Benchmarks continue to trade in green in late morning

After making a positive start and later erasing most of their initial gains, Indian equity benchmarks continued to trade marginally in green in late morning deals as selling emerged at higher levels in select heavyweights. Sentiments remained up-beat on report that foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 722.02 crore on Thursday, as per provisional data from the National Stock Exchange. Some support to the markets came in from Moody’s Analytics report that projected the ouster of the UPA government after a disappointing second term, saying that the BJP is likely to form the next government after the general elections. Further, rupee appreciation against the US dollar also added to optimistic sentiments. However, gains remained capped on report that foreign direct investment (FDI) into India grew by a meager 1.5 percent to $2.18 billion in January and for the April-January period, foreign investment inflows dipped 2 percent to $18.74 billion from $19.1 billion during the corresponding period of the previous fiscal. On the global front, The Asian markets too were trading mostly in the green. Back home, traders were buying, Realty, Metal and Power stocks, while selling was seen in Oil & Gas.

The market breadth on BSE remains positive with advances to declines in the ratio of 1266:708. BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty were comfortably trading near their psychological 21,700 and 6,450 levels respectively. The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 21743.58 up by 3.49 points or 0.02% after trading in a range of 21870.11 and 21738.38. There were 20 stocks advancing against 10 declines on the index. The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.78% and Small cap index up by 0.68%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Realty up by 1.79%, Metal up by 0.95%, Power up by 0.84%, Consumer Durables up by 0.84%, and Bankex up by 0.37%, while Oil & Gas down by 0.70% were the top losers on the sectoral index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Hindalco up by 2.22%, Wipro up by 2.08%, Tata Steel up by 1.63%, SSLT up by 1.16% and SBI up by 1.13%. On the flip side, ONGC was down by 1.32%, Hero MotoCorp  was down by 0.83%, Sun Pharma was down by 0.83%, RIL was down by 0.73% and Coal India was down by 0.56% were the top losers on the Sensex

Meanwhile, With strong investor response to the current CPSE-Exchange Traded Fund (ETF), the government is likely to achieve the revised disinvestment target of Rs 16,000 crore for the current fiscal. Buoyed by strong demand from retail and institutional investors, CPSE- ETF, involving the equity shares of ten PSUs, has garnered cumulative bids of over Rs 2,400 crore at the end of third day on March 20. The government aims to garner Rs 3,000 crore from this ETF with the closure of the new fund offer by March 21.

The CPSE-ETF, which will get listed on the stock exchanges on April 11 and can be traded like any stock, consists of a basket of 10 blue-chip public sector enterprises, including Coal India, ONGC, Oil India and IOCL and among other. CPSE-Exchange Traded Fund, which opened for anchor investors. State Bank of India and insurance companies, have already put in Rs 835 crore into this ETF.

The Government had originally planned to raise Rs 30,000 crore through disinvestments during current fiscal, but after stake sale plan with regard to some of the PSUs did not go as planned, it pruned the target to Rs 16,000 crore. Now the government is tapping the ETF route for achieving disinvestment target. The government has so far undertaken two follow-on public offers (FPOs), six offers for sale (OFS) and one buy-back offer besides the present ETF to achieve the disinvestment targets during the current year.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 6,490.55 up by 7.45 points or 0.11% after trading in a range of 6,522.90 and 6,485.70. There were 32 stocks advancing against 18 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Power Grid up by 2.47%, DLF up by 2.12%, Hindalco up by 2.05%, Bank of Baroda up by 2.00% and Wipro up by 1.93%. On the flip side, ONGC down by 1.49%, Asian Paint down by 1.23%, Sun Pharma down by 1.01%, Reliance down by 0.71% and Coal India down by 0.71% were the top losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in green; Shanghai Composite increased by 21.43 points or 1.08% to 2,014.91, Hang Seng rose 123.64 points or 0.58% to 21,305.80, KLSE Composite climbed 1.58 points or 0.09% to 1,819.75, Seoul Composite up by 12.06 points or 0.63% to 1,931.59 and Straits Times was up by 19.91 points or 0.64% to 3,076.96. On the flip side, Taiwan Weighted was down by 12.62 points or 0.14% to 8,580.00 and Jakarta Composite down by 4.66 points or 0.10% to 4,694.32.

Japan stock market remained shut for the trade today for Vernal Equinox holiday.