Key gauges continue to trade higher in morning deals

Indian equity benchmarks trimmed some initial gains but continued to trade with strong gains in morning deals, after the US announced suspension of additional tariffs on India for 90 days until July 9 this year. Traders took support with the Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) stated that imposition of steep 125 per cent tariffs on China by the US could help Indian products from sectors such as textiles, leather, engineering, and electronics become more competitive in America. Some support also came as commerce ministry said that the country's goods and services exports have crossed $820 billion in 2024-25, marking a nearly 6 per cent increase over the previous fiscal year despite global economic uncertainties. The exports stood at $778 billion in 2023-24. However, there was some cautiousness too as WTO chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala stated that the escalating trade tensions between the US and China, whose bilateral trade accounts for about 3 per cent of global trade, could severely damage the global economic outlook. 

On the global front, Asian markets are trading mostly in green, lifted by strong global cues following U.S. President Donald Trump announcing a 90-day pause of reciprocal tariffs on most U.S. trade partners, excluding China, to facilitate renewed trade negotiations. Back home, on the sectoral front, stocks related to textile sector remained in watch as the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) urged the government to consider introducing an interim Textile Exports Protection Scheme to mitigate the burden of additional tariff costs faced by exporters, terming the 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs announced by the Trump administration as a stopgap measure. 

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 75083.15, up by 1236.00 points or 1.67% after trading in a range of 74762.84 and 75319.35. There were 28 stocks advancing against 2 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 1.26%, while Small cap index was up by 2.00%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Metal up by 3.53%, Basic Materials up by 2.58%, Consumer Durables up by 2.01%, Auto up by 1.89% and TECK up by 1.83%, while there were no losing sectoral indices on the BSE. 

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Steel up by 4.48%, Tata Motors up by 3.02%, Eternal up by 2.91%, Bajaj Finserv up by 2.84% and HCL Technologies up by 2.83%. On the flip side, Asian Paints down by 0.79% and Nestle down by 0.10% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, ratings agency ICRA has said that Indian airport operators are expected to see an 18-20 per cent topline year-on-year growth in this fiscal (FY26), driven by a sustained improvement in passenger traffic and tariff hike as well as ramp-up in non-aeronautical revenues. Further, it estimates overall air passenger traffic growing at a healthy 7-9 per cent Y-o-Y to reach at 440-450 million in FY26, on the back of an around 10 per cent estimated increase in the just concluded financial year. The overall passenger traffic (domestic and international) is estimated at 412-415 million in FY25.

The ratings agency said its estimation is based on a sample set of airports, including those managed and operated by the Airports Authority of India (AAI), as well as Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Cochin International Airports, which operate under the public-private partnership (PPP) model. Also, given the capacity bottleneck faced by a few airports, the sector will continue to witness substantial capex.

According to ICRA, investments of more than Rs 1 trillion are expected over the next 4-5 years, including greenfield airports such as Jewar (Noida), Navi Mumbai, Bhogapuram (AP) Parandur (Chennai). These expected investments will also go into brownfield expansions which include Bangalore, Hyderabad, Cochin, Mumbai and Nagpur airports and upgradation of airports under the AAI.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 22794.80, up by 395.65 points or 1.77% after trading in a range of 22695.40 and 22874.45. There were 46 stocks advancing against 3 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Tata Steel up by 4.32%, Hindalco up by 3.89%, JSW Steel up by 3.86%, Coal India up by 3.56% and Adani Enterprises up by 3.53%. On the flip side, Asian Paints down by 0.77%, Apollo Hospital down by 0.24% and HDFC Life Insurance down by 0.20% were the top losers.

Asian markets are trading mostly in green; Taiwan Weighted added 364.81 points or 1.92% to 19,364.84, Hang Seng advanced 116.85 points or 0.56% to 20,798.63, Jakarta Composite gained 13.69 points or 0.22% to 6,267.71 and Shanghai Composite strengthened 4.01 points or 0.12% to 3,227.65.

On the flip side, KOSPI dropped 22.97 points or 0.94% to 2,422.09, Straits Times fell 75.57 points or 2.11% to 3,502.26 and Nikkei 225 slipped 1481.03 points or 4.28% to 33,127.97.