Bourses continue to trade with healthy gains in late afternoon session

Indian equity markets continued to trade with healthy gains in late afternoon session on sustained buying by investors. Traders continued to take support as India's manufacturing sector growth improved in the month of November, as strengthening client demand and more favourable input supply boosted production volumes. According to the report, the seasonally adjusted S&P Global India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) grew to 56.0 in November 2023 from 55.5 in October 2023. Besides, India's GDP numbers boosted sentiments. Meanwhile, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said nearly 97.26 per cent of the Rs 2,000 bank notes have been returned to the banking system, and only about Rs 9,760 crore worth of the notes are still with the public.

On the global front, European markets were trading higher as investors cheered growing prospects of rate cuts on cooler-than-expected inflation prints, while keeping an eye out for more economic data and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's remarks. Asian markets were trading mixed with data showing a continued fall in US inflation unable to relight the buying that characterised much of November.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 67453.58, up by 465.14 points or 0.69% after trading in a range of 67149.07 and 67557.14. There were 17 stocks advancing against 13 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index gained 0.96%, while Small cap index was up by 0.68%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Power up by 2.11%, Utilities up by 2.01%, PSU up by 1.87%, Capital Goods up by 1.54% and Realty was up by 1.43%, while Auto down by 0.27%, Telecom down by 0.14%, TECK down by 0.08% and IT was down by 0.03% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were NTPC up by 3.64%, ITC up by 2.87%, Larsen & Toubro up by 2.42%, Axis Bank up by 2.31% and Bajaj Finance up by 1.74%. On the flip side, Wipro down by 1.36%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 0.95%, HCL Tech down by 0.68%, Bharti Airtel down by 0.34% and Infosys down by 0.33% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its latest data has showed that bank credit to industry decelerated to 5.4 per cent in October 2023 as compared to 13.5 per cent in the year-ago month. It said credit growth to agriculture and allied activities improved to 17.5 per cent (year-on-year) in October 2023 from 13.8 per cent a year ago. Among major industries, credit growth (year-on-year) to basic metal & metal products, food processing and textiles accelerated in October 2023, while that to all engineering, chemicals and chemical products and infrastructure decelerated.

The data also revealed that advances to the services sector grew by 20.1 per cent (y-o-y) in October 2023 compared to 22.5 per cent a year ago, with non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) and trade being the major contributors. Further, personal loan growth decelerated to 18 per cent annually in October 2023 against 20.5 per cent a year ago. On a year-on-year basis, non-food bank credit registered a growth of 15.3 per cent in October 2023 compared to 18.3 per cent in the year-ago period.

According to the RBI, data on sectoral deployment of bank credit for October 2023 is collected from 41 select banks, accounting for about 95 per cent of the total non-food credit deployed by all commercial banks.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 20267.20, up by 134.05 points or 0.67% after trading in a range of 20183.70 and 20291.55. There were 29 stocks advancing against 20 stocks declining on the index, while 1 stock remained unchanged.  

The top gainers on Nifty were NTPC up by 3.73%, ITC up by 2.85%, Larsen & Toubro up by 2.50%, Axis Bank up by 2.41% and Britannia up by 2.34%. On the flip side, Wipro down by 1.33%, HDFC Life Insurance down by 1.07%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 1.02%, Hero MotoCorp down by 0.86% and HCL Tech down by 0.73% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mixed; Hang Seng declined 212.58 points or 1.26% to 16,830.30, Nikkei 225 slipped 55.38 points or 0.17% to 33,431.51, KOSPI dropped 30.28 points or 1.21% to 2,505.01 and Jakarta Composite was down by 28.42 points or 0.4% to 7,052.32. On the flip side, Shanghai Composite strengthened 1.97 points or 0.06% to 3,031.64, Taiwan Weighted added 4.5 points or 0.03% to 17,438.35 and Straits Times was up by 16.83 points or 0.54% to 3,089.82.

European markets were trading higher; UK’s FTSE 100 increased 47.46 points or 0.63% to 7,501.21, France’s CAC rose 23.29 points or 0.32% to 7,334.06 and Germany’s DAX was up by 79.23 points or 0.49% to 16,294.66.