% and Dr. Reddy's Lab down by 0.15% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) in its latest data has showed that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) equity inflows into India contracted by 14 per cent to USD 26.9 billion during the April-September (first half) this fiscal (FY23). The inflows had stood at USD 31.15 billion during the corresponding period of the previous year. The total FDI inflows (which includes equity inflows, re-invested earnings and other capital) too declined to USD 39 billion during the first six months of the current fiscal year as against USD 42.86 billion in the year-ago period.

Further, it mentioned during the first half of this fiscal, Singapore emerged as the top investor with USD 10 billion FDI. It was followed by Mauritius (USD 3.32 billion), UAE (USD 2.95 billion), USA (USD 2.6 billion), the Netherlands (USD 1.76 billion), and Japan (USD 1.18 billion), the data showed.

Besides, it showed that the computer software and hardware sector attracted the highest inflows of USD 6.3 billion during the six-month period of this fiscal. It was followed by services (USD 4.16 billion), trading (USD 3.28 billion), chemicals (USD 1.3 billion), automobile industry (USD 932 million) and construction (infrastructure) activities (USD 990 million).

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 18364.90, up by 97.65 points or 0.53% after trading in a range of 18294.25 and 18366.05. There were 44 stocks advancing against 6 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Apollo Hospital up by 2.94%, HDFC Life Insurance up by 2.86%, Tata Consumer Product up by 2.59%, BPCL up by 2.40% and ONGC up by 1.28%. On the flip side, Adani Enterprises down by 0.44%, Tata Motors down by 0.41%, Bharti Airtel down by 0.27%, Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 0.17% and Dr. Reddy's Lab down by 0.10% were the top losers.

Asian markets are trading mostly in green; Nikkei 225 surged 314.53 points or 1.12% to 28,430.27, Hang Seng advanced 96.37 points or 0.55% to 17,620.18, Taiwan Weighted rose 167.64 points or 0.15% to 14,776.18, KOSPI added 18.97 points or 0.78% to 2,436.98 and Jakarta Composite was up by 39.76 points or 0.56% to 7,093.88.

On the other hand, Straits Times fell 3.63 points or 0.11% to 3,252.36 and Shanghai Composite was down by 3.40 points or 0.11% to 3,093.51.