Bourses add more points to touch day’s highs

Indian equity markets extended their gains in late afternoon session. Currently, markets traded at day’s high levels led by gains in Metal stocks. Traders got encouragement as India Ratings & Research (Ind-Ra) upped India's GDP growth forecast for the current fiscal to 7.5 per cent from 7.1 per cent projected earlier on expectation of improved consumption demand. It said ongoing growth momentum led by government capex, deleveraged balance sheets of corporates/banks, and incipient private corporate capex cycle has now found support from the union government budget. On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in green as investors digested encouraging earnings results and awaited central bank decisions in the U.S. and U.K. Meanwhile, European markets were trading higher driven by a raft of corporate updates, while heavyweight ASML led overall gains on report that the Dutch chip equipment manufacturer would be exempted from a new U.S. rule on foreign chip equipment exports.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 81715.27, up by 259.87 points or 0.32% after trading in a range of 81434.32 and 81758.02. There were 20 stocks advancing against 10 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index gained 0.81%, while Small cap index was up by 0.10%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Power up by 1.55%, Utilities up by 1.54%, Healthcare up by 1.00%, Metal up by 0.94% and Basic Materials was up by 0.74%, while Energy down by 0.13%, Realty down by 0.09%, PSU down by 0.09% and Bankex was down by 0.07% were the few losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Asian Paints up by 2.56%, JSW Steel up by 2.37%, Bharti Airtel up by 2.07%, NTPC up by 1.99% and Adani Ports up by 1.57%. On the flip side, Reliance Industries down by 0.60%, Indusind Bank down by 0.54%, Tata Motors down by 0.52%, Axis Bank down by 0.40% and Infosys down by 0.38% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, highlighting impact of the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal  has said that the incentive amount of Rs 9,721 crore have been claimed under PLI scheme for 9 sectors, namely large scale electronics manufacturing, IT hardware, bulk drugs, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, telecom and networking products, food processing, white goods and drones and drone components.

Commerce and Industry Minister further noted that an actual investment of Rs 1.23 lakh crore has been realized till March 2024 across 14 sectors, which has resulted in incremental production/ sales of over Rs 10.31 lakh crore and employment generation of around 8 lakh. He added that there is evidence of increasing foreign investment also in several PLI sectors. 

Goyal also said that most of the projects are at the implementation stage and will be filing incentive claims in due course. Besides, the minister said that settling PLI claims quarterly is anticipated to boost the performance and sentiment of applicants by improving cash flow, faster disbursement of incentives and enhancement in the efficiency of fund utilisation.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 24940.50, up by 83.20 points or 0.33% after trading in a range of 24856.50 and 24954.45. There were 34 stocks advancing against 16 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were HDFC Life Insurance up by 2.78%, Asian Paints up by 2.53%, JSW Steel up by 2.43%, SBI Life up by 2.02% and NTPC up by 1.99%. On the flip side, Tata Consumer down by 0.78%, Britannia down by 0.62%, Reliance Industries down by 0.59%, Indusind Bank down by 0.58% and Tata Motors down by 0.54% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in green; Nikkei 225 surged 575.87 points or 1.47% to 39,101.82, Hang Seng advanced 341.69 points or 1.97% to 17,344.60, Shanghai Composite strengthened 59.45 points or 2.02% to 2,938.75, KOSPI increased 32.50 points or 1.17% to 2,770.69, Straits Times rose 17.6 points or 0.51% to 3,459.37 and Jakarta Composite was up by 13.09 points or 0.18% to 7,254.95. On the flip side, Taiwan Weighted was down by 24.22 points or 0.11% to 22,199.35.

European markets were trading higher; UK’s FTSE 100 increased 109.45 points or 1.31% to 8,383.86, France’s CAC rose 91.8 points or 1.21% to 7,566.74 and Germany’s DAX was up by 109.74 points or 0.59% to 18,520.92.