Bulls were holding a grip over Indian equity benchmarks during early afternoon deals, with both Sensex and Nifty maintaining their strong gains, aided by positive cues from other Asian markets, as another set of weak U.S. economic data added to investor optimism that the Fed is done hiking interest rates. Sentiments remained positive, as the Reserve Bank of India said that India's foreign exchange reserves increased by $2.579 billion to $586.111 billion in the week ended on October 27. In the previous reporting week, the overall reserves had dropped by $2.363 billion to $583.532 billion. Besides, reiterating India's commitment to embracing disruptive technologies, particularly AI, Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, Piyush Goyal has said that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a powerful tool to fight poverty, deliver goods and services to remote areas, and reskill the workforce for the future.
The street overlooked reports that Foreign Portfolio Investors’ (FPIs) selling spree continues as they pulled out over Rs 3,400 crore from the Indian equity markets in the first three trading sessions of November on rising interest rates and geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. This came after such investors withdrew Rs 24,548 crore in October and Rs 14,767 crore in September.
On the global front, Asian markets were trading higher, even after Japan's service sector grew at the softest pace in the year-to-date period in October amid deteriorating demand conditions. The survey results from S&P Global showed that the au Jibun Bank final services Purchasing Managers' Index fell to 51.6 in October from 53.8 in September. The reading was above the flash score of 51.1. Nonetheless, the index remained above the 50.0 no change mark for the fourteenth successive month in October.
The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 64756.25, up by 392.47 points or 0.61% after trading in a range of 64617.48 and 64835.23. There were 26 stocks advancing against 4 stocks declining on the index.
The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 0.83%, while Small cap index was up by 1.05%.
The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 1.64%, Utilities up by 1.57%, Capital Goods up by 1.37%, Industrials up by 1.27% and Oil & Gas up by 1.24%, while Consumer Durables down by 0.50% was the only losing index on BSE.
The top gainers on the Sensex were Axis Bank up by 2.24%, Larsen & Toubro up by 1.90%, Bajaj Finserv up by 1.40%, Bajaj Finance up by 1.34% and Asian Paints up by 1.27%. On the flip side, Titan down by 0.51%, SBI down by 0.49%, Tata Motors down by 0.25% and Hindustan Unilever down by 0.06% were the top losers.
Meanwhile, Power Ministry in its latest data has showed that India's electricity consumption grew 9.4 per cent to around 984.39 billion units in the AprilOctober period of FY24 as compared to a year ago mainly due to improvement in economic activities and weather conditions. Power consumption in the AprilOctober period in fiscal year 202223 was 899.95 billion units.
According to the data, another indicator, peak power demand, was also higher at nearly 241 GW during the AprilOctober period this fiscal against 215.88 GW in the same period in 2022. The country's power consumption grew nearly 22 per cent to 138.94 billion units (BU) in October 2023, showing a surge in electricity demand due to festivities and increased economic activities. In the same month a year ago, power consumption stood at 113.94 BU, higher than 112.79 billion units recorded in October 2021.
The power ministry had estimated the country's electricity demand to touch 229 GW during summer. The demand did not reach the projected level in AprilJuly due to unseasonal rain. The peak power demand, however, touched a new high of 224.1 GW in June before dropping to 209.03 GW in July. The peak power demand touched 238.19 GW in August and reached a record high of about 240 GW in September this year.
The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 19357.60, up by 127.00 points or 0.66% after trading in a range of 19309.70 and 19371.65. There were 42 stocks advancing against 8 stocks declining on the index.
The top gainers on Nifty were Eicher Motors up by 3.24%, Hero MotoCorp up by 2.64%, Axis Bank up by 2.25%, Divi's Lab up by 2.05% and Grasim Industries up by 1.89%. On the flip side, Titan down by 0.60%, SBI down by 0.48%, Tata Motors down by 0.15%, LTIMindtree down by 0.11% and Cipla down by 0.11% were the top losers.
All Asian markets were trading higher; Hang Seng advanced 317.82 points or 1.77% to 17,981.94, Taiwan Weighted added 141.71 points or 0.85% to 16,649.36, Jakarta Composite gained 64.75 points or 0.94% to 6,853.60, Straits Times rose 24.15 points or 0.76% to 3,167.81, Shanghai Composite strengthened 26.33 points or 0.86% to 3,057.13, KOSPI increased 134.03 points or 5.36% to 2,502.37 and Nikkei 225 surged 758.59 points or 2.32% to 32,708.48.
