Bourses continue to trade near neutral lines in late morning deals

Domestic equity indices continued to trade flat in late morning deals ahead of the quarterly results season with TCS and HCL technologies to announce their Q1 results later in the day.  Buying in Reliance Industries, SBI and NTPC restricted markets to go down. Traders were cautious with a private report stating that unprecedented rains and floods in the northern region in the past few days have not only caused extensive damage to lives and property but have also impacted business and commercial establishments. Vegetable prices have gone through the roof in the national capital and many other parts of the country since rains started pouring earlier this month. On the BSE sectoral front, traders were seen pilling up position in PSU, Industrials, Oil & Gas, Energy and Power, while selling was witnessed in IT, TECK, Telecom, Consumer Durables and FMCG.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mixed as investors awaited a key U.S. inflation reading later in the day, which will have significant bearing on the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decisions. Back home, in the stock specific developments, Nazara Technologies and Delta Corporation plunged after the GST Council's decision to levy a 28 percent tax on online gaming, casinos and horse racing.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 65596.78, down by 21.06 points or 0.03% after trading in a range of 65568.56 and 65811.64. There were 14 stocks advancing against 16 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.34%, while Small cap index up by 0.68%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were PSU up by 0.67%, Industrials up by 0.64%, Oil & Gas up by 0.56%, Energy up by 0.53% and Power up by 0.47%, while IT down by 0.45%, TECK down by 0.44%, Telecom down by 0.22%, Consumer Durables down by 0.16% and FMCG down by 0.08% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were NTPC up by 1.12%, Sun Pharma up by 0.81%, SBI up by 0.78%, Reliance Industries up by 0.56% and Kotak Mahindra Bank up by 0.54%. On the flip side, Ultratech Cement down by 1.52%, Hindustan Unilever down by 1.32%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 0.98%, Infosys down by 0.90% and Asian Paints down by 0.64% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Deputy Governor T Rabi Sankar has said the RBI is aiming to increase the number of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) to 10 lakh per day by the end of 2023. At present, the number of CBDC or e-rupee transactions stands at about 5,000 to 10,000 a day. He said the CBDC interoperability with UPI systems announced in the June 2023 monetary policy review will be a reality by the end of this month, but underlined the need for more banks to join the CBDC ecosystem. In November last year, the RBI introduced a wholesale CBDC pilot and followed it up with a retail pilot in December. At present, the number of banks in the pilot has gone up to 13 from eight banks initially.

Sankar said at present, there are 13 lakh users of the CBDC, including 3 lakh merchants. He said getting 10 lakh transactions a day is not a difficult task for the system, pointing to 31 crore transactions on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) at present. He said till now, the efforts have been focused on getting as many users to the CBDC and the same will now have to be replicated in upping the number of transactions. There were only 1 lakh users till April-end this year, which has now been increased to 13 lakh, Sankar underscored.

Further, he said there is a need to ensure that there exists a strong legal framework to deliver the promise of anonymity on CBDC, just the way in which the alternative of paper currency delivers. He said RBI is in touch with the government on this aspect, and admitting that the regulatory efforts have been focused on increasing the users and transactions till now. There is also a need to ensure that no one is able to access the CBDCs lying in an individual's wallet. He added that ‘we also need a framework which is consistent with Prevention of Money Laundering Act requirements.’

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 19441.95, up by 2.55 points or 0.01% after trading in a range of 19423.20 and 19507.70. There were 25 stocks advancing against 25 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were ONGC up by 1.82%, Eicher Motors up by 1.60%, NTPC up by 1.07%, SBI up by 0.79% and Sun Pharma up by 0.78%. On the flip side, Ultratech Cement down by 1.54%, Hindustan Unilever down by 1.34%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 0.96%, Adani Enterprises down by 0.86% and Infosys down by 0.86% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mixed; Taiwan Weighted added 32.91 points or 0.19% to 16,931.82, Hang Seng advanced 128.64 points or 0.69% to 18,788.47, KOSPI increased 7.91 points or 0.31% to 2,570.40 and Straits Times rose 18.59 points or 0.59% to 3,182.43. However, Shanghai Composite weakened 14.73 points or 0.46% to 3,206.64, Jakarta Composite lost 0.04 points to 6,796.88 and Nikkei 225 slipped 267.04 points or 0.83% to 31,936.53.