Market remains range bound, Nifty below 6500 mark

Indian equity markets are just trying to hold their forte in green after giving up much of their early gains. Though, some of the regional markets have slipped into red but still most of them are in green, preventing the Indian markets from falling. Markets were also getting some support from the persistent capital inflows from foreign funds who bought shares worth a net Rs 1,272.93 crore on Thursday. Shoring rupee too has helped the markets to some extent. Sectorally, buying was visible in realty, capital goods, consumer durable, metal and power sector stocks, while the oil & gas sector was in the somber mood, mainly dragged by the heavyweight Reliance Industries and ONGC, as the government is yet to notify the new price for domestically produced gas and there might be a delay in the announcement. Meanwhile, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has requested the Election Commission of India not to approve the near doubling of natural gas prices to about $8 from next month.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 21768.91 up by 28.82 points or 0.13% after trading in a range of 21870.11 and 21738.38. There were 18 stocks advancing against 12 declines on the index.

The broader indices were once again outperforming the benchmarks; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.80%, while the Small cap index has gained 0.81%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on BSE were, Metal up by 2.38%, IT up by 1.19%, Realty up by 1.14%, Teck up by 0.98% and Power was up by 0.97%. On the other hand Oil & Gas down by 1.28%, FMCG down by 0.17% and Healthcare down by 0.02% were the losers on the sectoral front.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Wipro up by 3.90%, SSLT up by 3.12%, Tata Steel up by 3.10%, Hindalco up by 3.02% and SBI up by 1.63%. On the flip side, RIL down by 1.87%, ONGC down by 1.59%, Sun Pharma down by 0.99%, Hero MotoCorp down by 0.94% and NTPC down by 0.86% 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 6,499.15, up by 16.05 points or 0.25% after trading in a range of 6,522.90 and 6,485.70. There were 32 stocks advancing against 17 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Wipro up by 3.69%, SSLT up by 3.33%, Powergrid up by 3.22%, Tata Steel up by 3.04% and Hindalco up by 2.97%. On the flip side, Reliance Industries down by 1.92%, ONGC down by 1.80%, Asian Paints down by 1.56%, Sunpharma down by 1.05% and NMDC down by 0.87% were the top losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in green; Shanghai Composite surged by 2.43%, Hang Seng gained by 1.00%, KLSE Composite was up by 0.13%, Straits Times was up by 0.99%, Seoul Composite added 0.80%

On the flip side, Jakarta Composite declined by 0.18% and Taiwan Weighted was down by 0.23%.