Domestic markets trade in high sprit taking lead from global peers

Indian equity benchmarks made optimistic start of new week following the broadly positive cues from global markets, amid easing concerns about the outlook for interest rates after comments from Federal Reserve officials, and optimism about the outlook for the global economy after upbeat data from China and Europe. Now, domestic equities are trading in high sprit in early deals with gains of around a percent each. Sensex and Nifty surpassed their crucial 60,300 and 17,750 levels, respectively. Foreign fund inflows aided the domestic markets. The National Stock Exchange's provisional data showed foreign institutional investors (FII) bought shares worth Rs 246.24 crore on March 3. Adding more optimism over street, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said India's goods and services exports are expected to cross $750 billion this fiscal despite the global economic uncertainties.

Besides, the Indian rupee strengthened against the greenback in early deals on Monday, aided by the pullback in the dollar index and U.S. yields amid an improved risk sentiment. Rupee is trading at 81.75, 22 paise higher as compared to its previous close of 81.97 on Friday. Sectorally, oil & gas sector stocks are buzzing as the Centre hiked the windfall profit tax levied on crude petroleum to Rs 4,400 per tonne from Rs 4,350. In stock specific development, HCL Technologies jumped on reports it aims to double semiconductor business in four years.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 60370.40, up by 561.43 points or 0.94% after trading in a range of 60005.65 and 60390.78. All the 30 stocks advancing on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 0.82%, while Small cap index was up by 1.03%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Utilities up by 2.07%, Power up by 1.78%, IT up by 1.36%, TECK up by 1.32%, Oil & Gas up by 1.22%, while there was no losers on the BSE sectoral front.

The top gainers on the Sensex were HCL Technologies up by 2.46%, Power Grid up by 1.62%, Bajaj Finserv up by 1.51%, Infosys up by 1.50% and HDFC up by 1.38%.

Meanwhile, expressing optimism over India’s exports growth, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has said that the country’s goods and services exports are expected to cross $750 billion this fiscal despite the global economic uncertainties. In 2021-22, the country's goods and services exports touched an all-time high of $422 billion and $254 billion respectively, taking the total shipments to $676 billion. Due to the global demand slowdown, India's exports contracted for the second consecutive month in January, dipping by 6.6 per cent to $32.91 billion.  During April-January this fiscal, goods shipments rose by 8.5 per cent to $369.25 billion, while services exports were estimated at $272 billion in the period.

The minister said that sectors which would help in promoting exports include manufactured goods, agri products, labour intensive items, and high quality products. He expressed confidence that by 2030, India's goods and services exports would touch $2 trillion. Regarding widening trade deficit with China, he said the government is taking steps to boost domestic manufacturing of quality goods which would help in containing imports.  He added that until 2000-01, Indo-China total trade was about $1 billion and even till 2004, the trade was ‘probably’ in the range of $4 billion and the trade deficit was about $1 billion.

Goyal said ‘After 2004, almost an outreach was done to engage more with China, to attract Chinese goods into the country in a big way.  I do not want to politicise this subject…But between 2004 and 2014, we saw trade grow very very rapidly and the trade deficit went up by nearly 35 times’. He said that the previous governments should be held accountable for the jump in the trade deficit with China. He said ‘But the nation has held them accountable for more than one occasion already and will probably continue to do that’, and added that the earlier regime in India actually decimated Indian manufacturing capability and it never allowed Indian manufacturing to flourish. However, he said now the government is creating that ecosystem to boost domestic manufacturing.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 17763.50, up by 169.15 points or 0.96% after trading in a range of 17671.95 and 17765.95. There were 47 stocks advancing against 3 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Adani Enterprises up by 10.00%, Adani Ports & SEZ up by 5.13%, HCL Technologies up by 2.33%, Power Grid up by 1.64% and Bajaj Finserv up by 1.63%. On the flip side, Britannia Industries down by 1.58%, Cipla down by 0.73% and JSW Steel down by 0.48% were the top losers.

Asian markets are trading mostly in green; Nikkei 225 surged 353.21 points or 1.26% to 28,280.68, Taiwan Weighted jumped 184.87 points or 1.18% to 15,793.29, KOSPI increased 25.28 points or 1.04% to 2,457.35, Hang Seng advanced 17.16 points or 0.08% to 20,584.70, Jakarta Composite rose 13.3 points or 0.2% to 6,826.94. On the other hand, Straits Times fell 3.94 points or 0.12% to 3,228.08 and Shanghai Composite was down by 7.97 points or 0.24% to 3,320.42.