Benchmarks continue to trade flat in morning deals

Indian equity benchmarks continued to trade flat in morning deals, dragged by selling in Oil & Gas, PSU and Metal shares amid lacklustre cues from global peers. Traders remained cautious with provisional data from the NSE showing that foreign institutional investors (FIIs) net sold shares worth Rs 4,933.78 crore on February 8. However, traders took support with Rural Development Minister Giriraj Singh’s statement that digitisation of land records and registration is expected to improve the GDP of the country by about 1.5 per cent. Sectorally, stocks related power sector remained in watch as Power Minister R. K. Singh said that total outstanding dues of power distribution companies (Discoms) have come down to around Rs 50,000 crore as on January 31, 2024 following the implementation of Electricity (LPS and Related Matters) Rules, 2022. On the global front, Asian markets were trading mixed as investors struggled to build on another record-setting day on Wall Street, with focus on the upcoming release of key US inflation data.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 71404.80, down by 23.63 points or 0.03% after trading in a range of 71200.31 and 71640.98. There were 15 stocks advancing against 15 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index fell 1.68%, while Small cap index was down by 1.88%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Bankex up by 0.54%, Consumer Durables up by 0.19% and FMCG up by 0.02%, while Oil & Gas down by 3.14%, PSU down by 3.05%, Metal down by 2.57%, Energy down by 2.36% and Telecom down by 2.36% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were ICICI Bank up by 1.27%, ITC up by 1.18%, Bajaj Finance up by 0.98%, Reliance Industries up by 0.81% and Axis Bank up by 0.79%. On the flip side, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 3.09%, Tata Steel down by 2.16%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.91%, Infosys down by 1.64% and JSW Steel down by 1.59% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das has said Digital rupee users will soon be able to execute transactions in areas with limited internet connectivity as the RBI announced that offline capability will be introduced on the Central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot project.

Das said that programmability-based additional use cases will be introduced as part of the pilot project. RBI launched a pilot of the retail CBDC in December 2022 and achieved the target of having 10 lakh transactions a day in December 2023. It can be noted that other payment platforms, especially the very popular Unified Payments Interface (UPI), already offer offline possibilities.

He said ‘it is proposed to introduce an offline functionality in CBDC-R (Retail) for enabling transactions in areas with poor or limited internet connectivity.’ He said multiple offline solutions, which include both proximity and non-proximity based ones, will be tested across hilly areas, rural and urban locations for the purpose. On the programmability front, he said that currently, the system enables Person to Person (P2P) and Person to Merchant (P2M) transactions using digital rupee wallets provided by pilot banks.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 21708.70, down by 9.25 points or 0.04% after trading in a range of 21648.15 and 21780.50. There were 22 stocks advancing against 28 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were ICICI Bank up by 1.58%, ITC up by 1.07%, Axis Bank up by 1.04%, Sun Pharma up by 1.00% and Bajaj Finance up by 0.99%. On the flip side, ONGC down by 3.62%, BPCL down by 3.55%, Hindalco down by 2.89%, Coal India down by 2.77% and Mahindra & Mahindra down by 2.51% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mixed; Hang Seng declined 131.49 points or 0.84% to 15,746.58 and Straits Times fell 4.61 points or 0.15% to 3,138.30, while Nikkei 225 surged 92.28 points or 0.25% to 36,955.56.