Domestic indices trim gains in early noon session

Domestic equity indices trimmed some of their gains in early noon session on account of profit booking after the sharp run up of the last two weeks. Rising crude oil prices and foreign fund outflows dented sentiments. Provisional data from the National Stock Exchange (NSE) showed that foreign institutional investors (FIIs) net sold shares worth Rs 601.52 crore on December 19. However, indices continued to trade in green on the back of buying in Reliance Industries, TCS, Wipro, and Ultratech Cement companies’ stocks. Positive cues from global markets also supported domestic sentiments. Most of the sectoral indices on BSE were trading in green, with only exceptions of Telecom and Healthcare counters. Stocks in Energy, Oil & Gas, Consumer Durables, FMCG and IT from counters were the prominent gainers.

On the global font, Asian markets were mostly trading in green following positive cues from US markets overnight, as traders reacted to the continued optimism over the outlook for interest rates following the US Fed's monetary policy announcement last week. Back home, in the stock specific development, Transformers and Rectifiers (India) rose after the company has been awarded orders of total contract value of Rs 219 crore from Power Grid Corporation of India.  

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 71571.95, up by 134.76 points or 0.19% after trading in a range of 71521.60 and 71913.07. There were 16 stocks advancing against 14 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.46%, while Small cap index up by 0.28%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Energy up by 1.44%, Oil & Gas up by 1.37%, Consumer Durables up by 1.05%, FMCG up by 0.68% and IT up by 0.53%, while Telecom down by 0.14% and Healthcare down by 0.11% were the only losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Wipro up by 1.52%, Reliance Industries up by 0.83%, Ultratech Cement up by 0.78%, TCS up by 0.74% and Bajaj Finserv up by 0.73%. On the flip side, HCL down by 1.51%, Sun Pharma down by 0.84%, Tata Steel down by 0.66%, Axis Bank down by 0.62% and ICICI Bank down by 0.56% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Parliament has given its approval for a net additional spending of Rs 58,378.21 crore in the current fiscal ending March 2024 (FY24), with a large chunk allocated to MGNREGA and fertiliser subsidies. The gross additional spending would be more than Rs 1.29 lakh crore, out of which Rs 70,968 crore would be matched by savings and receipts.

The additional expenditure includes Rs 13,351 crore towards fertiliser subsidies and about Rs 7,000 crore towards spending by the Department of Food and Public Distribution. An additional outgo of Rs 9,200 crore is towards spending by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, and Rs 14,524 crore by the Ministry of Rural Development towards MGNREGA is included in the supplementary demands. The total supplementary demands for spending by the Ministry of External Affairs is Rs 20,000 crore, which would be adjusted against the reduction of expenditure of over Rs 9,000 crore. 

For the full 2023-24 financial year, the government has budgeted the fiscal deficit to be Rs 17.86 lakh crore or 5.9 per cent of the GDP. The April-October fiscal deficit was 45.6 per cent of the full-year Budget Estimate of the last fiscal.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 21524.80, up by 71.70 points or 0.33% after trading in a range of 21490.55 and 21593.00. There were 34 stocks advancing against 16 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were ONGC up by 4.67%, Tata Consumer up by 2.31%, LTIMindtree up by 1.49%, Wipro up by 1.48% and Hero MotoCorp up by 1.39%. On the flip side, HCL down by 1.53%, Grasim Industries down by 0.78%, Tata Steel down by 0.70%, Axis Bank down by 0.67% and ICICI Bank down by 0.65% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in green; Hang Seng advanced 151.01 points or 0.91% to 16,656.01, Nikkei 225 surged 456.55 points or 1.36% to 33,675.94, Taiwan Weighted added 58.65 points or 0.33% to 17,635.20, Straits Times rose 0.16 points or 0.01% to 3,116.78, KOSPI increased 43.38 points or 1.66% to 2,611.93 and Jakarta Composite gained 43.64 points or 0.6% to 7,231.49. However, Shanghai Composite weakened 18.45 points or 0.63% to 2,913.94.