Sensex, Nifty trade tad higher in early deals

Indian equity benchmarks made positive start on Monday ahead of the RBI and US FOMC's latest meeting minutes to be out later in the week. Sensex and Nifty soon turned volatile and are trading tad higher in early deals. IT, Realty and TECK remained draggers for the markets, whereas buying in Utilities, Telecom and Power counters helped indices to keep head above water. Some support came in as India’s outward foreign direct investment (FDI) commitments rose by 25.7 per cent on a year-on-year (Y-o-Y) basis to $2.09 billion in January 2024, compared to over $1.66 billion in January 2023. However, some cautiousness came in as latest data by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) showed that India's foreign exchange reserves dipped by of $5.24 billion to $617.23 billion for the week ending on February 9. 

On the global front, Asian markets are trading mixed, following the broadly negative cues from Wall Street on Friday, as robust producer price inflation data raised concerns that the US Fed may not consider lowering interest rate anytime soon. However, gains came from the Chinese market which reopened after long lunar new-year holidays. On the economic front, the Cabinet Office said core machine orders in Japan were up a seasonally adjusted 2.7 percent on month in December, coming in at 838.8 billion yen.

Back home, IT stocks are trading under pressure as Nasscom’s - Strategic Review 2024: Rewiring Growth in the Changing Tech Landscape - showed that with the Indian information-technology (IT) industry’s growth rate falling to a low single digit, the ambition of becoming a $350 billion industry by 2026 seems a difficult task. In stock specific development, CRISIL soar on 33% rise in Q4 net.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 72490.70, up by 64.06 points or 0.09% after trading in a range of 72400.96 and 72675.46. There were 15 stocks advancing against 15 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 0.47%, while Small cap index was up by 0.82%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Utilities up by 1.15%, Telecom up by 0.99%, Power up by 0.90%, Consumer Durables up by 0.85% and PSU up by 0.73%, while IT down by 0.56%, Realty down by 0.55%, TECK down by 0.25%, Metal down by 0.06% and Bankex down by 0.04% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bharti Airtel up by 1.51%, Bajaj Finance up by 1.33%, Nestle up by 1.10%, ITC up by 1.04% and Bajaj Finserv up by 0.90%. On the flip side, Wipro down by 1.61%, TCS down by 1.18%, Tech Mahindra down by 0.80%, Indusind Bank down by 0.79% and Tata Steel down by 0.70% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, executing optimism over India’s economic growth prospects, India's G-20 Sherpa and former NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant has said that the country needs to grow at an annual rate of 9-10 per cent for around three decades and constant innovations to become a $35 trillion economy by 2047. He said ‘We are the fifth largest economy in the world and by 2027 we will surpass Japan and Germany to become the third largest economy in the world. And our aim is that by the time we turn 100 in 2047, India should be a $35 trillion economy’. He added which means, India will become the second largest economy in the world.

Kant noted that India created the digital identity of 1.4 billion people and technologically the country has leapfrogged. With the liberation of policy by the government which supports start-ups, space and in many other areas, young entrepreneurs should focus on areas like artificial intelligence, logistics, health and education.

He added ‘What India is doing is innovating at population scale and we are at the beginning of a huge disruption because we are the youngest country in the world and our average age is 29. Even when we are 100 our average age will be 33 and we will provide 31 per cent of the skilled manpower to the rest of the world’.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 22075.70, up by 35.00 points or 0.16% after trading in a range of 22049.70 and 22107.60. There were 29 stocks advancing against 21 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Bajaj Auto up by 3.84%, Bharti Airtel up by 1.51%, Dr. Reddy's Lab up by 1.42%, Bajaj Finance up by 1.41% and Adani Enterprises up by 1.18%. On the flip side, Wipro down by 1.71%, TCS down by 1.11%, SBI Life Insurance down by 0.85%, LTIMindtree down by 0.83% and Indusind Bank down by 0.81% were the top losers.

Asian markets are trading mixed; KOSPI rose 28.96 points or 1.09% to 2,677.72, Taiwan Weighted gained 26.84 points or 0.14% to 18,634.09, Shanghai Composite added 25.9 points or 0.9% to 2,891.80 and Straits Times was up by 8.2 points or 0.25% to 3,230.14. On the other hand, Hang Seng declined 163.81 points or 1% to 16,176.15, Nikkei 225 slipped 91.48 points or 0.24% to 38,395.76 and Jakarta Composite plunged 17.01 points or 0.23% to 7,318.54.