Bourses manage to keep heads in green terrain

Indian equity benchmarks managed to keep heads in green terrain in morning session, as investors are eyeing India’s Q2 GDP numbers set to be announced later in the day by the Finance Ministry. Traders took a note of India's G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant’s statement that India will work with countries to promote digital public infrastructure in order to deepen financial inclusion and improve service delivery. India will officially assume the G20 presidency from the current chair Indonesia on December 1. He said India is taking over the presidency of the G20 at a time when the world is going through a lot of turmoil. He added there is a geopolitical crisis in Europe, 200 million people have gone below poverty line and 100 million people have lost jobs due to COVID era. Meanwhile, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) have net-bought shares worth Rs 1,241.57 crore on November 29, as per provisional data available on the NSE.

On the global front, Asian markets are trading mostly in green ahead of a scheduled speech by the US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, where he could give hints about the pace of future interest rate hikes.  Back home, stocks related to telecom sector remained in watch as fitch Ratings expects telecom operators to raise tariffs in 2023, given the focus on profitability by the service providers. The rating agency categorically said Vodafone Idea, the third-largest telco, needs to increase tariffs as its EBITDA generation is insufficient to meet finance costs and to invest sufficiently in capital expenditure. 

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 62726.69, up by 44.85 points or 0.07% after trading in a range of 62648.38 and 62865.74. There were 17 stocks advancing against 13 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 0.36%, while Small cap index was up by 0.39%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Metal up by 1.40%, Realty up by 1.20%, Auto up by 0.71%, FMCG up by 0.40% and Power up by 0.30%, while IT down by 0.49%, TECK down by 0.43%, Telecom down by 0.28%, Consumer Durables down by 0.21% and Oil & Gas down by 0.12% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.79%, Dr. Reddy's Lab up by 1.01%, Tata Steel up by 0.90%, Asian Paints up by 0.74% and Nestle up by 0.65%. On the flip side, Tech Mahindra down by 0.96%, HCL Technologies down by 0.79%, Infosys down by 0.60%, Wipro down by 0.60% and Bajaj Finance down by 0.38% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri has said India will at the upcoming G20 meeting plans to pitch for a global alliance on biofuels on lines of the highly-successful international solar alliance. India, the world's third largest oil-consuming and importing nation, is now pushing for greater use of biofuels extracted from sugarcane, cereals and agri waste as a means to cut reliance on crude oil. He stated ‘We will utilise our G20 presidency to try and set up an international biofuel alliance like the International Solar Alliance.’

India is taking over the presidency of the group of 20 major economies, also called G20, and will host a meeting of the member nations in September next year. With nations from Brazil to the US producing biofuels, the alliance would look to develop an ecosystem for fuel standards and engines and collaboration on technology for faster adoption.

Puri said India is already using petrol mixed with 10 per cent ethanol extracted from sugarcane and other agri products (90 per cent petrol, 10 per cent ethanol). India imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and doping ethanol with petrol is aimed at reducing the import dependence. Also, biofuels have lesser emissions and aid in meeting carbon goals.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 18635.85, up by 17.80 points or 0.10% after trading in a range of 18616.55 and 18679.55. There were 30 stocks advancing against 20 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Hindalco up by 2.59%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.72%, Bajaj Auto up by 1.53%, Dr. Reddy's Lab up by 1.02% and Tata Steel up by 0.94%. On the flip side, Tech Mahindra down by 0.90%, HCL Technologies down by 0.83%, Infosys down by 0.67%, BPCL down by 0.65% and Apollo Hospital down by 0.64% were the top losers.

Asian markets are trading mostly in green; Hang Seng surged 40.36 points or 0.22% to 18,245.04, Taiwan Weighted rose 111.26 points or 0.76% to 14,820.90, KOSPI added 26.01 points or 1.07% to 2,459.40, Jakarta Composite advanced 32.80 points or 0.47% to 7,044.87 and Shanghai Composite was up by 6.75 points or 0.21% to 3,156.50.

On the other hand, Nikkei 225 slipped 97.90 points or 0.35% to 27,929.94 and Straits Times was down by 5.30 points or 0.16% to 3,271.06.