Domestic equity indices come off day’s high in late morning deals

Domestic equity indices came off day’s high but continued to trade with gains around half a percent in late morning deals on account of hectic buying in banking stocks. Traders were getting encouragement as Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) are being signed in a much ‘faster’ way nowadays and also stated that the India-UK FTA negotiations are ‘going on as we speak’.  On the BSE sectoral front, traders were seen pilling up position in Bankex, Utilities, Metal, Power and Oil & Gas, while selling was witnessed in IT, TECK, Capital Goods and Consumer Durables.

Asian markets were trading mixed on concerns that tensions across the Taiwan Strait may devolve into any kind of conflict. Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said China's military exercises have caused instability in Taiwan. Back home, in the stock specific development, Shilpa Medicare surged after it received U.S. FDA approval for drug to treat adult patients with active psoriatic arthritis.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 60099.30, up by 252.79 points or 0.42% after trading in a range of 59968.30 and 60267.68. There were 19 stocks advancing against 11 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.16%, while Small cap index up by 0.57%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Bankex up by 1.51%, Utilities up by 1.49%, Metal up by 0.86%, Power up by 0.77% and Oil & Gas up by 0.73%, while IT down by 0.83%, TECK down by 0.81%, Capital Goods down by 0.19% and Consumer Durables down by 0.17% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Kotak Mahindra Bank up by 4.72%, ICICI Bank up by 1.80%, ITC up by 1.48%, SBI up by 1.41% and Maruti Suzuki up by 0.77%. On the flip side, Infosys down by 1.42%, TCS down by 1.12%, Asian Paints down by 0.81%, Wipro down by 0.80% and HCL down by 0.69% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Care Ratings in its latest report has said that retail loan securitisations jumped a robust 56 per cent to Rs 1.76 lakh crore in the just concluded fiscal 2023, while that of wholesale rose to around Rs 6,600 crore, coming out of the pandemic blues finally.

The agency said the secondary market for standard retail assets has seen a robust growth of 56 per cent in FY23, reflecting the resilient retail asset pools in the secondary market as well as the preference of banks to grow their retail assets to meet priority sector lending (PSL) requirements. It stated that such robust growth was possible as bank lending to NBFCs grew 32 per cent and there is a positive correlation between interest rate and relative premium for PSL assets. Both these factors augur well for securitisation market.

The report further said the total volume, including direct assignment transactions, rose to Rs 176,000 crore from around Rs 1,13,000 crore in FY22, led by direct assignments which constituted around 61 per cent of the total securitisation market with pass-through certificates (PTCs) making up the remaining volume. The credit quality of retail assets remained resilient, and the total credit growth of banks increased by just over 15 per cent, while bank credit to NBFCs grew by more than twice that rate.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 17704.80, up by 80.75 points or 0.46% after trading in a range of 17663.80 and 17748.75. There were 34 stocks advancing against 16 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Kotak Mahindra Bank up by 4.63%, Eicher Motors up by 2.37%, JSW Steel up by 2.21%, ICICI Bank up by 1.85% and Bajaj Auto up by 1.71%. On the flip side, Infosys down by 1.30%, TCS down by 1.11%, Asian Paints down by 0.95%, Wipro down by 0.74% and Tata Motors down by 0.62% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mixed; Taiwan Weighted added 14.13 points or 0.09% to 15,890.30, KOSPI increased 35.1 points or 1.4% to 2,547.18, Jakarta Composite gained 1.62 points or 0.02% to 6,772.86 and Nikkei 225 surged 314.07 points or 1.14% to 27,947.73. However, Hang Seng declined 6.25 points or 0.03% to 20,324.95, Straits Times fell 5.56 points or 0.17% to 3,288.87 and Shanghai Composite weakened 14.76 points or 0.45% to 3,300.60.