Benchmarks trade jubilantly buoyed by firm global cues

Buoyed by firm global cues, Indian equity benchmarks have made a gap-up opening and are trading jubilantly in early deals on Thursday. Both the frontline gauges recaptured their crucial 6,100 (Nifty) and 20,550 (Sensex) levels and are up by around a percentage point. The US markets bounced back and ended higher overnight, reacting to a batch of largely upbeat economic data. Moreover, most of the Asian equity markets were trading in the green in early deals, led by Japanese Nikkei, which was up by over a percent as stronger dollar triggered some hectic buying across the board.

Back home, buying continued on the street ahead of Q2 GDP numbers to be announced tomorrow, as there is general belief that after a sluggish first quarter, India’s economy may have expanded by about 4.5 percent in the July-September period. Buying in telecom stocks too supported the sentiments with stocks like, Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Tata Communications edged higher after telecom regulator TRAI came out with guidelines and tariff on unstructured supplementary service data (USSD)-based mobile banking services in order to promote use of mobile banking services across the country.

On the sectoral front, realty witnessed the maximum gain in trade followed by banking and oil and gas, while software remained the lone loser on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices too were trading in-line with benchmarks, while the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 864 shares on the gaining side against 309 shares on the losing side while 43 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex opened at 20522.36; about 102 points higher compared to its previous closing of 20420.26, and has touched a high and a low of 20601.62 and 20517.97 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 20590.91, up by 170.65 points or 0.84%. There were 29 stocks advancing against 1 decline on the index.

The overall market breadth has made a strong start with 70.57% stocks advancing against 25.33% declines. The broader indices too were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index up by 0.80% and Small cap index up 0.60%. 

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Realty up by 1.35%, Bankex up by 0.69%, Oil & Gas up by 0.59%, Capital Goods up by 0.54% and PSU up by 0.53%, while IT down by 0.93% was the sole loser on the sectoral index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were ICICI Bank up by 1.93%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.78%, ONGC up by 1.71%, RIL up by 1.49% and SSLT up by 1.41%. On the flip side, Infosys was down by 0.78%, was the only loser on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, exuding confidence that the economy is poised to resume a path of high growth, Plan panel Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia underscored that country’s GDP would expand by over 6% next fiscal and performance will be better in second half of this fiscal.

Further, in yet another encouraging sign for the economy, the planning commission deputy chairman also highlighted that he expects Current Account Deficit (CAD) to be significantly lower below the 3% this fiscal and in the range of 2.5%-2.7%. Additionally, he was also optimistic of the economy not breaching the fiscal deficit target at 4.8% of the GDP.

Besides, Ahluwalia also averred the next fiscal could see the first signs of strong improvement, with many projects and policies in the pipeline. In the backdrop of economic growth slumping to four year low figure of 4.4% during Q1FY14, Montek set a higher target of 8% for Indian economy.

The CNX Nifty opened at 6,092.00; about 34 points higher as compared to its previous closing of 6,057.10, and has touched a high and a low of 6,111.35 and 6,090.00 respectively.

The index is currently trading at 6,107.05, up by 49.95 points or 0.82%. There were 47 stocks advancing against 3 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were JP Associate up by 2.93%, ICICI Bank up by 1.81%, ONGC up by 1.74%, M&M up by 1.72% and Axis Bank up by 1.62%. On the flip side, Infosys down by 0.74% TCS down by 0.17% and Power Grid down by 0.16% were the top losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in green; Shanghai Composite surged 28.31 points or 1.29% to 2,229.38, Hang Seng rose 149.80 points or 0.63% to 23,956.15, KLSE Composite increased 5.40 points or 0.30% to 1,803.86, Nikkei 225 soared 169.38 points or 1.10% to 15,619.01, Straits Times strengthened 21.84 points or 0.69% to 3,193.90, Seoul Composite added 14.78 points or 0.73% to 2,043.59 and Taiwan Weighted was up by 71.35 points or 0.86% to 8,367.23.

On the flip side, Jakarta Composite was down by 2.19 points or 0.05% to 4,249.30.