Bulls hold tight grip over Dalal Street

Bulls were holding a tight grip over the Dalal Street in early afternoon deals, with both Sensex and Nifty maintaining their strong gains, aided by heavy buying at all the sectors except FMCG, despite mixed cues from other Asian markets. Traders remained positive, as S&P Global Ratings said India's financial system regulator, the RBI, is showing serious commitment to improving governance and transparency in the sector. The recent measures by the RBI will curtail lenders' over-exuberance, enhance compliance culture, and safeguard customers, but the drawback will be higher capital costs for institutions.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mixed, even after China's industrial profits increased notably in the first two months of the year driven by the improvement in the manufacturing sector. The data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed that industrial profits grew 10.2 percent in the January to February period from the previous year. This has reversed a 2.3 percent fall seen in 2023. Profits of the equipment manufacturing sector logged a notable growth during January to February period.

Back home, steel stocks were in watch, as credit rating firm Crisil in its latest report has said that domestic primary steelmakers are on course to achieve their carbon emissions target of less than 2 tonne of carbon dioxide per tonne of crude steel (tCO2/tcs) - around the current global average - by 2030 through measures such as energy transition and increasing production from less carbon-intensive processes. It said reducing emissions will broaden fund-raising avenues and improve export competitiveness, a positive for credit quality. 

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 73029.88, up by 559.58 points or 0.77% after trading in a range of 72600.73 and 73064.82. There were 25 stocks advancing against 5 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 0.44%, while Small cap index was up by 0.94%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Energy up by 1.58%, Capital Goods up by 1.46%, Oil & Gas up by 1.38%, Power up by 1.36% and Auto up by 1.35%, while FMCG down by 0.16% was the only losing index on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Maruti Suzuki up by 3.46%, Reliance Industries up by 3.43%, Larsen & Toubro up by 1.22%, Sun Pharma up by 1.00% and Kotak Mahindra Bank up by 0.87%. On the flip side, Nestle down by 0.99%, Wipro down by 0.45%, Bajaj Finserv down by 0.24%, TCS down by 0.16% and ITC down by 0.01% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its data on balance of payments, has said that India's current account deficit (CAD) narrowed to $10.5 billion or 1.2 per cent of GDP in the October-December quarter (Q3FY24) as against $11.4 billion or 1.3 per cent in the preceding three months ending September. The narrowing in the CAD was much sharper when compared to $16.8 billion or 2 per cent for the October-December 2022 period. For the first nine months of the fiscal, CAD has moderated to 1.2 per cent of GDP from 2.6 per cent of GDP in the corresponding period a year ago on the back of a lower merchandise trade deficit. 

According to the data, the merchandise trade deficit at $71.6 billion for the December quarter was marginally higher than $71.3 billion in the year-ago period. Services exports grew by 5.2 per cent on a year-on-year basis on the back of rising exports of software, business and travel services. Net services receipts increased to $45 billion from $38.7 billion in the year-ago period to help cushion the current account deficit. Private transfer receipts, mainly representing remittances by Indians employed overseas, came at $31.4 billion, which is an increase of 2.1 per cent over the level during the year ago period.

It further stated that foreign direct investment recorded a net inflow of $4.2 billion as compared to a net inflow of $2 billion in the December quarter last year, while the foreign portfolio investment recorded a net inflow of $12 billion, which is much higher than the $4.6 billion in the year-ago period. External commercial borrowings recorded a net outflow of $2.6 billion in the December quarter of FY24, which was marginally wider than the net outflow of $2.5 billion in the year ago period. Non-resident deposits recorded a higher net inflow of $3.9 billion than $2.6 billion a year ago. There was an accretion of foreign exchange reserves (on a BoP basis) to the tune of $6 billion as compared to an accretion of $11.1 billion in the year-ago period.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 22166.55, up by 161.85 points or 0.74% after trading in a range of 22052.85 and 22183.35. There were 34 stocks advancing against 16 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Maruti Suzuki up by 3.54%, Reliance Industries up by 3.46%, Bajaj Auto up by 2.85%, Adani Ports & SEZ up by 2.81% and Eicher Motors up by 1.63%. On the flip side, Britannia down by 1.44%, Apollo Hospital Ent. down by 1.11%, Hero MotoCorp down by 0.99%, Nestle down by 0.97% and Tata Consumer Products down by 0.61% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mixed; Hang Seng declined 164.7 points or 1% to 16,453.62, Jakarta Composite plunged 10.49 points or 0.14% to 7,355.17, Shanghai Composite weakened 18.82 points or 0.62% to 3,012.66 and KOSPI dropped 1.98 points or 0.07% to 2,755.11, while Taiwan Weighted added 73.63 points or 0.36% to 20,200.12, Straits Times rose 19.31 points or 0.59% to 3,252.64 and Nikkei 225 surged 364.7 points or 0.89% to 40,762.73.