Markets magnify gains in late morning deals

Domestic equity markets magnified their gains in late morning deals as market participants indulged in enlarging their positions. There was broad based buying witnessed in the markets and apart from the blue chips, the broader markets too participated in the rally. Sentiments remained upbeat after the latest retail inflation and industrial output data painted a positive picture of the domestic economy. India’s CPI print fell to a 25-month low in May. India’s May CPI inflation eased to 4.25% from 4.7% in April 2023, while India’s industrial production growth measured in terms of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) rose to 4.2 per cent in April. Further, sentiment got a boost as the Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India, Dr V Anantha Nageswaran, said the real GDP growth for the year ending March 2023 was 7.2 per cent, which surpassed expectations, as the underlying momentum in the economy was quite strong.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mixed as traders remained cautious as they looked ahead to a slew of central bank policy meetings in of the U.S., Europe and Japan this week. Back home, all the sectoral indices on the BSE were trading in green led by Telecom, Consumer Durables, FMCG, Realty and Healthcare. In the stock specific development, Engineers India rose on bagging a contract worth Rs.472 crore from ONGC.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 63118.12, up by 393.41 points or 0.63% after trading in a range of 62777.04 and 63121.74. There were 24 stocks advancing against 6 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.79%, while Small cap index up by 0.81%.  

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Telecom up by 1.57%, Consumer Durables up by 1.54%, FMCG up by 1.34%, Realty up by 1.18% and Healthcare up by 0.93%, while there were no losers. 

The top gainers on the Sensex were Titan up by 1.78%, Hindustan Unilever up by 1.74%, Asian Paints up by 1.64%, ITC up by 1.57% and Bajaj Finserv up by 1.36%. On the flip side, Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 0.71%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 0.61%, HCL down by 0.57%, SBI down by 0.27% and NTPC down by 0.22% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) to the Government of India, Dr V Anantha Nageswaran has said the real gross domestic product (GDP) growth for the year ending March 2023 (FY23) was 7.2 per cent, which surpassed expectations, as the underlying momentum in the economy was quite strong. He said while goods exports were on the weaker side in FY23 due to the war in Ukraine and oil price rise, services exports did very well for the country. He pointed out that the data shows that India's 4th quarter GDP of 6.1 per cent was actually much better than several other countries at this point.

The CEA acknowledged that merchandise export growth was something which needed continued efforts to maintain in order to keep India’s market share or gain the market share. He said ‘That's where the industry has to invest in R&D, has to do better marketing etc and diversify our product range and focus on quality. It's going to be a hard grind for the rest of the decade because global growth is not going to be very strong in the rest of the decade but services sector growth is surprisingly doing well for us because many companies now rely on India not only for IT enabled services, but others as well.’

Besides, talking about the wholesale price index's deduction, he said it was not a drawback nor a drag on growth but it is actually going to lower input cost for our businesses as well. He stated ‘The Wholesale price index is coming down because of the slowdown in oil prices and the slowdown in food prices and in fact it is now negative. So people think when the wholesale prices come down, it may lead to a slowdown in GDP growth. Yes. We are expecting 6.5 per cent GDP growth which is lower than last year's 7.2 per cent. But that is the trend growth that India will continue to achieve. In fact this number can be higher if the export sector also performs, but that is going to be a challenge.’

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 18713.75, up by 112.25 points or 0.60% after trading in a range of 18631.80 and 18718.40. There were 40 stocks advancing against 10 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Titan up by 1.89%, Hindustan Unilever up by 1.67%, Asian Paints up by 1.60%, Tata Consumer up by 1.49% and ITC up by 1.48%. On the flip side, Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 0.79%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 0.66%, HCL down by 0.41%, SBI down by 0.29% and Hero MotoCorp down by 0.28% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mixed; Taiwan Weighted added 273.72 points or 1.59% to 17,229.09, Hang Seng advanced 60.04 points or 0.31% to 19,464.35, KOSPI increased 7.24 points or 0.28% to 2,636.59 and Nikkei 225 surged 632.43 points or 1.95% to 33,066.43. However, Shanghai Composite weakened 3.19 points or 0.1% to 3,225.64, Jakarta Composite plunged 11.98 points or 0.18% to 6,710.39 and Straits Times fell 15.77 points or 0.49% to 3,180.30.