Sensex, Nifty remain higher; Tata Steel leads gainers

Firm trade continued over the Dalal Street in early afternoon deals, with both Sensex and Nifty holding strong gains, aided by positive cues from other Asian markets along with heavy buying at Metal and Industrials counters. Traders remained positive, as IMF Deputy Managing Director Gita Gopinath said that there's a lot of positive sentiment towards India. She highlighted areas that need more reforms to attract more manufacturing FDI. Adding more optimism among investors, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) Secretary Anurag Jain said several other steps are underway on further improving ease of doing business in India, including on the labour laws front.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in green, after Japan's industrial production increased in November. The revised data from the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry said that industrial production grew by a seasonally adjusted 0.2 percent monthly in November. In the initial estimate, output fell 1.0 percent. Shipments fell by 0.1 percent month-on-month in November. Inventories rose by 0.3 percent, and the inventory ratio increased by 3.3 percent.

Back home, banking stocks were in watch, as credit rating agency, India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra) in its latest report said that credit growth in the banking system is likely to have hit an air pocket in the last fortnight of December 2022 with the growth slowing down to 14.9% as of December 30, 2022 from a high of 17.4% year on year (YoY) on December 16, 2022, after rising over 15% YoY since September 2022.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 61075.06, up by 419.34 points or 0.69% after trading in a range of 60569.19 and 61102.86. There were 21 stocks advancing against 9 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose by 0.24%, while Small cap index was up by 0.26%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Metal up by 1.85%, Industrials up by 0.76%, TECK up by 0.69%, Capital Goods up by 0.64% and Telecom up by 0.62%, while Realty down by 0.63%, Utilities down by 0.61%, Power down by 0.35%, PSU down by 0.11% and Auto down by 0.07% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Steel up by 2.64%, HDFC Bank up by 1.89%, HDFC up by 1.63%, Wipro up by 1.57% and Bharti Airtel up by 0.99%. On the flip side, Tata Motors down by 1.04%, Ultratech Cement down by 0.76%, Power Grid down by 0.64%, SBI down by 0.36% and Nestle down by 0.28% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan has said that it is too premature to think that India will replace China when it comes to influencing global economic growth. However, he said the situation may change going forward as India is already the world's fifth largest economy, it is growing and has the potential to keep expanding.

Rajan also said any recovery in the Chinese economy would definitely boost the global growth prospects. He said policymakers at this point of time are looking at the labour market and also at the housing market. Referring to the US, he said housing sales are not happening there, but prices are not falling. He said there are still 12 months to go and if China improves, that could be good.

He further said China is working its way through pandemic and there would be a Chinese recovery this year, probably as early as March or April. Some of that would be in domestic services which may not have any impact outside. But any improvement in manufacturing may have some impact by way of softening prices outside.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 18168.60, up by 115.30 points or 0.64% after trading in a range of 18032.45 and 18177.45. There were 34 stocks advancing against 16 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Tata Steel up by 2.60%, Hindalco Industries up by 2.13%, HDFC Bank up by 1.86%, HDFC up by 1.64% and Wipro up by 1.49%. On the flip side, HDFC Life Insurance down by 1.32%, Tata Motors down by 1.05%, BPCL down by 0.89%, Ultratech Cement down by 0.82% and Adani Enterprises down by 0.81% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in green; Nikkei 225 surged 652.44 points or 2.44% to 26,791.12, Hang Seng advanced 15.76 points or 0.07% to 21,593.40, Straits Times rose 5.81 points or 0.18% to 3,286.32 and Shanghai Composite strengthened 1.16 points or 0.04% to 3,225.40, while KOSPI dropped 11.07 points or 0.47% to 2,368.32 and Jakarta Composite plunged 27.11 points or 0.4% to 6,740.23.