Bourses trim gains in late afternoon session

Indian benchmarks trimmed some of their gains in late afternoon session but continued to remain in green. The broader indices, the BSE Mid cap index and Small cap index traded with healthy gains. Traders were seen piling up positions in Utilities, Power and Oil & Gas sectors while selling was witnessed in Realty and Metal sectors. Traders reacted positively to a report from the Institute for Supply Management showing a very slight slowdown in the pace of growth in U.S. service sector activity in the month of February. On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in green despite China announcing its lowest growth target in decades. European markets were trading mostly in green as investors digested China setting a modest growth target for economic growth this year ahead of the release of Eurozone retail sales data.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 60309.10, up by 500.13 points or 0.84% after trading in a range of 60005.65 and 60498.48. There were 24 stocks advancing against 6 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index gained 0.91%, while Small cap index was up by 0.94%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Utilities up by 2.84%, Power up by 2.56%, Oil & Gas up by 2.32%, Energy up by 2.08% and IT was up by 1.39%, while Realty down by 0.25% and Metal was down by 0.24% were the only losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Motors up by 2.84%, Power Grid up by 2.77%, Bajaj Finserv up by 2.28%, NTPC up by 2.17% and Infosys up by 2.16%. On the flip side, Tata Steel down by 1.03%, Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 0.36%, Ultratech Cement down by 0.23%, Indusind Bank down by 0.23% and Larsen & Toubro down by 0.11% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, in order to promote ease of doing business, Joint Secretary in the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) Sanjiv Singh has said that the government is working to bring a national retail trade policy for brick and mortar retail traders. He added that the policy would also help in providing better infrastructure and more credit to traders.

Sanjiv further said that the Department is also working to bring an e-commerce policy for online retailers. Besides, the Department is also in the process of formulating an insurance scheme for all the retail traders. He said the accident insurance scheme would particularly help small traders of the country.

Urging the industry to focus on producing high quality products, the Joint Secretary said that the government is trying to do policy changes not only in e-commerce but national retail trade policy which will be for physical traders which will be introducing ease of doing business, providing better infrastructural facilities, providing more credit and providing all sorts of benefits to traders.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 17740.15, up by 145.80 points or 0.83% after trading in a range of 17671.95 and 17799.95. There were 43 stocks advancing against 7 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Adani Enterprises up by 5.45%, ONGC up by 3.18%, Tata Motors up by 2.80%, Power Grid up by 2.61% and NTPC up by 2.49%. On the flip side, Britannia down by 2.07%, Tata Steel down by 1.12%, JSW Steel down by 0.90%, Indusind Bank down by 0.36% and Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 0.29% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in green, Nikkei 225 surged 310.31 points or 1.1% to 28,237.78, Taiwan Weighted added 155.09 points or 0.98% to 15,763.51, Hang Seng advanced 35.65 points or 0.17% to 20,603.19, KOSPI increased 30.55 points or 1.24% to 2,462.62 and Straits Times was up by 12.34 points or 0.38% to 3,244.36. On the flip side, Shanghai Composite weakened 6.36 points or 0.19% to 3,322.03 and Jakarta Composite was down by 6.64 points or 0.1% to 6,807.00.

European markets were trading mostly in green, France’s CAC rose 39.68 points or 0.54% to 7,387.80 and Germany’s DAX was up by 42.34 points or 0.27% to 15,620.73. On the flip side, UK’s FTSE 100 was down by 3.36 points or 0.04% to 7,943.75.