Benchmarks remain in green in morning deals

Indian equity benchmarks remained in green in morning deals, led by gains in IT, TECK and Telecom stocks along with a rally in Asian markets. Sentiments remained positive with the Ministry of Commerce & Industry’s data showing that the output of eight core industries posted a growth of 6.3 per cent in May 2024 as compared with 5.2 per cent a year ago, on the back of healthy expansion in the production of coal, natural gas, and electricity. Traders also took support after data showed foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) turned net buyers in June, following two months of net outflow. FPIs bought shares worth Rs 26,565 crore on a net basis in the month, driven by political stability and a sharp rebound in markets aided by aggressive retail buying. Adding to the optimism, RBI's monetary policy committee member Shashanka Bhide said Indian economy is poised for potentially a stable high growth phase and it is also in a strong position in the context of significant risks that the country is facing. On the global front, Asian Markets are trading mostly in green despite the broadly negative cues from Wall Street on Friday, as traders reacted to mostly upbeat manufacturing sector data from several markets in the region as well as upbeat domestic business sentiment readings from Japan.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 79236.57, up by 203.84 points or 0.26% after trading in a range of 78971.79 and 79297.00. There were 21 stocks advancing against 9 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 0.72%, while Small cap index was up by 1.22%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were IT up by 1.31%, TECK up by 1.09%, Telecom up by 1.08%, Basic Materials up by 0.88% and Metal up by 0.84%, while Utilities down by 0.59%, Power down by 0.51%, Realty down by 0.47% and PSU down by 0.11% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tech Mahindra up by 1.85%, TCS up by 1.39%, JSW Steel up by 1.24%, Hindustan Unilever up by 1.04% and Tata Steel up by 0.83%. On the flip side, NTPC down by 2.11%, Power Grid Corporation down by 1.07%, Sun Pharma down by 0.77%, Larsen & Toubro down by 0.69% and SBI down by 0.59% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (MoSPI) in its report has said that retirement fund body EPFO's gross new subscribers addition declined by over 4 per cent to 10.9 million in 2023-24 compared to a year ago. According to the report 'Payroll Reporting in India: An Employment Perspective January to April, 2024', the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) recorded 10,993,119 gross addition of new members in 2023-24 compared to 11,498,453 in 2022-23.

The gross addition of new members was affected due to the pandemic and declined from 11,040,683 in 2019-20 to 8,548,898 in 2020-21. It bounced back to 10,865,063 in 2021-22. The Centre as well as states had imposed lockdown restriction in 2020 and 2021 to curb the spread of deadly coronavirus in the country, which had hit economic activities as well as employment. It showed that in the last five fiscal years till 2023-24, the gross new members addition by EFPO had not recovered to pre-covid level of 2018-19. The gross addition of new members was 13,944,349 in 2018-19.

Since April 2018, the ministry has been bringing out the employment related statistics in the formal sector covering the period September 2017 onwards, using information on the number of subscribers who have subscribed under three major schemes, namely Employees' Provident Fund (EPF), Employees' State Insurance (ESI) and National Pension Scheme (NPS). It stated the numbers of subscribers are from various sources and there are elements of overlap. Therefore, the estimates from various sources are not additive.

The report also showed that the gross addition of members of Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) also dipped to 16,760,672 in 2023-24 from 16,773,023 in 2022-23. However, according to the report, the new addition of subscribers increased under NPS to 937,020 in 2023-24 from 8,4,735 in 2022-23.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 24077.00, up by 66.40 points or 0.28% after trading in a range of 23992.70 and 24096.60. There were 33 stocks advancing against 17 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Wipro up by 2.36%, Hero MotoCorp up by 1.94%, LTIMindtree up by 1.89%, Grasim Industries up by 1.71% and Tech Mahindra up by 1.68%. On the flip side, NTPC down by 2.05%, Power Grid Corporation down by 1.12%, Apollo Hospital down by 0.88%, Divi's Lab down by 0.88% and Sun Pharma down by 0.77% were the top losers.

Asian Markets are trading mostly in green; Jakarta Composite gained 52.53 points or 0.74% to 7,116.11, Shanghai Composite strengthened 9.24 points or 0.31% to 2,976.64, Straits Times rose 5.07 points or 0.15% to 3,337.87, KOSPI increased 1.75 points or 0.06% to 2,799.57 and Taiwan Weighted added 38.94 points or 0.17% to 23,071.19.

On the flip side, Nikkei 225 slipped 1.93 points or 0% to 39,581.15.