Indian markets hold heads in green in early noon deals

In a highly volatile session, Indian equity markets were managing to hold their heads in green during early afternoon deals, with both Sensex and Nifty trading notably higher, aided by positive cues from other Asian markets. Traders got relief, amid reports that in a bid to boost ease of doing business, the government aims to further bring down the time taken for voluntary closure of companies to three months, in line with international standards. The time taken for voluntary closure has already come down to 110 days since the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) operationalised Centralised Processing for Accelerated Corporate Exit (C-PACE) on May 1, 2023.

On the global front, Asian markets are trading mostly in green, after China's inflation turned positive in February for the first time in six months but the upturn was driven by the timing of the Lunar New Year Holiday, diminishing hopes that the deflationary pressures are over. The data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed that consumer prices posted an annual increase of 0.7 percent in February after a 0.8 percent decrease in January.

Back home, on the sectoral front, telecom sector stocks were in watch, as the Telecommunications Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has unveiled telecom reforms including the policy on Spectrum Regulatory Sandbox that holds the potential of advancing India's telecommunications landscape and fostering global collaboration in the field. Minister also announced a complete abolition of Wireless Operating License (WOL) that further simplifies the licensing processes in telecom.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 73761.75, up by 259.11 points or 0.35% after trading in a range of 73342.12 and 74004.16. There were 13 stocks advancing against 17 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index fell 1.15%, while Small cap index was down by 2.21%.

The only gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were TECK up by 0.94% and IT up by 0.83%, while Realty down by 3.50%, Industrials down by 1.68%, PSU down by 1.53%, Basic Materials down by 1.46% and Power down by 1.35% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were TCS up by 2.11%, HDFC Bank up by 1.99%, Maruti Suzuki up by 1.59%, Infosys up by 1.50% and Reliance Industries up by 0.93%. On the flip side, ITC down by 2.11%, SBI down by 1.29%, Nestle down by 1.00%, Tata Motors down by 0.92% and Bajaj Finserv down by 0.91% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar has said that India’s artificial intelligence (AI) mission will help create sovereign artificial intelligence models that are designed and built in India. He outlined the government’s vision for India’s artificial intelligence (AI) sector and articulated an initiative to develop the country’s own foundational AI models, leveraging the success stories of platforms like ChatGPT and OpenAI on the global stage. 

Emphasizing the country’s journey towards developing indigenous AI capabilities, Chandrasekhar said, ‘we will be developing our own Indian foundational models. The world is talking about ChatGPT and OpenAI. Based on our own languages and our own India data sets we expect that as a consequence of India’s AI mission, we will have sovereign AI models that are designed and built in India.’ He emphasized the importance of harnessing India’s diverse languages and vast datasets to create sovereign AI models tailored to Indian needs.

Underlining India’s determination to make its mark in the AI landscape, the minister said AI Compute or AI data centres are the fundamental backbone to training AI models and one of the advantages that some of the countries in the west have who have created AI models is that they have access to this kind of infrastructure and as part of building digital infrastructure India AI will build this AI compute infrastructure. He further elaborated on the necessity of robust AI compute infrastructure, emphasizing its role as the backbone for training AI models. He underscored the government’s commitment to building such infrastructure as part of India’s digital transformation journey. The minister also shed light on the establishment of AI innovation centres, aligning with the government’s vision to fully harness the potential of AI for India’s digital economy.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 22369.55, up by 36.90 points or 0.17% after trading in a range of 22256.00 and 22452.55. There were 19 stocks advancing against 31 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were TCS up by 2.07%, HDFC Bank up by 1.94%, Eicher Motors up by 1.71%, LTIMindtree up by 1.70% and Maruti Suzuki up by 1.54%. On the flip side, Cipla down by 2.36%, ITC down by 2.09%, Adani Enterprises down by 1.51%, Bajaj Auto down by 1.40% and Grasim Industries down by 1.38% were the top losers.

Asian markets are trading mostly in green; Hang Seng advanced 500.77 points or 3.02% to 17,088.34, Taiwan Weighted added 188.47 points or 0.95% to 19,914.55, Straits Times rose 6.29 points or 0.2% to 3,144.71 and KOSPI increased 21.97 points or 0.82% to 2,681.81, while Shanghai Composite weakened 11.95 points or 0.39% to 3,056.51 and Nikkei 225 slipped 22.98 points or 0.06% to 38,797.51.