Benchmarks trade with traction on sanguine global cues

Extending their previous session’s gain, Indian equity benchmarks made a positive start with Sensex recapturing its crucial 18,500 level, amid firm global cues. The US markets went for a big rally overnight that lifted S&P 500 to a new record intraday high. Sentiments got supported by the minutes of the latest Federal Reserve meeting, which suggested that the central bank will maintain its asset purchase program at the current pace until at least the middle of the year. Asian markets too were trading jubilantly after Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said the central bank will take all steps necessary to meet a 2 percent inflation target.

Back home, sentiments remained sanguine as the Finance Ministry is preparing itself to convince international rating agencies-Fitch, Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s- that the Indian economy is on a strong recovery path. Last year, the three agencies were a bit liberal in their criticism of India’s macro-economic fundamentals and precarious public finances. Some support also came in after shares of private banking majors HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank edged higher in early trades on Thursday tracking gains of their respective American Depository Receipts listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

On the sectoral front, auto witnessed the maximum gain in trade followed by software and banking while, oil and gas, power and public sector undertaking remained the top losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices were trading in-line with benchmarks while, the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 964 shares on the gaining side against 509 shares on the losing side while 67 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 18,577.52; about 163 points higher compared to its previous closing of 18,414.45, and has touched a high and a low of 18,595.12 and 18,469.83 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 18,504.29, up by 89.84 points or 0.49%. There were 18 stocks advancing against 12 declines on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a strong start with 63.36% stocks advancing against 32.69% declines. The broader indices were trading in-line with benchmarks; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices were up by 0.33% and 0.56% respectively. 

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Auto up by 1.07%, IT up by 1.01%, Bankex up by 1.00%, FMCG up by 0.75% and Capital Goods up by 0.72% while, Oil & Gas down by 0.64%, Power down by 0.25% and PSU down by 0.17% were the only losers on the sectoral index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Motors up by 4.71%, ICICI Bank up by 2.89%, Sterlite Industries up by 1.65%, Infosys up by 1.52% and ITC up by 1.11%.

On the flip side, HDFC was down by 1.41%, Mahindra & Mahindra was down by 1.29%, Bharti Airtel was down by 1.17%, ONGC was down by 1.01% and NTPC was down by 0.91% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, the government is working out propositions to roll out direct transfers of cash subsidy for cooking gas (LPG) to the final consumers under the Direct Benefit Scheme (DBT).  After a meeting with the finance minister, oil minister M Veerappa Moily said that, they discussed moving LPG under Direct Benefit Transfer scheme and the finance ministry is working out modalities of LPG subsidy under DBT. 

Presently, state-owned oil firms are selling domestic cooking gas at a highly subsidised rate of Rs 410.50 per 14.2-kg cylinder, which is half the market price and the difference is paid by the Government in the form of subsidy to oil companies. Once the DBT for LPG is implemented, the Government will transfer the subsidy of around Rs 435 per cylinder directly to consumers instead of giving it to oil companies and will transfer close to Rs 4,000 to every household annually to enable people to buy 9 cylinders of LPG at market price.

The government has planned to implement the DBT for LPG in phases beginning with one district and extending to 20 by May 15. Further, the proposed scheme will be extended all over the country through ‘Aadhar’ the unique identification number and will have their bank accounts linked to that.

The CNX Nifty opened at 5,601.65; about 42 points higher as compared to its previous closing of 5,558.70, and has touched a high and a low of 5,610.60 and 5,566.85 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 5,576.50, up by 17.80 points or 0.32%. There were 24 stocks advancing against 26 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Tata Motors up by 4.53%, ICICI Bank up by 2.94%, IndusInd Bank up by 6.10%, DLF up by 1.53% and Lupin up by 1.45%.

On the flip side, HDFC down by 1.81%, ONGC down by 1.52%, M&M down by 1.43%, IDFC down by 1.41% and NTPC down by 1.40%, were the major losers on the index.

All Asian equity indices were trading in green; Shanghai Composite rose 3.02 points or 0.14% to 2,229.15, Hang Seng surged 185.98 points or 0.84% to 22,220.54, Jakarta Composite increased 27.02 points or 0.55% to 4,904.50, KLSE Composite jumped 10.49 points or 0.62% to 1,706.69, Nikkei 225 soared 147.63 points or 1.11% to 13,435.76, Straits Times strengthened 13.69 points or 0.42% to 3,306.94, KOSPI Composite added 0.76 points or 0.04% to 1,936.34 and Taiwan Weighted was up by 79.89 points or 1.03% to 7,832.69.